E.54 Shamanistic, Energy, Reiki Discussion With Pat Rice

On Episode 54 of Finding Your Way Through Therapy and Episode 4 on You Tube, we talk to Pat Rice, a returning guest from the previous 3 seasons. Pat discusses shamanistic rituals and how they all relate to our lives and how it can embody our mind-body-spirit connection. Pat also discusses his friend Kerry who had three near-death experiences and how guides can show up in your life and the fact that we have to be open to these ideas in order to be able to look for that sign and information. Pat also discusses Reiki again and how it has relieved many of the stressors in his life.

Pat can be found on Instagram here

Kerry Keagan's book can be found at this link

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 help. I will demystify what happens in counseling, discuss topics related to mental health and discussions you can have what your thoughts, I also want to introduce psychology in everyday life. As I feel most of our lives are enmeshed in psychology. I want to introduce the subtle and not so subtle ways 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 54 of finding your way through therapy. If you haven't listened to Episode 53 yet, please do so. Jay ball and Caitlin de he again, very great guests. Third time in three seasons that I've had both of them Jay has been since season one. I do hope that you take time to listen to our conversation about mental health first responders, the change and CO response model, maybe even differences with CIT, but I do hope that you enjoy that conversation. But episode 54 will be with another returning guest Mr. Pat rice. Pat rice has the top two most popular episodes of my podcast. And there's good reasons for that. Because Pat is a very interesting guy. Pat has been a friend of mine for several years, and we're really two peas in a pod sometimes. And we certainly have enjoyed talking about different things. But hopefully this time we're going to talk a little bit about shamanistic stuff, we're going to talk about maybe some psycho pharmaceutical use in regards to that. As well as someone who is healed, reconnected, he was saying, oh, I want to bring that up. And I'm like, alright, well, we'll talk about it. And I obviously told him that he's again, a popular guy, and, and I'm sure we're gonna joke about that. So here is episode 54. Well, Hi, and welcome to episode 54. Finding your way through therapy. I am Steve de sel. And we're also recording for YouTube, I've told you about my YouTube channel, if you don't know yet, just go to it. And I'll give a link. This will be the fourth episode on YouTube. And Pat was generous enough to do so. But Pat rice is someone we've had here for episode 32-43-54. Sounds like there's a good symmetry going there. So I think we're going to keep up that symmetry but wanted to welcome back Pat Rice, who has the number one and number two all time downloads on my podcasts. And so there's no pressure Pat, but you just got to keep on going forward.

Patrick Rice: 3:02

I'm sitting merely an instrument of greater beings and, and so I know they feel no pressure. So I can't either so but it's it's an honor to be back and the first one video I put the ladder with a clean shirt on.

Steve Bisson: 3:19

I've got my clean shirt on because I knew it. So you know I kind of had you beat on that one.

Patrick Rice: 3:24

I'll give credit for one thing for the background because I get sick of looking at the pictures behind me in the office is that that's a picture taken, I believe by my friend Annie Galvin, who retired who's a wonderful clinician that retired to me. And she and her daughter, Allie, Renee, I've still a lot of her great shots too, is that they're climbing mountains, and maybe doing the 4000 peak 4000 foot summit group of mountains that they people do amazing pictures that they take when you get to the top. So this is one of those shots. I think it's a dawn where they climb a mountain in pre Dawn and then they get to the top to enjoy the sunrise. So

Steve Bisson: 4:05

if anyone wants to see more pictures like that, I know you always put them on your Instagram accounts,

Patrick Rice: 4:09

right? Yeah, I use them for the background. So a lot of the memes that I do and which come from when I when I meditate in the morning, sometimes it just I just get a thought or whatever. And as always, Buddha always has had the thought first. So there's generally some Buddhist quote that kind of fits that thought. So you meditate every morning? Yep. Wow. That's,

Steve Bisson: 4:34

uh, do you do it at night? Also, just Good morning.

Patrick Rice: 4:37

No, I fall asleep at night. I'm old. I wake up at 430 in the morning, ready to go. But at 830 at night, you know, I'm done. You know, I say the people that would like to talk to me about something important and that evening I said I'm not responsible for what I'd say. So it's just that if that happened to me, actually in my practice Someone I saw for many, many years at 630. At night after their work. Her schedule changed this one, I changed everything. Because these work nights were all working. It's the beginning. And she said, Is there any way you can see me at like 730 in the morning before I go to work because they get a new job and you can you know, that is true. Let's give it a shot. And five minutes into the session, she stopped me and she said, Oh, my God, you're awake. She said in the evening, and she'll hear this too, is bizarre, send this to her. She'll hear this. And so no, she is. But she said to me, she said, Oh, my goodness, you've always been empathic and everything. But this more you're with me now you're with me. You're right. And that's when they changed to a daytime practice. Now, it's almost exclusively morning practice, which is why you're up in the middle of the night to do this podcast with me.

Steve Bisson: 5:53

Yeah, for me, this is we're really, really early, but in the envelope. I'm a night owl. I was watching hockey last night, so 1130 midnight, and I'm like, Oh, I gotta go to bed. I got to talk to Pat tomorrow morning. So. So we are different animals, just like anything else. But in some ways complimentary. And I think that that's why actually

Patrick Rice: 6:15

and I was a night owl for many, many years too. And things just shifted, a lot of it is neurological, you go back into from more of an adolescent, early adult melatonin cycle until one more like little ones. And we all go back to everything, hopefully you leave, but we have to go back into diapers. So it's part of the cycle of life. But meditation is actually easy when you use so if anything, if you're going to the gym six days a week, you just go to the gym. If you take books out of the library, don't don't even know about Amazon, just go to the library and get books, whatever we do, we were good at repetition, which is a wonderful thing, or an awful thing. That's kind of the yin and yang of it all. So I recommend it to anybody meditate early in the morning, get a cup of coffee, sit down with a coffee and just breathe. It's actually so easy. It's so simple. And everyone everyone makes such a big deal of oh my god, you got to get the thing and the puja and thing in the lotus position and the chin would draw. No, you just need to sit in a comfortable place comfortable clothing and let the universe base down on you. That's all just be.

Steve Bisson: 7:32

And it doesn't even have to be in the morning. Because I'm a night meditator

Patrick Rice: 7:36

you can absolutely use and yeah, I

Steve Bisson: 7:39

get my bedtime routine that is part of my bedtime routine. It's almost like my body getting ready to go to sleep. You know, you say you fall asleep. For me, it's kind of like a way to just calm my body down and actually start like almost a sleep cycle before I get to my sleep cycle.

Patrick Rice: 7:55

But it's also I use an awful lot just the block thing, you know, external noise I'll use tapes of the different solfeggio frequencies to have basically respond to different chakras in the body. And he'll, you know, it's all frequency behind me. Maybe you can see it now is a

Steve Bisson: 8:17

so you got your bowl, your singing bowl.

Patrick Rice: 8:21

Yeah, it's a it's a quartz bowl, that's a perfect F which is the heart chakra, which one of my teachers had this in her office and insisted that I get one as well, because that's where most of the damage was done in my emotional being and my histories and all of that. And these are powerful things, their energy. Everything we talked about here reverts back to energy, whether it's shamanism, or spirit or whatever. It's all about energy. Everything that is around us is coming from energy and we exchange energy. Not this why the brain is a mystery to us as to how it works. We barely know 15 20% of how the brain works. But what is consciousness? That is something that is more of the Spirit field, if you will quantum field then it is of this four dimensional existence that we see in front of us. And it's funny, we talk about Yin and Yang and absolutes and infinity and all of these things in eternity and how big is the universe all of these imponderables. But when you think about it, it could very well be that we have one absolute, and it's an energetic absolute in our physical universe. And that's the speed of light. That seems to be one of those limits to everything. But everything comes from light. If light is a source of all energy, we start to thence see that this is just the beginning of a journey. And we're curious beings and we spend so much time in what's at least in our civilization. What's the civilizations studying things, looking at things and other things, physical things and more of the Aboriginal spiritual beings. They saw more of what was in where we came from what we're so that's how the Aboriginal, just when we think of aborigines off in this country, we think of Australian aborigines. So the original natives to that continent, know, and they'll sit out there in a loincloth and with very little, you know, probably in a desert setting, looking very primitive. And yet, they are probably far more evolved than our way. I'll speak a little bit later to a friend, I reconnected with extraordinary healer and human being in Maine. And what her sense of this place we're in and who our greatest teachers are here, it will surprise you, it probably won't, it probably won't surprise you, it's the butt. Then she wrote a wonderful book about it as well. So we'll talk about Carrie a little bit later. So we think about it is all about energy.

Steve Bisson: 11:04

Right? And I think that we can go in right away about Carrie. The one thing I want to mention is Reiki is something that I practice myself, I am a Reiki practitioner, I am not a teacher. And yesterday, we had a get together in my office. And a lot of people asked me questions about Reiki and how it works and all that. I think that that's what I think I can't remember Joe's name. There's a book I'm reading right now. And it talks about how energy is something that people can't see. So they can't they struggle with it. But when all reality, you don't see oxygen, you don't see the sun, you don't see a lot of the energy that's out there. So why would we be connected through energy?

Patrick Rice: 11:45

Well, it's also in what do we have faith. And I don't understand electricity. Even though I was studying at one time to be a physicist. I don't really understand it, okay, electrons bouncing along a wire and saying, I don't know. However, I have the faith, they have this device plugged in. I have my cell phone being charged right now by this mysterious force. So if you're looking is we do in the recovery movement for higher power very often it can be electricity, actually, there's the arcane literature of Alcoholics Anonymous talks about that is a concept of if you can believe in electricity, you can believe in a higher power. It doesn't have to be something that we consider more of as a Judeo Christian or other type of deity. deities were created by human beings for to try to get a sense of what they couldn't understand. Whether it's a pantheistic view, or I know a fellow from Nepal, which says I have hundreds of gods and goddesses when you're stuck with just one. But there's a I'm going to show because we have a camera. Now, if people are out there, and they're interested in either Reiki and they don't know much about it. Or shamanism. Here's one stop shopping right here.

Steve Bisson: 12:58

Oh, wow. So it says For those on podcast, Reiki, shamanism, a guide to out of body healing, and it's by Jim Pathfinder,

Patrick Rice: 13:09

I believe, you know, Jim Pathfinder, Ewing.

Steve Bisson: 13:12

So for those of you on YouTube, you can see it otherwise, I wanted to say it out loud racing Shaman.

Patrick Rice: 13:17

And that's it. It's a book. It's a fairly new book, it's, let's see, what is it? That was just this is one of the things that every now and again, just pick up, it was 2008. So it's, it's still in print. But it's kind of one stop shopping for anyone who's curious about it. Explaining Reiki in a very, very secular way. There's no real, I shouldn't say a cult language here, she just really practical stuff and explaining how the use of Reiki energy, that source of energy is done is done symbolically and other things that kind of generate this or attract this energy through the practitioner through us. Many of my patients, so there's a scene where you give it to your children. It's called call it Reiki, mommy love, okay, you hold them, you love them, you you give them your being, give them everything that is important to you, as you hold them and sue them and all of that. It's the same stuff. It's just that you haven't had a formal attunement and you do it intuitively with your parents and your children. In the worst form of it, that's a form of codependency problem. But we won't go there, because you care so much that it can hurt that you can take that hurt and translate it into a loving presence and a loving energy. Right? It's a funny thing I've said many times when people say well, you're a Reiki Master, what do you do I so I don't really do hands on Reiki very often. I work with so much trauma that it wasn't appropriate in my practice, right? When you really need very rigid boundaries, especially being a white male. And it's A female nurses over the years I worked with many, many, many of them extraordinary people, they could touch and hold and hug children and things like that, which I couldn't do because of the natural boundary, especially with her children. It's a funny thing. When I reconnected with my friend Carrie Keegan, I knew her many years ago. I knew we were all family, but she was special to me. We were pals. And she was a bit younger than I but we work together. And we go every noontime and swim. And it was like riding in my big gold Cadillac down in Portland from Yarmouth, Maine, and, and would swim laps every day, the YWCA, whatever, we're just chat, and we work together in different shifts and things like that. But we're always pals. It was one of those special relationships and has life would have it I disappeared when I get sober and just disappeared. I literally ran for my life. From that place. I live for two decades. And and we reconnected around this podcast, actually, really? Yeah, it

Steve Bisson: 16:00

was three interview, but it might be nice for you. It was,

Patrick Rice: 16:03

Well, I kind of reconnected with her because of she is a healer, a remarkable healer. And I ran into something on Oh, there's a group in Maine, sold connection, or forgive me for not knowing exactly what it is. But it's a consortium. It's kind of like an online consortium real of energy healers and whatever. And I saw that she was a part of that. And then I said to get curious. So before I contacted her, I basically just started vetting her and chasing and seeing what she was doing. And then we were supposed to have a meeting the other day, I was going to go to Maine and I couldn't. So we did the Zoom call, as we do as she says a zoom all over the world of my clients. So she's told me something that I've said many a time, just to my own understanding of my, my use of Reiki, I always saw it to attach to words and metaphor, and my practice so that my words, the trying to help somebody would have more power, or more authentic healing ability. That's all just please make me useful. Right? That's basically the prayer if you will, just let me be helpful and useful for somebody. And in doing that, over the years, I'd hear myself someone asked me a question, and I just give it a shot. Like, do I have an answer or an opinion? Well, it's hard to tell which is which. But I would just say what I felt I knew. And many times, I'd be like standing beside myself going cheese that sounds good with that come from, you know, literally. And now I know where it comes from. It comes from the from where we all came from, and the guides that are helping me and, and sending me Intel, as Carrie says, but she told me something 40 years ago, she said you were already helping people, you helped me you how many people and she said what I remembered when I heard your podcast, because she was privy when we connected on one of the social media sites, they would probably Instagram or Facebook, she's on Facebook, to the podcast that she said, Wait a minute, I heard your voice. And I've heard this my students to my former students, when they hear the voice, it's coming back to them the literally the voice carries as a form of energy, it's vibration. It's all the same stuff, just different frequencies. And so that's one, call it the gift of gab that Irish people get but there's something about that. And I knew that intuitively. And she just basically reinforced that or validated that. So there are many ways to use the energy, the healing energy that the universe makes available for us. And it takes some practice and skill but there's a lot of it that is already intuitive. We all know people that are not clinicians certainly are healers by trade or by design or by self admission. But you just feel better when you're around them. They're enthusiastic. Now, as we know that word means in its origins from God and Theo's from God, it's divine energy when you see enthusiastic people. Can anyone in a room not laugh when a little kid is giggling wildly? The belly laugh of a child, right? You know, the especially in church or someplace where no, there's a smile on everybody's face because it's infectious but in a joyful way. And that is just part of this healing energy that's available to all of us. And one of the great sources of channeling that are connecting to it and connecting to your guides are shamanistic practices and there are many shamanistic practices, Aboriginal shamanism modern shamanism, Reiki shamanism, this light, I was shocked. I found this book in some bookstore someplace and I go Oh my God, I didn't know. I never know about this. But it's a great guide to a curious beginner or just someone who's curious. I hear about this Reiki shoemaking stuff. What is this?

Steve Bisson: 20:12

Back on my law enforcement? Yep,

Patrick Rice: 20:14

what would you said? But yeah, we're you know, the woowoo stuff. Well, it's about the wool field and look that one up the warfield it's it's a field of energy. And so we have great capacity to help each other, heal each other. The time is right, with the chaos that is running rampant in society today. And everyone clashing and shaking their heads, you know that there are a lot of beings that are coming in and are evolving here that are here to help the lightworkers that are here to shed light on dark areas and illuminate. So we have all these metaphors for enlightenment and illumination and all of that. And if you want one, one metaphoric description of what it's like on the other side is, it's all like that, but the closer you get to the source of this site, which call it God, call it whatever, right, you have to be attuned and evolved to be able to tolerate the intensity of that light. It's like anything, you come out of a cave, like we are on the earth, we live in a spiritual chain, and all of a sudden, you come out into the light, and you were all blinded by it. Well, that's similar on the other side, so you have to evolve and attune yourself and learn. So whatever we are our sense of our, our spiritual entity, that ball of energy, or whatever it is, it's eternal. It's as curious as the universe is, the universe is a curious place. We're here to learn school.

Steve Bisson: 21:46

Just gotta remind people, we're listening to finding your way through therapy. I'm sitting here with Pat rice. And I'm Stevie. So there's so many things that came up while you were talking. I'm writing notes as I go here. Now that I have video, I gotta explain what I'm doing. I was thinking about by had a happy hour non alcoholic, of course, with a bunch of colleagues in the MetroWest. area. And it was interesting when you think about the vibe and the energy, the energy in that room was so electrifying because it was the first time I think in two and a half years for some that they actually went face to face and met up with individuals. And you talk about how we connect, I think that part of connection with individuals, when I look at our relationship, and I look at other relationships in my life, someone said, what's the thing about Pat rice that you connect with, and I connect with him, there's an energy that goes with that. And having a room full of people who are just connecting on not feeling so alone, counselors like psychiatrists, coaching, there's plenty of people that were there, it's just being able to connect sometimes is not explaining why the connection is there. But rather like, that's just the connection, you were talking about Carrie, and you said, you have a good connection with her. To me, that's what when we asked about Reiki and how that works. I don't know why I connect with XYZ, I just connect. And sometimes it's just not, you can be very spiritual and be very curious about it. I've learned that instead of trying to find a reason why, and that's a shout out to my therapist.

Patrick Rice: 23:22

Why ask why? Why does it matter? As much as how, how does it work? It works, it works very well just access it. We're used to this is an old trite saying, but you know, the goal is to become a human being instead of a human doing. Right, and we're a very busy society. Now. America is essentially a workaholic environment. You know, everybody's working harder and harder to get more stuff. And panic. And everybody panics when certain stuff becomes not available, which is by market economies make money. Well, we go, we don't need to go there. But I think you're this kindred spirit that we hear about, which is why there are so many spin offs and post op mutual self help groups because there's something about the energy in the room. That's why people like to meditate often in groups and or do yoga in groups and whatever because there's an energy, the spirit energy builds up in these rooms, you feel better there. It's like old growth forests have the have very spiritual energy to them. And they also have the highest oxygen content of any environment on Earth. It isn't an oxygen tank. So there's a reason you feel better when you're in the old growth. A spiritual place is some of the old growth in Northern California. The old growth redwood, Sequoia, unbelievable places. It's the most spiritual Jurassic experience you'll have. Everything is big there clovers of the size of your fist. Your hand and it's amazing Right, it makes you think that Gulliver must have walked through one of those. I mean, when he did the thing about Rob naggy and or whatever it is running was huge. Yeah, but it's these places are sacred places, and a place where everybody does yoga and then meditates afterwards like to Paulo methods, and is really their special places in the land of zoom now in COVID, and everything, I've been very conservative because I need to get a PCR to get onto a plane to go to Bermuda next week. And what a first world problem that so I missed the live meetings, I missed the room, I missed that energy, I miss seeing the light coming in people's eyes when they start to feel better, and come back to Earth. And to see that you can see it a little bit on Zoom. But it's something about the emanation, you feel it in your heart, when you're in a room with it. It's a heart centered thing in the head center thing. The heart has its own consciousness. It's a remarkable Oregon, they can take one out of someone on the West Coast and stick in a bucket of ice, fly it to Boston, throw it into someone's someone's chest cavity, and hook it all up. And then jumpstarted like an alternator in a car. It's just amazing. But it has this consciousness. And so I spoke to the up to that before but someone I knew that that donated their heart. So it's just remarkable stuff. And I say what my early mentors taught me and what the guides taught me. And I can get into that a little bit deeper is that don't question? Just experience. Don't wonder where Reiki energy comes from learn how to use it. Because when you give it you get it? It's like a hug.

Steve Bisson: 26:49

Right. And, and Reiki energy as I explained to many people, it's not my energy. It's the universe's No, no, it's

Patrick Rice: 26:56

part of everything. Everything has energy. Everything is made up of energy. A rock is made up of energy. There's, you know, and as I think I said the last time, so how powerful is this energy, take one little atom that takes the electron microscope to even see and a hint of it. You split that one atom and cities disappear. I mean, so you know, the Big Bang is not a mystery, they got a few atoms together and whatever was touched it off. And then all of this is happening. And, and I'm not smart enough to know what happens, what the end game is here. But some say it all collapses again and starts over. It's that cycle of life, the ultimate day, just last 27 billion years or something

Steve Bisson: 27:40

not smart enough or didn't study it enough. Studying enough, I would go

Patrick Rice: 27:44

actually, I know now that someday if that is important to me, I'll know that again. But it right now in this plane of existence is not really something my thing. But I trust this energy implicitly, it's a part of who we are. It's a part of me, it allows me to override pain and difficulty and most of the healers I know have had a lot of pain. This is one of the things that you know the helpers, the healers, have become aware of this, I've listened to as you 1000s and 1000s, of stories of unspeakable things that people have been experienced in their lives at the hands of often other people, or just bad luck. My friend Carrie, who carry chigan I'm gonna just say her name was Carrie Keegan. And before I forget it, I don't have a copy of it. She wrote a children's book that is taking off now about her spirit guides, which are essentially whales and you get the need to and learn more about this woman and her work. Because whales are the most extraordinary beings on the planet. They make us look insignificant at times. And of course, we human beings are eliminating them. But they are all about sound and the sound waves and communications and and she wrote a children's book about a whale named Herman and I believe the title is Harding with Herman yes and that's

Steve Bisson: 29:08

that you are not alone is the rest of the title actually I'm looking it up as we speak ah magic of the internet.

Patrick Rice: 29:17

So what is the title actually? Because you

Steve Bisson: 29:19

Harding with Herman you are never alone. And it is by Carrie Keagan. I'm going to actually link it in my Oh, wonderful.

Patrick Rice: 29:27

Thank you so much.

Steve Bisson: 29:27

I'll link it for Carrie and

Patrick Rice: 29:30

she has a she has a website she has a she's a remarkable energy healer, remarkable human being. And, you know, I knew that way back when I just didn't realize how much of it I had to evolve. And then when we both Connect Now basically, we're getting excited about maybe some reconnection and some real, some really powerful, sacred stuff probably in Ireland.

Steve Bisson: 29:57

And I won't get too far I will stop you for a second because As I know your wife is listening, and she's gonna say, you start talking about near death experience, you change the subject, then keep it on subject, Steve. I don't know her. I know she's a nice woman, but I want to keep you on subject like she always told you to do.

Patrick Rice: 30:14

Alright, so where are we going back,

Steve Bisson: 30:17

you're going back to you're talking about carrying the near death experience.

Patrick Rice: 30:21

Yes, she said three, at least, she said, She's a remarkable woman without telling too much of her story. It's probably common knowledge. But she's she said, three, three children, the victim of three accidents, at least Motor Vehicle Type accidents in which your back was broken. And she healed herself through her own energy work and everything. One took about 10 years and one took a year. So she basically healed herself to this energy mental and energetic meditation path around shamanism, and basically got out of a wheelchair. Wow. And I saw her on a swing a video of her and a swing not so long ago, like a, like a four year old and joyful on a swing. And so this is how it evolved, she has become and when you choose to come back from these, these places, it's best because you have a sense of mission, sometimes is to raise children, she's raised three extraordinary young men. And she's visiting a couple of them. One is a, an was a professional athlete, soccer player, I think one is a professional mountain climber, sort of picture him on the top of the Mattawan. And one is in a business plan and very successful. And they're all extraordinary people. And she raised them essentially single handedly. So she's one of these incredible beings that it's it's one of the joys and privileges in my life to have survived long enough from your wife to reconnect with her. And we both know that it's not by chance, when you have these free connections that this will enhance both of our abilities to help each other and to help others. And that's part of the synergy. When people are like minded, we talked about that kindred spirit when people are like minded, the blend of their energies magnifies everything, and attracts other people as part of the law of attraction that attracts other people of like mine, which is why you go back to basic sociology people live in groups, and the groups are self selecting good and bad, you know, healthy and unhealthy, violent and peaceful, whatever they they are self selecting. And it is energy. And I won't go to Yoda here. But the dark side of the this force of energy is part of everything. And that makes people more primitive. You always do fall. When you if you look at some of these hate groups, they're going right back to caveman stuff. You pick a club up and go out and said, frankly, I'll editorialize some of that stuff. I saw the horror of January 6 look like cave people look like have originals or have been in the wrongs basically warring, warring primitive tribes. Well, it wasn't an evolved presence. In a building that was supposed to exhibit some of our evolution, hopefully, well, I'm

Steve Bisson: 33:23

going to quote Yoda, and one of my favorite quotes. And for those of you who may not know, I'm a huge Star Wars fan. But when he says fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to the dark side. And I always remind people that that's tough. If we don't recognize our fears, love, whatever, doesn't matter what you're fearful of a way it can lead you down this dark path. And it's learning that the light is available somewhere. And you're able to go get it as long as you're open to it and you're willing to go get. And it's not about caving into your fears and to hate but finding that light, you know, and I think that that's one of the things when people say to me in therapy, I'm just not feeling it today. About you just let in and I don't say light because my, my crowd may not like light. But what about just thinking about something positive or something that's good in your life, whether it's a family member, whether it's enjoying XYZ in your life, and then people smile, and I'm like, How do you feel now? And they're like, Oh, a little better. Like that's how you lead into light so to speak. That's when I can put in the light. analogy. Well,

Patrick Rice: 34:32

you're sharing, you're sharing some of your enthusiasm. I was thinking this morning, I woke up with people around me talking so much. I do not read the news. I do not know, we're very little of common current events, because there's not much I can do about them. And they can be distracting. Not that I don't care if people are getting hurt, whatever. But all of the stuff that's been happening recently the violence is that it reminds me of Voltaire quote by Altair where he said, If you can get people to believe absurdities you can get them to commit atrocities. You also, if you can get them to believe absurdities you can get them to accept and become inured to atrocities where a million people die in two years from COVID and we had a lot of people trying to block treatment and things like that ever. To me we lose a million Americans in two years and it's like oh hon well oh well and or now you know, Americans I think we kill each other with guns at the rate of about 50,000 a year you know, if there was a disease that have a fundraising you know, saying every year an annual thing, but the fact that we can accept that as a society is because we become inured to it and so much of our society can believe absurdities well, well we talked about we what we were talking about last night at the event you know, the networking thing is how do we help and the theme is, is that so many of us are in our busy to the power we never expected we this busy because people are searching for something. If people can open themselves up as either wanting to be helpers or to be users of this energy, which is limitless, and the ability of your spirit guides and your guides to help you in this lifetime are limitless, but you must learn how to ask for so it may be a good time now to kind of shift how about this pet rice is actually shifting on top and I'm gonna let you host now. Okay, write the write the date down, this actually happened. But about the spirit guides and that aspect of shamanism. Shamanism can be many things. It's essentially in its its most basic definition, as I understand it. It's seeking connection guidance from your spirit guides and through meditation or trance. A lot of the Aboriginal guides including native North Americans and First Nation people, their rituals to seek their their guides or their ancestors or whatever were through peyote and mescaline and IO, Aashka, Amazon and other hallucinogenic substances, or dancing, drumming, exhaustion, sweating, and these types of sweat lodge rituals and can do it through meditation. You can do it through self hypnosis, that's been my path. Mostly, it's how I heal from most of the trauma in my early life experience is through what would be called dissociative type of self hypnosis is part of why the people dissociate and repress is to keep you alive, having endured and witnessed and things that are, that would scramble your sensibility, but that's available to everybody. Psychic, being psychic is available to everybody. Kids are remarkably psychic because it's surrounded by the guy, there are no imaginary friends. Those aren't imaginary to the children that we just can't see them. So this imaginary friends metaphor evolved. No, those are their guides. Those are their spirits in their their ascended beings and their experience guides and their angels. There's many words for it. Archangels I'm kind of partial to the archangels I'm in the worst pain of my life. I'm petitioning Archangel Raphael to come. rafaelle didn't come directly sent my wife was a Reiki Master in three hours. This is a ruptured disc, you know, worst pain I've ever had. I thought I knew 10 out of 10 pain. Woohoo. And I just one of the things Carrie and I were talking about that broken backs and stuff. Then my wife got home. Finally, all she had to do was touch me and a half my pain went away. She touched me and I could move. And that is so emotional. That is because she is attuned to this. She came home from work in Boston, because I was she knew my state of being. And she has that ability. She practices for Reiki mostly on animals. She's an animal Reiki master. And I could do a whole podcast talking about her and what I've watched her do with deer and other things. You know, Cynthia whisperer, but she touched me and half the pain went away. So I could actually get to the prednisone thing that my doctor had prescribed. I couldn't even couldn't even reach it. And so these are the things that experientially I have endured and experience but I had a curiosity and because I was able to do what you're doing is asking someone this had a different experience in me. What's it all about? I was putting in the path of a Reiki Master who was in my practice 30 years ago and I was just curious. So I went to a couple I think I spoke to this earlier on earlier part caspo just getting curious with choline. And, and I haven't looked back, because it's just the neatest stuff. We say a lot in all professions. Isn't it incredible? When you find out that this stuff really works, the stuff that people talk about in the books, and you try it, and it actually works. And there's no more powerful satisfaction when you're trying to help somebody. And they in some way indicate to you that you have helped them through a difficult time. If you're a get hooked on that you're in the wrong profession. That's the juice that keeps us going. That's why everybody was in that room last night, is looking for resources and connections. And because we can easily if we don't stay connected, which is why we've had this supervision group peer group for so long, we'll lose our way because it's it. The Dark Forces from which we're trying to help people heal can affect us as well. It's called vicarious, traumatization and other other things, but we have got to keep ourselves in the good energy and charged up. Or we're no better than a cell phone with a dead battery. It's just an $800 paperweight. Right. And so,

Steve Bisson: 41:10

I think that, you know, just what, again, remind people finding your way through therapy Pat, right, Stevie. So he's now the host of the show, but I have to put in a little plug. One of the things that I wanted to throw out is that when they talk about spiritual energy, shamanistic spirit guides, or what we do, I tell people all the time that what I do is there is some training, but ultimately, it's the therapeutic alliance. It's not a training of XYZ that helped me get there. It's how I connect with the person in front of me. So when people say what's the best therapy like therapeutic alliance and that therapeutic therapeutic alliance, you can find that at your hairdresser? Well, for most people, not me, but for most people are a barber because you connect with them. They hear your life and you just have that commonality. You talk about shamanistic stuff, you talk about spiritual spiritual guides you talk about I think, then when you have that connection, that therapeutic alliance and it doesn't have to be mental how train masters level, blah, blah, blah. Therapeutic connection is therapeutic connection. And I think that alliance is really what I think that even if we have a therapeutic alliance, meaning you pat, and so I perceive it anyway. And it's not because you're training XYZ or and I'm training ABC, it's about how we connected. And that's the energy that I keep on coming back to all the

Patrick Rice: 42:33

time. I know some of the greatest therapists that I know actually cut people's hair. I'm serious, I believe it. I have a friend Karen and she's been doing it a long time. And she's unbelievably good at it. And she's sure to refer to me. Because she'll listen, I said, you know, you do what I do, Karen every day, I just wanted to cut anybody's hair. Because if someone will let someone near your face with sharp objects and everything, to do your cloth, and to which means a lot to some people, they trust you. And when they're trusting like that, they'll tell you almost anything. Right? You know, because they trust you and you'll let you're a good listener, as you're a snipping and cutting and doing whatever you're doing. So the heel has come in so many different packages, it's but they all have one thing in common that you've alluded to, is that they can channel this loving, healing, unconditional acceptance, and the ability to bear your to help you share your pain. I tell people this all the time, sometimes a good friend will share something with you. That is a very powerful thing. And you sit there going I don't know how they've endured this. You know, how can anybody survived that because you haven't survived that yourself. I say, I'll tell people that all the time is that you don't. You don't have to figure out how they endure it or how someone else could have done that to them. You figure out how you can help them and listen and take care of yourself and process, your confusion or your outrage, or whatever. Early in my experience as a detox counselor, a woman you know, I'm a white guy with a pink tie on. Honestly, I can't write this. A 40 year old white guy, you know, brand new minted counselor in a public detox. And a woman slightly younger than me is in there, strung out on cocaine. She's a 38 year old woman of color from Banda pan or something. And I'm trying to do a bio psychosocial on her and part of it was to basically ask her, is your addiction cost you anything or something? Someone's stupid? Yeah. I rewrote that thing. The next week, that whole bio psych social. And she looked at me with this tired look, tolerant look of my idiocy, and said Well, other than the fact that I traded my daughter for cocaine. No, not much. And I sat there and I said, I'm so sorry. And I said, I think we need to end this now. And she said, thank you. And she went back outside and I put my head on my desk and wept. And the next thing I felt, the next thing I did is I went out and found my supervisor, and we sat and talked for an hour and a half, about what were the mistakes and he gave me the permission at that point in time to rewrite that bio psychosocial, because it was written, well intended, but like an idiot, you know, I was I was set up, and I didn't realize it, but that poor woman and then I had time to before she left to process for abject pain.

Steve Bisson: 45:45

And can you explain that for those who might not know what that means?

Patrick Rice: 45:49

abject pain, yeah, excruciating pain. And she did admit one thing is she's she she told me exactly what that metaphor it's so my child for cocaine men, it wasn't what I thought it meant. It was a different experience of it. But in her mind, she had sold out her child in a way. But it was this a guy on the West Coast, Paul ah, who has a Buddhist site called Zen bitch slap. And forgive me that can be a very pejorative term to some Forgive me if that offensive, but it's that two by four upside the head, as we used to say, and that was mine is the fact that I needed to learn a lot more about how to ask the for the information I needed then to just follow the instructions of these bio psychosocial as in anyone that has ever been a junior clinician, at masters or bachelors level, you fill these forms out, it's just information. They take a history on some of the and some of them are crafted very intuitively, and very smartly and others are just crafted in a very mindless way. And I, I was able to change that. But it awakened me to the fact that I knew a lot about me, and my own experience at that point. But it also set me off on knowing what turned out to be another 13 years after four years of intensive psychotherapy another 13 years to learn about, about everything that I needed to know about me, so I knew where my stuff ended and the patient's stuff began. And that's a tough line. It's and you make all your mistakes in the therapeutic alliance you make by crossing that line. Right for as is this this mentor of mine said that the smart therapist knows what to say and the wise therapist knows when not to say it especially within you know in advance the perfect stuff and sharing hunches and right. So it's everything I one thing I think I've been true to we had Nick there, one of my students last night is that I've tried to share every one of my worst therapeutic blunders with every student I've ever had. Because we all have to everybody, you know, a carpenter will say don't do this, because I saw someone cut his leg off when you did. Well, most of us do that as well. And we can do as much damage without words as someone can do with a chainsaw. We have to be we owe it to ourselves and everyone else to be very careful with words. I think the Buddha said if you can't improve upon silence, don't.

Steve Bisson: 48:31

Right. So give us a Buddha quote.

Patrick Rice: 48:35

There was about a year most of my stuff I stole from Buddha I just forgot that I read it.

Steve Bisson: 48:40

But I think that what you just said is so powerful because one of the things that I kind of remind my clients to once in a while sit back and I have an observation in my head not the time not the place, right time my place and all that. But my clients know when I say sorry, you just thought you just asked me a softball. We're going to hit out at a park Do you want a home run or you want to single here

Patrick Rice: 49:03

well I said again I will you accept unsolicited feedback often isn't helpful and but solicited feedback can be I think as I'm getting myself back on topic, I want to say one last thing about shamanism and in general the traditional shamanism is about connecting with your animal spirit guide that everybody who supposedly has an animal guide that helps us in this pedestrian Earth school. I frankly have tried those traditional methods to get back into the earth if you will and find my spirit guides and I'm confused by it. I never really found a animal spirit. You know other than a wrapped or probably wrapped or is absolutely fascinated me. I find them I've come face to face on the ground on a beach in Oregon. There's only two people on that beach. An eagle and me and for that moment in time when you realize how big they are. An eagle took that a look at me at six o'clock in the morning. He and I sat right down on the sand because for that moment, I said, I'm too big right to myself, because they have a look. Whoa, that apex predator look, we saw a once in a while the black Jaguar to charge the edge of the cage once in the sanctuary where they were rehabbing them. You had that luck. And you knew that if that thing came at you, unimportant, you're done. Right? This is an unequivocal, not knowledge. And I'm lunch. But so I've never really found that connection to an animal spirit guide. But I have found my guides in many different meditative paths and by connection to some really extraordinary teachers and people that are very gifted and have taught me how to use my psychic abilities in the right ways as well. So I find my connection to my guides in a much more direct way. Some of them are probably what people would call traditional angelic beings. Others are just ancestors. I've had people I've known that are now back in the homeland, if we will, as a home office, it's using them. I said this every time probably I've talked with you that the thing I would like to communicate is, whether it's an archangel, whether it is the spirit guide, whether it is your grandmother, your mother, your brother, Whoever is not with us, now, they have the capacity to help you but you must ask daily, right, it's a daily thing is that they will never interfere in your day, even though they can they will never interfere in a way that would intrude or insinuate them into they will never interfere, they will not cheat you out of your own karma. However, if we ask they will help us in any way they can. Archangels are not overburdened, they are at a higher level, because they have almost infinite capacity to help. They can just do what they can do. And there's plenty of them, investigate them. It's really kind of interesting. A few have actually walked on earth before and that way some haven't. They, they've never found it necessary to come to the euro school to take your course. guides are available, everyone has them. They're all available tool to us and to reconnect to these guides that brought us in and protected us when we were little and taught us what they needed to teach us. It's available to everybody and finding a path and if you're curious again the Reiki shamanism I'm not Hakka the book, it's I don't even know where I got it. Probably an Oregon, it's a way just to, it's an overview of all of it. If you're curious, I'll say this to anybody out there. If any of this piques your curiosity, then that's a that's an information to you. I want to go we were saying earlier that when when learners are ready teaches appear. That's good. You know, and so sometimes it's in the form of a book falls off a shelf metaphorically into your lap. Right? When someone gives you it, you run into somebody or I reconnect with someone and there's a they hear a podcast and they remember what we had when we were much, much younger and less evolved. And we reconnected at a time when we both have the winter plumage. But get curious about Herman Herman the whale. Yeah, Romans Herman's appearance, heart, and it is it's it's a very, very powerful thing from a very, very powerfully powerful healer. Mr. Carey, Keegan,

Steve Bisson: 53:27

I just want to get back to the spirit animal one because some people will say does do those things exists. For me, I've always been attracted to wolves. Why? I don't know probably some ancestry past lives or what have you. And I've always found that's my spirit animal in many, many ways. And so how people sometimes ask me about that spiritual animal, I said, What animal fascinates, you're like you have more of a curiosity about that might be your spiritual animal. It doesn't have to be in the traditional 1214 animals that sometimes people talk about. There's 1000s upon 1000s of different species of animals.

Patrick Rice: 54:11

We're hoping it wouldn't be a beetle or something, you know, but you're always looking for that romantic. I love raptors, but I actually it just came to me. I once did a traditional deep dive into the shamanistic meditative path to find my hand and you know what it was just came back to me an otter. Oh, okay. And when you think about it, you know, I'm my wife lives with a trach tune character most of the time. You have no idea. He looks so professional and everything like that. I live with goofy, you know, and whatever. But so it could very well be that that is that. Otters are playful and kind and amazing, and they are energetic beings. And so I just remembered that an otter,

Steve Bisson: 54:55

right, and I think that any type of animal that you can name they have have their place in the whole system. Yeah. And that's what I tell people is that even though you said a beetle, maybe it's not a beetle, but it could be, be it could be. Firefly could be so many other things. And we all need those animals in in the world. I believe in interconnectedness. And that's how I perceive

Patrick Rice: 55:21

maybe really annoying people their guide as a mosquito, or something just just being goofy against forgive me.

Steve Bisson: 55:29

Well, I love that that bad as we approach the hour yet again,

Patrick Rice: 55:34

oh, my goodness. Really? Yeah.

Steve Bisson: 55:38

I'm going to wrap it up here by saying that I think we have another episode in us.

Patrick Rice: 55:43

I bet we do. But I never really got to you were curious once about pharmacology and pharmaceutical stuff, and, and Nate natural pharmaceutical stuff and all that.

Steve Bisson: 55:55

And I thought we'd get to it but the shamanistic stuff, but as usual, me and you just go right, we

Patrick Rice: 55:59

scratched the surface of the shamanistic stuff. So that'd be a good place to buy chapter two, or at some point in the future near future.

Steve Bisson: 56:07

Well, that means episode, I don't know which one, which hopefully, six, would there be?

Patrick Rice: 56:13

Such right here get the sequencing thing going here?

Steve Bisson: 56:17

Yeah, it would be 65, I believe would be the next episode. You gotta be on an order? No,

Patrick Rice: 56:21

but I want to, I want to put it in a plug. Yes. I'm going to ask her, but you should get carry on to do one of these? Well,

Steve Bisson: 56:29

I have a slight idea about this. And we'll talk about it often. But I just wanted to say thank you, Pat. And from the bottom of my heart. Not only are you know, I joked around in regards to, you know, the being the most popular episodes. And that's why I have to have you back constantly. I can't think of a better way for us to continue to connect. And I think that this connection also feeds other people, including Carrie, I've had a lot of feedback about how good energy we have together. And so for me, it's not only a podcast episode, but it's a great way to connect with your pet. Because to me, it's just an intimate conversation that people are privy to.

Patrick Rice: 57:06

Well, thank you, my dear friend. It's a privilege for me as well. And it's really, it's just fun. Steve, you make it fun. But I'll tell you what Kerry said last night, she said thank you. She's a very, very humble person. And it would be interesting, I'd love to hear that. So it's I'm shamelessly selfish in that regard. But well, thank you, Pat. Thank you so much.

Steve Bisson: 57:32

I'll talk you off here, obviously, but okay.

Patrick Rice: 57:36

Okay, thanks again, Steve.

Steve Bisson: 57:38

Well, this concludes episode 54. Finding your way through therapy again, Pat rice, thank you so much as usual, we didn't stay on subject, but we did talk about a few important things. And after the interview, I talked to him off air about an idea for our next podcast, which obviously, he's going to come back for season six. So looking forward to that. And if you want any links to Pat Rice's Instagram and stuff, please go to the shownotes. Episode 55 will be again with returning guests. This time it will be character L and build when else we're going to talk about crisis work, we're actually going to take a little bit of a different approach to it. And I'm sure that it's going to be entertaining, so I hope that you can join us for 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.