Starve the Ego Feed the Soul
Starve the Ego Feed the Soul
Navigating Grief: Resilience, Advocacy, and Healing with Ray McKimm,
Interested in working with me one on one? Head over to www.nicobarraza.com
This week's conversation is with Ray McKimm, a Psychotherapist based out of Ireland who I encountered via this incredible spur of the moment interview he gave to a content creator that amassed millions of views.
Ray's Bio: "Ray has trained in a range of therapeutic interventions and worked in the N.H.S., the voluntary sector, and with International N.G.O’S (Non-Government Organisations)he has worked therapeutically with individuals, families, and groups.
He has trained in Jungian Analysis, CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) DBT (Dialectical Behavioural Therapy) SFBT(Solution Focused Brief Therapy) Trauma Focused CBT and many others which he will apply to your conversation when it could be helpful to you.
He developed a model of therapy called Colour Analytical Psychology as a direct result of the influence of the psychology of Carl Jung and the work of Melisse Jolly at Colour Mirrors, he has published this theory in various forms.
He established Green Therapy and Training as a center of excellence in enabling others to manage the challenges that life brings, and helping them through many of these transitions in his work as a Humanist Celebrant."
We then shift gears to tackle the larger issues within the healthcare system. The importance of transparency and advocacy in medical care cannot be overstated. Through my personal experiences, including treatment in Puerto Vallarta, I underline the necessity of having open, honest conversations with healthcare professionals and the critical nature of self-advocacy. From discussing the fallibility of the medical system to the significance of seeking multiple opinions, this segment is a must-listen for anyone navigating their own healthcare journey.
Finally, we explore the profound impacts of living with chronic pain and disability. From the strain on personal relationships to the power of emotional expression and asking for help, this episode offers heartfelt advice for individuals and their families. Joined by Irish counselor Ray McKimm, we delve into the transformative journey of therapy, the art of compassionate listening, and the healing power of empathy. Ray's unique insights and personal story add a valuable perspective on acceptance and resilience. Tune in for a deeply moving and inspiring conversation that underscores the art of living authentically and the importance of gratitude in the face of life's challenges.
Warmly,
Nico Barraza
@FeedTheSoulNB
www.nicobarraza.com
Keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing. And I need you to be a minister for a moment and find somebody sitting in your general vicinity. Look them dead in the eyes if they owe you $20, and tell them neighbor, whatever you do, keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing. It's hard to keep pushing in the world that we're living in right now. How is one supposed to find serenity?
Speaker 2:and sanity and strength in the world we live in right now. Hey y'all, welcome back to Star of the Eco Feed the Soul. I'm your host, nico Barrasa. I keep surgery on July 29th out in Vail, colorado, at the Steadman Clinic. It was my fifth shoulder surgery. Man it's. That is unbelievable when I say those words out loud still sometimes, and the fact that I had to do this five times. This one was a pretty extensive one and I'll get into that.
Speaker 2:This show is not about my shoulder at all, but I figured I'd update everyone in the intro. And we have an incredible episode, incredible guests, by the way, it's just such a blessing. This is one of the best conversations I've had on the show and I can't wait for you all to listen to it. But before we get to that, yeah, so I had surgery on the 29th and what they decided to do in there and this is kind of the interesting thing about surgery is I sent the surgeon a long email, sort of letting him know what I was hoping he would do and hoping he wouldn't do, and one of the things I really didn't want him to do is tendinese the long head of my bicep, and that word just means to cut it and reattach it. So my biceps were fine, the long head and the short head were both fine after the crash. I mean, you know, my shoulder was conceivably fine. I just had an AC joint grade three separation and the first surgeon in Flagstaff, arizona, you know, caused a bunch of complications, just really just came down a bad technique, dude just like wasn't. He's not a good surgeon with this particular surgery and it's evident because he doesn't do a lot of them. You know that he come to find out after, especially with high level athletes. So so you guys know the whole, the whole story.
Speaker 2:If you listen to the show right, you know how the second, third, fourth surgeries went. Things just kind of got marginally worse, didn't really improve. The surgeon here in San Diego decided to change my arm even more and the interesting thing is these guys are so, they're so quick to change your native anatomy, meaning cut your bones, cut your tendons, move your ligaments, whatever. But they're not okay with removing the stuff that was put in unnaturally, meaning the graft, this thing called the bio brace, that was put in by the surgeon here in San Diego and the graft that was put in the first surgery in Flagstaff. And it's really interesting to me because their explanation is, you know they don't want to destabilize the joint but in actuality the joint didn't really get much stable, minus them just visually seeing that they think it's more stable.
Speaker 2:And in my mind, you know, as a human being with a body and nervous system, you should really be listening to your patient, especially if they've had multiple surgeries. You know they'd probably know their body right, because my arm was just quite frankly, better off before all these surgeries and I've lost muscle mass and I have a bunch of scarring and scar tissue now and you know, one of the biggest, I think, processes and getting through all this is just grieving. All of that, you know, because you feel quite guilty for the decision you made to get surgery in the first place when you figured you were going to wake up and you know be quite a bit better than when you went under anesthesia. So the surgeon in Vail decided to cut my long head of my bicep. They reattached that. He thought that that was potentially going to lead to issues or causing issues. Currently I don't really know exactly yet. I don't have the op report, even though I've been asking for it. So that part of it was definitely unnerving when I woke up because I explicitly said that in the long email I sent Timson. You know, I really would appreciate if you didn't cut the long head of my bicep, because my short head was cut and it's way different now. It's weaker, it looks physically different and nothing was wrong with it. I was lifting before I moved to San Diego. Quite a bit the area around my clavicle still bothered me a lot. Of course my coracoid was fractured during that first surgery.
Speaker 2:I hope, hopefully, you guys are becoming experts in all this terminology now. Since I talk about it so much, I promise at some point I'm not going to really bring this up much anymore. But it's so fresh, you know, I figured I would. So what are the other things he did? He did what's called a brachial plexus neuralysis, which is he went in to the big nerve grouping that runs from your spinal cord all the way down your arms, your fingertips, called the brachial plexus, and a lot of surgeons stay away from that. They're scared to cause nerve damage, and rightfully so. It's a dangerous area. But I think honestly, if you're a good surgeon, you know, you trust your hands and your technique and I think he's this guy's just kind of a step above the other ones, quite a bit honestly. You know you walk into this guy's office and there's just every path that you can imagine. There's a jersey or some sort of you know memorabilia with them signing, having signed it, and you know, thanking one of the surgeons there at the Stedman Clinic. So it's a you know it's a big deal for a reason.
Speaker 2:It doesn't mean that these guys are infallible by any means or that they don't make poor decisions, because surgeons are surgeons. Surgeons are going to surge, as one of my friends told me, and that's what they do, you know. They see a body and they think that the fix is mostly cutting it open. Although when I first met the surgeon that I used in Vail during the what was it called? Just the intake session or the session where they just met me, where I went out, you know, and I didn't actually get surgery, and he looked at the photos that I brought because I took photos from a professional photographer the day before surgery, just to kind of I wanted to document the progress I figured I was going to look a lot better and it was going to, and he's like man, you shouldn't have got surgery. You know your AC joint wasn't that high, it wasn't that separated. So that's always like unnerving. Unnerving to hear Because you trusted this other surgeon in Arizona and they recommended surgery. They said, hey, it's going to make it a lot better, a lot more stable, less discomfort, because I wasn't in pain then. I was just kind of uncomfortable when I used it in certain ways or whatnot, but I was still. I mean, it's so much better. I was never complaining about pain like I was now. So you know, that's just that's always unnerving to hear saying that the first surgery never should have happened.
Speaker 2:You know the medical advice you were given was bad and uh, you know, let's be honest, everybody, this is a money-making scheme, you know. I mean it's a sure for the most part. You know people in medicine want to help others, but this is a huge, huge industry where a lot of these people are making tons of money of cutting people open. So if you're a surgeon out there listening and you do good work and you're doing honest work, good on you. But if you are inviting people into the operating room cutting their bodies open without being really honest about the risks and I don't mean just like read the fine print before surgery. I mean having a serious conversation with the other human being that is depending on you and their safety is in your hands.
Speaker 2:You know saying like, hey, this has a 60% chance of not working out, or 20% chance of not working out, or causing you chronic pain or a bone fracture, and like, give them some numbers so they can really break it down in their head. You know just saying like, hey, there's a risk involved. There's a risk involved in everything, right. And so, as human beings, we're always sort of analyzing risk. That's what we do. You know the risk you know I'm going to take on to get in relationship with this person, the risk I'm going to take on to have kids, the risk I'm going to take on to quit my job and do this job, or risk I'm going to take on to, you know, separate from my family or stay in the family, or you know all these other things right, and that's how we analyze analyze risk.
Speaker 2:And so when someone that's an expert that's supposed to have your care in their hands isn't honest and doesn't, you know, really give you a legitimate breakdown of what possibly could go wrong, there is a level of manipulation and there's yeah, there's just. It's just really hard to trust people in that position anymore, honestly for me. I mean, I go into offices and I'm asking so many questions and you know a lot of these guys. They don't have a lot of patients like that because most of the patients aren't the best advocates. And that leads me into why I decided to go down to Puerto Vallarta and get stem cells. And you know one, the clinic down at Renew is amazing. I have an episode coming out where I interview one of the founders and managing partners. So we'll get to that in a later episode, probably launch in a week.
Speaker 2:But you know a lot of the discussion down there was being your own best advocate, and that's so true, you know, in any respect in life, but particularly when your health and healthcare is on the line, especially for people you love to. You know we go in to these settings and we think, because this person went to medical school and then hit residency and man, you, just you can't go in there. I mean these people, they see hundreds of patients right A week and and again, I'm not knocking on Western medicine there's a lot of incredible doctors doing incredible work, but if one of them was really honest they would really tell you you need to be your own best advocate, because humans make mistakes right. One we're fallible. So anyone that thinks they walk into a job and they're never going to make mistakes is lying or just full of their own shit. But two, the stakes are higher with healthcare, particularly with surgery.
Speaker 2:But with anything, if you're taking a medication, you'll get treated for something. You really need to be as sharp as possible, and if you have a family member that doesn't have that capacity, you need to go in there with them and ask as many questions as possible and don't be afraid to say no, you have your health in your hands. So get second, third, fourth opinions if your insurance allows you to do that. And that's another part of this equation is that we all know that the healthcare situation in the US is absolute dog shit and the privatized insurance companies run up the charges and the pharmaceutical industry has a stronghold on so many treatments. Um, you know, in fact, prevent a ton of treatments to come out in different, different ways, because they're just making money, and it's crazy. It's crazy because we you know we vote for people that are supposedly going to take care of that and it just doesn't happen. So there's a bigger, you know, change that obviously has needed to be happened for a long, has needed to take place for a long time in this country to invoke actual positive change in the healthcare system, but in just our society and beyond.
Speaker 2:So I'm getting on some tangents here. But so how does it feel? Yeah, you know, it's hard to tell. It's still early on. My bicep definitely feels a lot different. It's uncomfortable, it feels like it's been moved. For sure I'm not allowed to really pick up anything with my right arm over five pounds until about six weeks and I wasn't really allowed to pick up anything until about four weeks. Anything that's heavier than a phone, you know something like that. Wore my sling for four weeks pretty much nonstop, took it off once in a while to do PT and they've had me doing PT right when I woke up. So that was a thing. Yeah, so there's just a lot going on there, friends and fam. So I'll keep you all updated. I'm hopeful it's just at some point.
Speaker 2:You go through all these and you're like man. I wish I just would have stopped at one and then figured it out, you know. But I came to San Diego in search of healing and figured I'd find I'd found a better surgeon to help, and that guy ended up turning out to be, you know, just a dude that was cutting me open and didn't really care too much about the result. And then, you know, I wish I would have really gone to Stedman Clinic for my first surgery in 2020, but didn't have the support. As you know, I had read through separation there and didn't really have the support I needed. And then my insurance also didn't cover out of state, so I would have had to figure that out too, which is just a whole, nother part of this.
Speaker 2:But I just got back from Mexico and I've man, I had such a beautiful time down there. I know this is a long intro, but just uh, I can't say enough. This is I hadn't been out of the country, uh, since before my crash. So I used to travel a lot, obviously as a pro um ultra runner and just pro mountain athlete. I was traveling internationally a lot for racing and God just missed it, um. But when you're in pain and like it just doesn't feel the same, you can't really enjoy where you travel like. That Didn't make sense, but flew down to Mexico to get to get stem cells at Renew, renew Healthcare Clinic down in.
Speaker 2:Well, it's in Nuevo Vallarta, but make sure to check that place out. That place is amazing and I just honestly just met so many incredible people. Uh, just re sort of reaffirmed that I I used to when I used to live in Chile. Um, you know, my Spanish got pretty good down there and, of course, I was raised speaking Spanish. I never really considered myself fluent because it was spoken to me, but I really had to speak back in English when I was younger. Um, I think one of the regrets of my grandparents is really that. But you know, decent for sure, but I hadn't spoken in like 10 years. I don't really use it anymore very much.
Speaker 2:Anyways, and being back down there, you know, just switching my brain went off. I'm like man, I really I really want to get this down where you know I'm fluent, as fluent as possible, and really honor the culture I'm from. And also, it's really important for me to you know, if I have children, that you know they speak Spanish fluently from a young age, because that's part of the heritage I grew up in. So I met some amazing people down there. If y'all are listening, shout out to each one of you. It's just really, really good human beings and learned a lot about the area. Can't wait to go back. Just what a special spot. But also very excited to be back in the States and headed back to Arizona at the end of this week, so that'll be happening and working on a little business venture there. But rest assured, starve the ego, feed the souls alive and well.
Speaker 2:We're going to be popping out episodes and recording them and I already have a handful of awesome guests that have been recorded. So these are going to launch soon and, yeah, it's just, we're going to keep this rolling. I keep you guys updated. I know this intro is long, but I didn't want to. I don't want to leave you all hanging, because I know some of you are invested in what's going on with my shoulder and my health and everything, and you know I mean now I don't I won't even call it just a shoulder injury. It's a bicep issue now too, since all the changes I've made to my bicep. But yeah, I guess, to be honest, you know there's a lot of fear there. I hope things get better. There's always a chance they get worse or they stay the same, which man that would suck.
Speaker 2:But you know, at some level you have to accept what you've been dealt if you can't change it. I'm always a person that when I work with clients, it's like you can change the things. Right, you're in a relationship, you're not in a relationship, you're acting a certain way. The one person you can change is you. But the things you can't change is these sort of scenarios where it's out of your control, right, the healthcare you've gotten or the mistakes someone else made with your body and what you have to live with. If you're in a traumatic car accident or you were in the military and you lost a limb or something happened. There's a lot of ways these things happen. Right, you have an autoimmune disease or some sort of disease that's terminal or uncurable those kinds of mindsets that you live in. It's tough, it's really tough. My heart goes out to anyone that's struggling with stuff like that. That's even more difficult than what I'm going through or less, it doesn't even matter. Just if you're going through that, send a big hug your way because it's man, it's not easy, right, it's not easy. Big hug your way because it's man, it's not easy. Right, it's not easy. All right, ladies and gents, so long intro.
Speaker 2:Now we're going to get to this incredible guest that I had a wonderful conversation with. So Ray McKim is the guest today. He is an Irish counselor and I want to let you guys know how I came across his profile. So Ray really wasn't on social media very much. We were talking about the show. It wasn't really his thing and for obvious reasons, he's from an older generation. He's been a therapist for a while now and just not something that he was invested in. And I saw this video on Instagram. This was probably two or three months ago maybe and it was of this influencer gentleman. I can't remember his name, so sorry if I'm not remembering and giving you your credit, but I can't remember the name of the account. I think Ray brings it up in the show. So listen for that.
Speaker 2:He films a lot of people right on the street and he goes up and asks kind of deep interview questions and the video I saw was him going up to this man who is in a wheelchair, but he was dressed like super dapper, like you. Look at Ray's profile. I mean Ray has some absolute style. Ray looks good and this gentleman walks up to him and he and he starts asking him questions. He pays zero attention to the fact that he's in a wheelchair, doesn't bring it up, which I thought was awesome because he wasn't defining. You know, that's probably the first question a lot of people get in those scenarios, right? And he just said, like you know, hey, I just want to say you look incredible today, like he was giving him a compliment on what he looked like and his attire and you can see Ray light up and they had this, you know, wonderful conversation and he was just a man, super heartfelt and very authentic, and I immediately was like I need to get this guy on the show.
Speaker 2:And it turns out he's a therapist and works with a lot of people and comes from, you know, trauma in his own right and an experience with a bad surgery too, and he says some pretty profound things in this episode, ladies and gents, to the point where, you know, in the middle of the episode, I'm like man, I need to get some. I'm looking for a new therapist. I need to get Ray to be mine. So I'm probably going to start seeing him too, just to let you know like I practice what I preach. I believe that we shall be talking to somebody, and mostly people that are going to provide us some safe space but also help us hold ourselves accountable to change and to understand when we're just you know we're doing shit that's just not in our best interest, not in the best interest of others and, you know, making a lot of excuses for that too.
Speaker 2:So yeah, ray McKim, just an incredible, incredible guest, and I hope you listened to this whole episode. It is phenomenal. Um, it's just incredibly deep human who I know. I've had a lot of people on the show and I probably say this often, but now this has to be one of my favorite episodes. I mean, you know it left me speechless a handful of times throughout the conversation and just want to say thank you to Ray for coming on the show. And I know, man, 20 minute intro, that's unlike it, unlike me, but sometimes you got to update the people. So thank you all for being here. I'll keep you updated on everything that's going on with my health and you know we're back to two weekly episodes, rest assured. So, without further ado, raymond Kim, schedule has been kind of moved around this past week.
Speaker 2:I did move a couple other yes, I noticed in some of your previous messages that you'd injured your shoulder, I think at one stage as well yeah, so I was a pro athlete for a while and I was in a big cycling crash in 2019 and I had a traumatic brain injury and a grade three AC joint separation my right arm, my dominant arm but I recovered really well and then I decided to get surgery a year after in.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure how familiar you are with the States, but there's this mountain town in Arizona called Flagstaff. It's near the Grand Canyon. That's where home is for me and I got a shoulder surgery there and it went super poorly, like woke up in chronic pain. I had a little bit of a bone fracture during that surgery where this guy drilled a drill hole in the wrong area, unfortunately and it went really poorly and so I have gotten three surgeries. After that, I had to move to California to get surgery and then now I'm going to get surgery in Colorado and this is my fifth and probably final one. Hopefully it gets gets better, but I think we should probably share some some surgery stories in in that sense?
Speaker 3:yeah, absolutely. I noticed that in a few of your podcasts that there were folks that unfortunately things haven't gone well for right absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I never really knew that part of medicine. I mean, obviously I was aware that it existed, but I think until you experience chronic pain or you experience some sort of debilitation, um, it's really hard to have full empathy for it, because you just don't live. It's not a lived experience, right, and so I could see someone suffering be like, wow, I.
Speaker 2:I just I don't know what that feels like. And now I live in pain every day and my body's severely altered. You know, just from being an athlete, I can't use my arm like I used to.
Speaker 3:Okay, and it's been interesting, and that's the whole psychological part of our identity. I was this, and now, without that, who have I become? Who am I now Exactly?
Speaker 2:And that's the big challenge in it, isn't it? Absolutely yeah, and I don't want to kind of start with that. You know even about you and you know usually it. It's interesting like I'll introduce guests, but we can kind of just start from here because I feel like you're you know, you're so easy to talk to it. This came through this video right the the way I was introduced to you was this video I just randomly found on instagram with this gentleman who's a photographer, filmmaker, and he went up to you in a, in a public park, and I'm guessing that was completely like, not scripted is what it's, not at all I thought he was looking for directions.
Speaker 3:I've been sitting chatting with my friend on the bench. My friend had left, I was packing up the bag to go and I had seen this guy walk past earlier and then he had come back again. And that's all personal, he's lost. And he came over and he made some comment about the way I looked and I'm thinking, yeah, and which street are you looking for? I'm thinking. And then he said this camera on his chest and he started to chat and he said do they mind? And I said not at all. And when I told my husband later that day he said oh, my goodness, you didn't even know the person. I said it'll be grand, we'll never hear of it again. You know he'll meet someone else to chat to.
Speaker 3:And then two days later in the evening it appeared and it was Wednesday, and on Friday the guy contacted me and he said have you seen it? And I said yeah, I did, it's lovely. And he said do you know? A million people have seen it. And then another couple of days passed, another million and I thought what is this? What are people connecting with?
Speaker 3:But the interesting thing happened, nico, was that loads of people were sending messages. They were talking about their physical health or a disability, or their mental health or what I was wearing. So I said to a couple of friends, how am I going to reply to all of these people? And you know there are thousands. And they said, well, why don't you start doing a few little reels in reply? And I said, no way, I'm not on Instagram, I don't know what TikTok is. And they said we'll show you. In fact, we'll do one before we leave you. They were in my room here with me and it just started to snowball and it was deeply moving. I mean, the first one had something like 58 000 views. How does that happen? What? What is that you know?
Speaker 2:so that's how it started well, I think what people connect with you right is just your. Obviously you work in mental health, but I feel like it's your authenticity. You know what? What I saw through the camera is you know, and what? Probably what has kept you away from social media, depending on what generation we're born into. Right, there's a sense of like, I don't know. There's just like a sales pitch theme that goes on in social media right.
Speaker 2:People are caricatures of themselves. There's a very, there's a big facade in most arenas, but with you, I think there was just this, like raw authenticity, like this is exactly the human you're getting, and it was just a very beautiful moment because one thing you appreciated is that he saw you for who you were and not for the wheelchair. You were sitting in which I thought was beautiful because, you know, I mean first of all your outfit.
Speaker 2:I was like this man knows how to dress, you know when I saw it and he picked up on that, which was, I think, a beautiful thing as a filmmaker and a cinematographer is. He walked over to you and he captured your story in literally 90 seconds. You're so well-spoken. Obviously, because you speak a lot, I'm sure you work with people on a daily basis. I want to start with your story. Can you tell me you know what happened, that? That that led to you, know, being in a wheelchair and then?
Speaker 2:I want to go from there to like you. Now you work in mental health, so that's, that's a.
Speaker 3:That's a whole trip in itself from healing right yeah, well, first of all, um you said about my generation, I am 60 today today's your birthday oh my god, happy birthday thank you so much for coming to the show on your birthday.
Speaker 2:That is amazing.
Speaker 3:This is my birthday present getting to speak to you.
Speaker 3:I heard about you and I thought my word, this is the best birthday present. So I'm glad I'm here. I've also next year, I think, if I've done the maths right, I'll be working in therapy 40 years. I qualified when I was 21. Now what did I know at 21 about life and what life would bring, and so forth. So I've been working that long. I've worked with adults, children, young people, trauma, people transitioning almost anything that you could imagine and it's been just a joy. You talked about being authentic. People don't come to therapy for anything other than a safe space to be held, to be heard, to be seen, and I think I have learned the honour of creating that over those years. I have learned the honour of creating that over those years.
Speaker 3:Now, as for the injury, the injury happened initially, all the way back then as well, when I was at college. You know, when you're 18, you're invincible. You can do anything. Well, I was asked, with a couple of friends, to carry a piano up the stairs, so I took the bottom end, because I've always been a runner and a swimmer and riding horses. So I took the bottom end and was've always been a runner and a swimmer and riding horses, so I took the bottom end and was pushing and the piano dropped on me so I injured my lower back. I started some physio. It got a little better, it got a little worse, and then I could repeat this story, going over the years, right up until three years ago, maybe five years ago initially, when I was taking morphine patches and tramadol and really strong drugs for the pain and, frankly, as we say in Ireland, I didn't know whether it was Christmas or Easter and I decided that I would come off all the drugs and I would use the natural chemicals in the body that you get from walking and running a little and swimming, that you get from walking and running a little and swimming, and it was helping. But there had always been a conversation about, about surgery and initially I said no, no, absolutely not. Then I said tell me about that again. And the long story short was I had the surgery signed, the form that said 50 success, 50 not success, and I got the 50 that I didn't set out to look for.
Speaker 3:I was three months in hospital rather than a few days, and at the end of the three months the nurse said the doctor's going to have a little word with you today and I went okay, where is he? And oh, we're taking you down to his room for a chat. And I went no, I don't like the sound of that. And I arrived and the nurse wanted to make tea and I said no tea. And then he started to chat and I said stop, stop, go to the end, tell me the thing you're going to tell me, and then we'll go back and fill in.
Speaker 3:And as he was speaking, I remember like it was like flicking through a book in my head and I was looking for something that I could hold on to because it was not good news. And I remember finding in my head the word grateful and I stopped them and I said look, I want to say thank you, thank you that we have got the NHS, I get this cost, you've got these doctors and all the support. And when I was pushed back up afterwards by the porter to my ward, I said thank you very much. And you know what it's like going to the gym. You would understand you don't get the benefit in day one, but you keep practicing the same thing.
Speaker 3:And then something happens and it was exactly the same thing. I go with the word grateful. I find that not denial. I wouldn't deny that things were happening and I couldn't walk and I was sad on certain days. But I realized that in the middle of that, if I could open it up and find something, anything that I could be grateful for, it changed me, because we become how do we put this? We become what we pay attention to. Does that make sense? And so that I thought, if I can keep paying attention to how I can be grateful and where I can be grateful, it's not the same as denial, but I have a feeling it's going to help, and it did wow, I'm having like an emotional response because I understand it so well to wake up and feel completely different than when you were put on anesthesia.
Speaker 2:How did you hold gratefulness and, you know, like compassion for the surgeon and not have like anger and resentment, right? Because that's something that I struggled with when I woke up for my first surgery is, I was expecting, you know, my surgery had a much higher success rate than the one you went into, at least statistically. And I woke up and things were just so wrong. You know, my surgery had a much higher success rate than the one you went into, at least statistically. And I woke up and things were just so wrong, you know, and it's been a struggle for me to really find forgiveness in that moment because I'm just like man, my body's so different Right From from when I went under.
Speaker 3:I love that you use the word forgiveness, nico, because it reminds me of something. I'm not going to get this right, but when Nelson Mandela came out of prison, he was being interviewed and all the cameras were flashing and someone asked him about what you've just said. They asked him about forgiveness and I can't remember the direct quote, but he basically said that would be like holding the burning coal in my own hands. We forgive for ourselves, we don't forgive for the other person. And I kind of got this feeling about life for most of my life that we are all more the same than we're different, that we're all in the same team. My mother, my late mother, used to say son, sure aren't we all just walking each other home? We're all in the same team. And so I entered into a relationship, a team with the surgeon, with the nurses, with the physios, of which I was part, because I made the choice to go and have the surgery. I signed the form and so in that way that I needed to focus on how I could adapt my life, how I could do all the things that I did before, and I'd rather pay attention to that. I'll tell you a little story about that if you don't mind.
Speaker 3:On the last ward round I had. You know what it's like. They all arrive at once and there's the nurse and the physio and the OT and everybody, and you're kind of invisible in it. So the consultant came along and he said right, folks, solutions, ideas quickly. And nobody said anything. They were all afraid of it. And I said well, I'll start then. I'm going to walk on the beach with my dogs. I am going to the beach with my dogs. And he turned to the nurse and he said has anyone had a word with this man about realistic goals so fast forward six months? I'm going back for my review and my wheelchair.
Speaker 3:And as we finished all the medical stuff, I said do you have a minute? And I took out my iPhone and I scrolled through and I turned it around and I held it up to him and it was a picture of me in an adaptive wheelchair, on the beach with my dogs. And I said please don't take away people's dreams. I might have to get there by a different route and that's the nature of dealing with disability, but I will get there. And he said Ray, I'm sorry. So you know you will get there. Folks who are listening to this, you'll find you'll get there by a different route, but if you pay attention to what is possible, you'll get to the beach with your dogs on whatever version that is for you.
Speaker 2:Wow, that is such a beautiful story, ray. You know, rarely am I left speechless on the show, but I'm just like man.
Speaker 2:I just connect with your story so much because, you know, I feel like I'm quite a bit behind you in terms of forgiving some of those things. And it's beautiful to hear your story in that way, because I'm like man this is, I think this is, you know, it just makes life palatable, you know, it makes you be able to find your joy again. I think one of the things when you live in chronic pain or you live in dysfunction, you have a disability, you can get swallowed by that grief. You can get swallowed by that anger Like why did this happen to me? Why am I in this state, right? Or people that are suffering from a terminal, terminal disease or stuff or anything like that. I've lost a child, right? We can get swallowed by this sort of hatred because it's it's a lot easier to attach to the pain than it is to attach to joy, because the pain is, is omnipresent. It's sort of there, right?
Speaker 3:and you have to work very hard to focus on, like you said, the gratefulness or the gratitude you're so wise, because exactly all of this has at its core, or at least one of the cores, is our relationship to pain, and I think that we are born into a relationship with pain, or at least we're nurtured in our early years into a relationship with pain, where we become afraid of pain, and I think the first thing that we've got to do with pain is to be it's going to sound weird grateful for it, because a pain is an alarm, a pain says oh, don't move that too quickly or take your hand out of the fire or whatever, because it has a function, it has a creative purpose in our lives to keep us well. So I think that's the first thing, is really going back to what is our relationship with pain, and that's the first part. The second part and again, your wisdom earlier when you said that it's all consuming. People haven't been through a lot of the pain. They think that it's like when you jab your finger on something or you twist your ankle a little.
Speaker 3:Living with pain all of the time. It is present all of the time and yet, ironically, we ignore it in a psychodynamic way, like our relationship with it. We ignore the relationship, and I think there is so much work that can be done and I do with my own clients where we sit down and we experience the experience of pain. You know what is it like, what are the feelings that come up, what are the memories associated with it, and then we begin to find ways. Not that it takes the pain away, but it begins to adapt our relationship to pain when we can see that it is there for a purpose and that we are not going to die from that particular pain.
Speaker 3:Probably in that moment, and we need to find a way, and one of the things that works really well that I find and it's going to sound so simple that it's almost irreverent, but it's breathing with pain, learning to breathe, because watch what happens when you get a pain and you stop breathing and we stop bringing in the oxygen. So when all those other body chemicals we'll make this a science lesson when they're all flying around with pain and worry and stress and the adrenaline, when we bring in oxygen, we bring the level of those things down, so something as simple. So there's loads. I'm rambling on, I'm Irish, but there are loads of ways that I think that we can begin to adapt our relationship to pain, that it isn't an enemy, that it starts off as a friend, and then we then find ways of breathing with it, of not being afraid that that pain will be the end of us. And there are a lot of things to be said, but I think we can change our relationship to pain if that makes sense it does absolutely.
Speaker 2:Did you have like a period of transition after you woke up from the surgery? Or did you find it that you woke up and when you saw that word, gratitude in your mind that you, you were able to transition quickly out of, like you know, the grieving process, or you know, or were you already sort of mentally prepared for that 50 percent?
Speaker 3:well, there were three months between you know, the first day of being in hospital and then getting out, you know, and that was it, this was the diagnosis. And there are lots of highs and lows. Even recently I met a neurologist and he went oh, I think there could be a little chance here of being able to walk and we'll send you to neurophysio. And I got really excited because in my head I'd adapted to life without functioning legs and then I thought, oh, oh, here we go, maybe, and of course I had my health in my head, I was back, running up mountains and swimming in rivers, but, um, it didn't work. And so that's that, that journey of high and low.
Speaker 3:People think, when you acquire an illness or disability, that's this kind of line you hear on day one and that's it. And then you go along and then you start breathing, one day and it's all over. It isn't? It's full of highs and lows, full of moments where we were clearing the house, just tidying up, um, after hospital, and I pulled up in this drawer and I found my hiking socks to go with my walking boots and I said to my husband take those and put them in the plastic box with my walking boots so I know where they are when I need them. And then I went oh, I'm never going to do that again, and the sadness and the tears, and let it happen, let it be down there. When it's down, don't deny it, be there with it.
Speaker 3:And then there are other days when I find that I'm getting greater upper body strength and I can push up a hill in my wheelchair that I couldn't the week before, and so I'm on a high. And then someone comes along and they ask someone you're with oh, does he take milk in his coffee? And then it's down. And then something wonderful achievement happens, and then you're up. But isn't that how everyone else lives? Life they go, isn't life. As I said in that video, life is not out there, it's not what happens out there, it's what you do in here, with what's out there, with the ups and the downs and the disappointments and, I think, the maybes, and then it doesn't, and and so maybe in that way we go back that we're all the same in that we're all going through different ups and downs, but we've got to change in here because that's like not that other stuff about us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely that makes sense that makes really well, really good sense to me. How do you find that you know living in you with a disability or living in pain? How has that affected your closest relationships, right?
Speaker 3:Oh, utterly changed them Utterly, utterly changed them. My husband is my carer. He empties commodes, he puts on shoes. He does all of those things, does all of those things and we have not been able to be both that intimate relationship to people together. We've not been able to maintain that in the same way. It has radically changed because of the carer role coming in. There are people that you know on the periphery of your life and those people I don't think anyone sets out to be rude about someone with a disability but some people get afraid. They don't know what to say, they don't know how to say it. You know, I make jokes all the time. I go to a meeting and everyone's saying, oh, I've been busy all day and I said, yeah, I've been on my feet all day and they all look at me as if are we allowed to laugh? Yeah, you're allowed to laugh because you know it's life. So it does change things. Yeah, it does.
Speaker 2:There's sadness in it and there's fun in it, but it changes the relationship. Do you have any advice for people that are dealing with partners or? You know, family members that are newly like living with chronic pain or some sort of injury, because I feel like a lot of people when that happens. You said they don't know what to do. Right, there's not like a playbook and very little resources.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's some resources, but you really have to go find them, since you you've lived this experience and obviously have a partner that has lived this experience with you do you?
Speaker 3:have any advice for those folks yeah, feel your feelings and let the other person know that that's what you feel, because you know, when you come home from hospital and there's beds in the living room and commodes and crutches for this and equipment for that, the focus is really kind of on you. But when something like this happens, that whole family network changes. That whole family network needs support. And I think at times maybe the carer even more than the person with the illness or disability, because they're sort of invisible too, and they'll feel sad and they'll feel angry and they'll feel grief at the loss of the life they had, and they'll feel misunderstood and put upon and tired. And so really in that partnership, talk, talk about your feelings, don't protect the other person from your feelings. Just say how you're feeling. And the second thing I'd say is please, please, ask for help. When you can't do it and it's too much and you're too tired, ask the neighbour, ask the friend, ask the adult child, ask the sister, because this isn't a moment in time, this is an adaption to a whole new life and so you need to be able to run the marathon rather than do the sprint. So please ask for help. And the third thing and I really think you know, people will find their own way. But if I could humbly make one more suggestion, find things to laugh at.
Speaker 3:You know, I'm an e an agent with a wheelchair. I'm always leaving things lying because I'm untidy, and then I decide to wheel backwards and of course what's going to happen? I'm out over the back of the chair lying on the floor. We went for a picnic to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Pushing along on the grass picnic basket all these lovely things in it hit a pothole. It all goes up in the air. I'm lying on the ground like basket all these lovely things in it hit a pothole. It all goes up in the air. I'm lying on the ground like a starfish covered in picnic food and paul says I don't know whether to sit down and eat you or help you get up. You know, find ways to laugh, find ways to find humor. Um, that would be my humble suggestions that's.
Speaker 2:That's a beautiful piece of advice for people. So how did you get into mental health? Was that, was that influenced by the surgery and the injury, or were you in that field before?
Speaker 3:well, um, I've been working in mental health, as I've said, for almost 40 years now, and in fact I tell you I went off to study theology because I was going to be a minister in the church. I later became an atheist and had to leave. That's a whole other story for another day. But part of my first degree was in Old Testament history and psychotherapy and I had to match these two out of sets of lists. So you know everyone I admire these people and they go. Oh, they had a plan and they sat off and then this happened and they made that happen and it was all in this lovely straight line. My life has never been a straight line. It's kind of wonky. And so it was because I had to choose something that went with the Old Testament history. I loved it, I. To choose something that went with the Old Testament history. I loved it.
Speaker 3:I went on and did postgrad, I did another undergrad, I did a doctorate over the years and I just love it. I love being in the room. You see my job. I get to meet all the bravest people in the world, all the people who want to create change come for therapy, and I get the honor of meeting all these really amazing, big, courageous people. So here we are in the room and suddenly, you know, I don't tell people what they need to do or what they need to fix. They kind of know that I help them remember it and put it back together. And in those moments when the light bulb comes on, oh my word, how could you not absolutely just love that? When people get something and they come back and they go, oh my word. You know, I've had that conversation, I've done that thing, I've pushed through that fear. The joy is beyond joy.
Speaker 2:Absolutely One of the things that comes to mind and it's particularly prevalent in this country, in the us is there's just divisiveness right now amongst the entire country, right, and I think that one of the beautiful things about therapy is is when you go in there, it kind of breaks down the divisiveness internally of yourself, because usually there's pieces of ourselves we hate or we're denying or running from or hiding from right, yeah do you think that, like, are there any?
Speaker 2:you know? Things you recommend for people that are, you know, let's say, scared of going to therapy, or think they don't need therapy, or think that therapy is for you know, just if you have a problem, because I run into that a lot as a clinician yeah?
Speaker 3:well, you've given the answer and the question. Um I? I think that I would say therapy is not about being broken, it's not about something that needs fixed. Essentially, the first 80% of that transformational journey is awareness. It's coming to see yourself. It's coming to see yourself. Now. I'm not talking just about saying, or you're stuck, or the thing that's not working, but it's also coming and discovering oh my word, I did do that thing that way and I can borrow that over and do this thing. So it's seeing ourselves as a whole. That's easily 80% of the journey. The other 20%, by the way, then, is just going out and making new choices based on what you saw in the first 80%. So that's what I would say Come along.
Speaker 3:And then, of course, not every therapist fits everyone who wants therapy. Go along and shop. What I do with my green therapy and training is you come along and your first session costs you nothing, because it's you and me meeting each other. What is therapy? What are your goals? This is me. Oh, that's what you're like. Does this fit? Yeah, well, then, okay, if it does, let's move forward, and then we go into therapy for real. So go and shop. If you went shopping for shoes and you go. You wouldn't just walk into the shop and pick up any random first pair. They have to fit, you have to have an affinity with them and it's the same with the person and the therapist. Go shop, go ask questions.
Speaker 2:That's a lovely way to put it. That's what I sort of. I say similar things to people. You know, not every therapist is for everyone else, you know, and you might need a different therapist, depending on where you are in your life too. Right Someone. Right Someone might fit you for a year or two and then you might need to. You know, spread your wings and go to someone else as well, too. So share some things with me, if you will, ray, about things you've learned, about yourself practicing therapy Because that's one thing I find really intriguing right when you work in a space like this.
Speaker 2:You know you might be, you know, the therapist sitting down, but I feel like there are so many things I learned from working with people and working with clients and seeing what they're going through and seeing how that plays out in my own life and my own responses and how I relate to people in my personal life too that's a lovely question and I was going to say the first answer, but maybe the really only at first.
Speaker 3:The only answer is I've learned how to listen, and I've learned how to listen differently than I see other people listening. Go to a bar or restaurant with friends and generally the nodding at the other person while they're speaking is just waiting for your chance to have your turn and it's not really listening. And then the two aspects of listening is obviously the first one is hearing what the person is saying, without trying to fix it or mend it or reshape it, because so much therapy today, nico is oh, we can get rid of your fear in 25 minutes or we can obliterate your anxiety and we can rip it out in 10. No, stay with it. Like we talked about earlier, become a friend with it. See, what did it come to teach you? Where does it show up? How can it guide you through life and making choices about friendships and relationships? Be with it. So don't listen so that you can obliterate, but listen so that you can understand. The second part of listening is listening to yourself, listening.
Speaker 3:So often I used that little phrase in that video, christopher ward, when he asked for one piece of advice and I said I am not who you think I am, you are who you think I am. That so much of our listening and working out what people are saying is projecting from ourselves. Can't work it out for myself, can't really get a handle on that, but if I somehow unconsciously say that the problem is you, then I can watch it play out, I can criticize it, I can be mean to it and see if I can get an answer. Now, of course, the person that we're doing this to thinks we're actually talking to them about them, when we're not. We're just working out our stuff, we're projecting.
Speaker 3:And so as a therapist, it is easy to hear someone. And then maybe when you've eight clients in a day, then your third client and you find, oh, I'm kind of listening in the same way that I did client one. Let's just check yourself here, ray, let's check that you're not falling into an easy-lazy pattern. Is that really what's happening with that person? Particularly, maybe over a period of a month, three people come along new and say, for example, they are all experiencing symptoms of autistic spectrum disorder. You've got to be really careful of threes. There you go, okay, now am I letting anything leak over from here to there. So I'm. That means, then, that the last part of listening is I am compassionately listening. I'm listening so that you, nico, or the other person's life, after that engagement, that dynamic together, feels better, feels lighter, feels brighter, feels more possible, and that comes from compassionately listening. Does that answer the question?
Speaker 2:yeah, I feel like I need to go to therapy with you, right? This is amazing. Um, I uh, you know it's interesting. I've never heard someone explain it like that, because I I feel like you took it even a step further than what I normally say is, like you know, listen to understand versus to respond. But you painted this beautiful picture of, and listen to yourself and what you're sort of thinking about or feeling while someone's saying something which most of us don't, we immediately are projecting. We're like, okay, this person's saying something that's hurting my feelings and triggering me, like before even thinking about the feeling and acknowledging it.
Speaker 2:We're just outwardly projecting it right. And there's that split second in time that, as we build sort of more self-awareness, there's space between the trigger and the response or what would be a reaction, right, which is what you're talking about. How do we get better? I feel that's it's easier to do when we're listening to things we want to hear, right. But we're agreeable because if you look at relationships, if someone's saying something like oh yeah, that sounds great, right, I love you, this sounds amazing. But then if someone says something that we disagree with or that, for instance, might irk us a little bit or might hurt our feelings a little bit, and even they don't mean to right, let's say they're saying something that's a criticism, right. How do we get better at listening in those instances and giving ourselves more space to actually accept what someone's telling us versus, you know, trying to put up a wall or a barrier?
Speaker 3:yeah, I think finding, like we talked earlier about families, finding dynamics, relationships, sets of friends where you can be brutally honest with each other, that when you hear them say something, you can pull them up. I'm going to give you an example. A very loving, wise friend of mine a few days ago rang me and said, oh, did you hear Donald Trump was shot? And I said, yes, I've just heard. And they said, oh, did you hear Donald Trump was shot? And I said, yes, I've just heard. And they said great. And I said, stop your politics and mine are the same and they're very, very different to his. Our view of woman is very different to his. His view of disability is different to his, but he's on the team too. So I'm calling you in, because no one deserves to be shot.
Speaker 3:So, having that set of friendships where you can be that clear that you help hold yourself to account with your friends, because the one thing getting terribly philosophical and I love reading this stuff is the idea that nothing's real in the world, sort of an annihilism. Well, the one thing that is real is our word. What comes out of here is the only thing that we've really got, so let's use it really well, let's define ourselves, let's define our friend company, let's define the social circles and the communities we live in by what comes out of here, watching it, checking it, and then the other thing then is being able to apologize. The other thing I do, other than psychotherapy might seem strange is I'm in politics, I'm an independent politician, no political party, and I'm in our local borough.
Speaker 3:So I made a deal with my community that when I went into the political chamber, that I would never, ever, ever, abstain from a vote, that I would always vote on the information that I've got. And if, in three months time, I find out something that I didn't know, that I will go back into that chamber. I was almost going to say, and I will stand on my feet, but I've gotten an exemption for standing on my feet and I will say I am sorry, three months ago I said this and I was wrong because I didn't know this. And it's trying to create that authenticity, that integrity with our word, because if anything can define us, nico, it's our word.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I really appreciate you being able to admit when you're wrong. I think that's something that current political climate here in the US really doesn't value, because you know it's more of a spectacle, right, you want to be seen like you're embroiling the truth or that you know you're appealing to some sort of set of trauma honestly values in most people, right, because I'm angry, because I'm hurt, because I'm oppressed in some way, and I really respect that. You're saying that you know it's a good thing to admit when you're wrong. It's a good thing to acknowledge when you might've made a mistake because you didn't have all the information or might've been short sighted, right, and so I really I really respect you, you bringing that up and saying that what I had asked is you know, I feel like in this country it's very difficult to admit you're wrong politically because it's you know.
Speaker 2:I guess we value this sort of embroiderment, right, like we want someone to know all the answers all the time, and I almost feel like people are sort of pandering to our trauma and to our anger instead of to our compassion and to our empathy, right, and so that narrative has kind of led the country to be more angry and more vitriol and us versus them or this versus that, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I, and I really appreciate how you brought up the fact that you know if you vote or say something on a certain time frame, because the information you have available to you that if three months go by and new information comes up, you're able to admit like I was wrong back back then I realized this is you know what is correct. Now, and for some reason in our society I feel like we've we don't value that as much anymore. Right, we don't value the ability to say I am wrong, like someone's ability to say I am wrong to me is indicative that they're a aware, compassionate adult, because that's part of being an adult is being wrong. And so if you can't admit you're wrong.
Speaker 2:To me, it just seems like you lack the credibility to be a leader, because I feel like that really should be at bare minimum leadership when you need a team to help you lead, versus like, oh, I know, I have the right answers. Right, every rich direction, do you think? What do you see playing out? Obviously, you're 60 now. Your generation is how they've seen the world, I guess by and by is quite a bit different than the millennial generation or Generation Y, generation Z. How do you see this playing out, and what do you think needs to happen for us to get to a point where we more readily admit we're wrong on a leadership level, because that's so hard to do in today's society.
Speaker 3:Well, given that most of the people we have in leadership are old white men in gray suits, they are of a generation. What I would say is let's go back and look at the nature of that political, that shared civic or political life, and I think you're really on the detail here because it is fear-based. You'll have me or you'll have demons over there Vote like this or you'll have that tragedy over here, and it is fear-based. Now, my goodness, living in Ireland, I grew up through the normality of knowing the difference, as an eight-year-old, between a controlled explosion and an explosion. I could tell you the difference between rapid and automatic gunfires and eight-year-olds, I'm thinking it was normal. So I kind of grew up with that fear-based. Now we talked earlier about coming home to ourselves in a certain sense, accepting ourselves, listening to ourselves, being slow, listening to what's going on. I think that is vital in a leader, in a leader who will basically tune in with themselves and not be changed by the agenda of fear.
Speaker 3:When I got into politics, I had the absolute good fortune to make connection with Jacinda Ardern. I had the absolute good fortune to make connection with Jacinda Ardern, who was at that time the Prime Minister of New Zealand who spoke very plainly about compassion politics. We remember after the bombing in Christchurch, her going and crying and hugging people and she said a kind of a new step change into the style of leadership, in a style that took us away from fear-based politics. She and I had a little email exchange one day and she said to me Ray, northern Ireland, fear-based politics, what is the opposite? And I thought, let me think what is the opposite. And of course the answer was really quite simple when we talked about it the opposite of fear is love.
Speaker 3:We take that word and open it out and straighten it out as a piece of paper. We start to find other words written on the page, like respect and understanding and appreciation of difference, and that appreciation of difference, for example, in politics, I can disagree with Donald Trump, who's the example, but not be happy that he is shot. I can disagree with your point of view in the political chamber of 0.5 on the agenda and it went to vote and I didn't get the outcome that I wanted. I take a deep breath. I move on to agenda 9.9, where I'm going to work on something else and I'm building relationships with people. One of the worst things we're seeing, nico, in politics is populist politics, where it's about the flamboyant person and their great hair and their great clothes and their charisma and their kind of very, you know, charismatic way of speaking. That's beyond substance, that's in a field, somewhere that sits beyond substance. That's theater, right?
Speaker 3:that's not yes, theater and in that field that we need to be living in is compassion and kindness and creating the law and shaping law around those that we and you and I know who are the most vulnerable. You and I can sit down now and on our fingers we could kind of be the five most vulnerable people we know. We make law for those people. We create a loving, accepting environment where we are not about just feeding the rich, but we're actually there about healthcare and access to housing and education and safety and all of those things. So you know that's where we go, but that only comes when you've got it here. You've really got to work.
Speaker 3:Somebody said that phrase what is it you want to change the word? She said to her son Start by making your bed. That's how we make change. Start with ourselves. How are you today? What is it that you feel stuck with? What is it that's making you angry? Can we work through that? Then can we find a way to go and take that out into the world and make it a wee bit better, because we've worked that out for ourselves? That's my view in politics.
Speaker 2:What I guess inspired you to get involved in politics, to try to create change in your community, because out of the love for your community. Can you share that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, northern.
Speaker 3:Ireland you know the greens and the oranges, and they're right and they're more right and they're wrong, and they're more right and they're wrong and they're more wrong. Oh my word, I used to keep saying to my friends would somebody just get involved in politics and change the agenda? And then one day, in a conversation around a media table, essentially what happened was I realized that I should be the change I wanted to see in the world. I knew nothing about politics, never been in a political party, never. And my friend said well, maybe that's a good thing.
Speaker 3:So the next election we started knocking doors and we said here's the thing we think politics should be well-being and nothing else. Are you well? What do you need to be well? Is your community well? What does it need? Is your business healthy? What does it need? And nothing else. I'm on my second elected term now on that basis, because it seems to matter to people that we take it all away from the division and we actually look at what do I need to be enabled to be well? And what if politics?
Speaker 2:nico was just then wow it'd probably work a lot better. Yes, I said it would right. I think it would absolutely. You know, you mentioned that you were going to go into I'm guessing catholicism, but to be a priest. Is that correct?
Speaker 3:No, actually it was the whole other end of the house. It was the Baptist Church, the Evangelians, okay, and they'd sent me off to study theology and I was going to be this missionary and minister in the Baptist Church, missionary and minister in the Baptist church. And well, what happened was that my wife we had four children, had four children together had mental health and things fell apart. And the church said, well, that doesn't look very good for us, does it? So let's think what we'll do is we will excommunicate you, her, her and the children, and then we don't have a problem. And so they did, and my children's playmates in school mocked them and laughed at them.
Speaker 3:Anyone I ever knew crossed the street, and I am beyond grateful for that experience because I have learned to love me regardless of the social narrative about who I'm meant to be. So it was a fabulous gift. I may never have jumped, but when I was pushed I learned something fabulous about myself. And gosh, that's such a long time ago, that's way back in the 90s. You know. You probably weren't born when I was excommunicated I was barely 89, you know.
Speaker 2:It's interesting that you share that, because it's almost when I think about like the church and then politics. It's almost like image is more important than people, right? Now right, um than what the person's actually the values and what they're doing right. So you have to uphold a certain image. I'm I'm curious, like when you when you, I guess were were annexed out of like you know that that part of your life, did you initially transition into atheism or did you have like a quest?
Speaker 3:or a journey into kind of happened. I'll tell you a story. I'm irish, lots of stories. Um, when I was five, my mother knit me an iron jumper. You know what it is, it's like a plain jumper with lots of pattern in the shapes of the wool and it was orange. And I remember getting off my bike and I pulled the piece of wool in the middle of the chest on the handlebar and it broke. So I pulled it and I pulled a bit. More and more came and I started pulling and pulling and before I knew I was knee deep in jumper, knee deep in trouble as well. That unraveling was like the unraveling of faith. That unravelling was like the unravelling of faith.
Speaker 3:I'm not making any prejudgment, pronouncements about truth in that this is what God is, this is what God is and this is what church is. My personal experience unravelled when I started to ask questions. When I started to ask questions outside of the confines in which I wasn't really meant to ask certain questions, I began to find different answers. But one of the things that really struck me really early on was one of the things I had reacted against was this belief structure that said we have the truth, we have it right. We know what's going on. Everyone else is wrong. But I knew that if I changed I couldn't change into another version of that. So I couldn't change into saying to you, oh, there is no God, oh there is no prayer, or there is no, because I would have ended up becoming the same as that and the other way around. And what way would that serve me with the word, do you know? Right.
Speaker 3:So I love that. People find faith and they find it useful and it doesn't make them judgmental but it makes them compassionate and they go out and they run food kitchens and they do all kinds of things. I do observe that there are people who find faith and I, as a gay man, am straight to hell. Or because somebody goes to a different religion, they're in hell, or I leave that with them Because if their hearts open at all, they'll find a way through that and out the other side of that. But it's not my job to be in judgment. Really, there's enough of that, isn't there?
Speaker 2:Absolutely no, that is a beautiful way to put it. I went to Catholic school my entire life, up until middle school, so sixth grade, I was about 12. And I was always asking a lot of questions. You know, I grew up in a Hispanic, roman Catholic family. My dad's actually Irish, but he was never in my life, so I grew up on my mom's side and so my last name should be McCarthy, but it's Barasa, because my mom's side is Hispanic and growing up they were very Catholic. But they're very open to questions. I think a lot of families they practice like you're kind of painting this picture like dogmatically right, like this is right, this is wrong. My family is very open to questions.
Speaker 2:So I remember going to school and I would ask I'd read these parables in the Bible and some of them were quite beautiful and some of them were quite persecutory. Right, it was like well, why, if God loves everything, why aren't we persecuting these pagans? Right? Why are we smiting or striking down in this? And it didn't questions.
Speaker 2:And for pretty much most of my teens and twenties I kind of rejected organized religion because I figured it was, you know, just more oppressive and more fear-based. And then, as I got into my thirties and even going through this chronic pain, this shoulder injury, this identity crisis and a lot of this trauma that has come with it. You know, I almost consider myself more spiritual now, in a sense, because I believe in an interconnectedness of people, which is my ability to meet you and connect with you right Through, like that. Whatever, however you want to quantify that, whether it's God or not or whatever, right, it's just a beautiful experience of life. It's tangible to me, you know.
Speaker 2:And one thing that I think society has missed, especially in the past decade, with, like social media, with this kind of this, like you know, it's almost like this, you know, sailing away of organized religion in a sense, I think a lot of millennials and sort of Gen Yers are kind of pushing that away is that we're missing congregation, not in the religious sense, like religiosity, but we're missing togetherness, right, we're missing our ability to come together and see each other, as you know, like mirror images of, like this person has been in pain too, whether they agree with me politically or not, like I know they are suffering. How can we find some middle ground? How can we see each other, right? How can we sort of put each other in the therapist's chair, right, if we could use that terminology. And I think in that mind. I don't know if you know Michael Singer. He wrote the Untethered Soul.
Speaker 3:I know the book. I haven't read it, but I can almost see the cover in my head.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a brilliant book and really he just kind of talks about like just the necessity for connecting with each other in whatever sense you want, whether it's. You can say you're an atheist, you can say you're spiritual, you can say you're a Catholic or Muslim or Jew or whatever. However, have you right in a religious sense. But really, like, the through line of people is like the ability to congregate and to celebrate something greater than yourself, whatever that is right, whether it's just the appreciation of earth and being able to breathe air or the sun or the moon or whatever you know. And he created this thing called the temple of the universe, which is basically just like a place that people can go and like meditate or sit together or just you know be in each other's presence and I remember, like some I think it was around like 31 or 32.
Speaker 2:I just I remember like missing the experience of mass not necessarily like the stand up, sit down, throw incense on you, you know, like this and that, just like the ability of being around other human beings in the presence of, like, celebrating just being alive together, right, and this trying to be better.
Speaker 2:And I think that as humans we have a choice when we use stuff, whether it's dogma, like let's separate ourselves with religion, versus like this belief system is opening my heart to other people and more accepting of anyone, right.
Speaker 2:And so you brought up sort of the, the closed mindedness of like well, this person is homosexual, this person believes in something different and therefore, like they're going to a hell. I'm like that. That is a human based phenomenon, not a spiritual phenomenon, right, because spirit inside my head is like everyone should be loved, everyone should be held, everyone should be seen and everyone should, you know, be able to, you know, be themselves and be appreciated, right. And that doesn't mean like we have to agree on everything, but the judgment of like they are less than, or they are so different than me that I can't love them, is not a spiritual experience, that's a human experience, a judgment experience. And I think part of realizing that is transcending whatever dogma is teaching us within those books, because it was human influence versus the spirit behind that, which is like there's an omnipresent love that's there if you want to tap into it, but it's your choice.
Speaker 3:It's like the word light. It comes up in almost every formal religion and that idea of joining our lights together to shine brighter sounds so like what you were describing, and, in fact, not only what you're describing but what you're doing. My generation, there's. A lot of people go oh the internet and social media, but you know what? You're creating a place of light. Clearly, I can see by heart that you have the compassion and how you're sharing that and drawing that out in other people. You're creating a community of light, if you want to use that word, where people can feel that they have something to hold up against the confusion and the darkness and all the rest of it. And even I see, as a specific leader in politics here, that our faith community in terms of practically going out and being a light, if we want to stay with that phrase. They go into the park at 11 o'clock at night when there's young people drunk, and they sit down with them and they then will.
Speaker 3:We have a lot of folks who are in europe here, who are changing countries and migrating, and we have a lot of asylum seekers coming and they work with them and they, they, they create warm spaces in the winter for older people and oh, the list is endless and I'm very connected with them. Now we have lots of humor. Of course you know me being the atheist in church and if I go in will the church get struck by lightning and we have all that humor. But actually we're really both coming from the same place, that we want to be the best of ourselves and we want to take that light, shine it for ourselves, for a glorious life for ourselves, but collectively make it all a bit brighter for everybody else. Have I worn out that?
Speaker 2:metaphor. Does that make sense? Yeah, no, it does absolutely make sense. Do you think that? You know? There's a, there's a realist in me too, that also it's like. You know. Will we ever get to a point where we don't have war, we don't have fighting? You know, I I wonder if, like that's you know, ingrained in in humanity, it's ingrained in our species. You know that we, we have to disagree, we have to fight at some level. But then the other part of me is like well, we don't have to, it's a choice, right, um?
Speaker 2:you know, do you think that we'll ever reach a point that we can, you know, talk things through and not, you know, have these huge fights and these huge, like you know, areas of oppression in society?
Speaker 3:yeah, two things I would say. Have you ever heard? Heard of Eckhart Tolle and the Power of Now? Eckhart, in that book, basically tells us that, generally speaking, we're wasting our time because most of the time we're imagining the future or we're remembering the past, and so actually most of what goes on here is generally not very useful. So the first thing I would say in answer to your question is bring that answer. Will there be word peace to now today? How do I make it today? How do I bring soothing? How do I bring calm? How do I shut my own mouth so I don't make it worse? How do I do all of those things? Because that will create something for the future.
Speaker 3:The second thing that I would say, please, please to you and to people who might follow you, is don't assume that a politician is a magician and you have to be able to know this special magic to stand for election Utter nonsense. Stand for election. Go in with your compassionate heart into your local borough, get elected. Then go to your local collective house or wherever that is, and go out and be all of that stuff in that political chamber. Change the style of the conversation, change the focus of the conversation. So practice being now and doing it now, rather than becoming disheartened about will it ever happen in the future. And secondly, just go and be it. Get the forms, encourage your friends, go and stand for election. That's how it's going to change and that's for you guys. I'd love to see you and more people like you in those political chambers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really appreciate that. I think a lot of young folks are probably being turned off of it just from the climate now, at least in this country, and I really agree with you. I think that it takes those people that are practicing self-awareness, that are really dug deep into their trauma, that are really seeing the struggles of everybody and not just people they agree with, to get in there and really make change, because they can unify people, they can bring people together. You know, changes the agenda changes the conversation.
Speaker 3:You know, it's like a few of you go to a restaurant or a bar and somebody's there and they're terribly loud and they're terribly negative and the word is wrong and this went wrong and this happened, and everybody else feels sorry. So they start going oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, and you walk away, away feeling like life has been sucked out of you. Change it the other way around. Somebody comes in and they're just grateful for something and they've a little joy about something, and you can see how it changes the tone. That is exactly what happens on the national level.
Speaker 2:Yeah, are you a big reader, ray.
Speaker 3:Do you read a lot? Oh, I love reading Tea and books. The rest you can have. All the rest of the word Just leave me the tea and the books.
Speaker 2:You strike me as a voracious reader. I want to ask you before I let you go is you know? I'm sure you've read tons of books in your profession, even outside of it? Are there some books that come to mind that you consistently recommend to clients or recommend to people that are you know, connecting with your heart.
Speaker 3:Well, I can think of three at the top of my head, and it's best just going with what comes to mind. The first one is what I've already just mentioned the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. I have given away dozens, if not hundreds, of copies of that book. The second one might sound like a book for women, but it's a book for everyone the Woman who Run With Wolves. It's about archetypes and how we get stuck in family archetypes.
Speaker 3:The second thing and I'll just say it because I'm reading it now, I am nosy, I think it's an Irish thing. I love finding out about people, so I love history, philosophy, psychology, but I love reading biographies. I'm reading the biography of a man called John Hume who started off as a local civic activist in Londonderry in the north of Northern Ireland and he then found himself over the decades involved in politics and then he was one of the few people who brokered the peace that came to Northern Ireland. But he started off in a very humble life where he created a thing called credit unions. They're not banks, they're where communities get together and lend each other money so they can set up businesses and get out of debt, and people like that inspired me, you know, um, there's something to be inspired by in absolutely everybody. So biographies are great. They allow me to be nosy and find those things that can inspire me beautiful.
Speaker 2:Where can people connect with you, ray, if they want to follow? Follow you, and you know are you. Do you work with people all over the world, or is it?
Speaker 3:people in colorado, south africa, norway. Um, so some of my therapy is by zoom and some of it is face to face. Um, my company is called green therapy and training no cliches here in ireland. Uh, so it's green therapy and training. But since that video you saw, um, I've been Ray McKim on Instagram and TikTok and just answering people's questions, grouping them together, talking about fear, talking about loss, talking about grief no magic, but just human to human. And so those are the three places that you will find us Instagram, ray McKim, same with TikTokok, and then green therapy and training.
Speaker 2:Wonderful, right, well, I really want to have you back on the show. I I've had such a lovely conversation with you. You might be getting email from me with a client inquiry, by the way, too, because it's not often I have a therapist on the show that I'm just like I really want to talk to this person about life, you know um, but you know, can I say it's been an honor for me, absolutely.
Speaker 3:You know, sometimes I meet people in life who are trying very hard to be something and then I meet these people like you, who are just authentically, genuinely themselves, and I know that I'll leave this call feeling more of me, feeling more creative and more possible because of you, and thank you for that likewise, the feeling is palpable, right and and equal on this side, and I can't say it any better.
Speaker 2:I feel like when I have conversations like this with people like you, when I get off of it, I feel more energized and, interestingly enough, talking about pain, I feel like I'm in less pain. I feel like myself again, which is a beautiful gift to be given what we're paying attention to.
Speaker 3:You know that's exactly it you know the the story, wallace, wasn't it? I can't remember the story exactly. You know, um chinese wise man has two students and and they go to him. And the student goes to him, rather, and it says to him there are these two dogs and in within me and they're fighting what will I him? And the student goes to him, rather, and he says to him there are these two dogs in within me and they're fighting, what will I do? And the wise master says well, the one you feed will win. And today you're feeding your soul, and it doesn't make your pain not real, but it gives you that little relief because actually we're not these bodies and legs that don't work, we're something else inside, carried around in this cage with flesh and bones.
Speaker 2:I wish people could realize all their dreams and wealth and fame so that they could see that it's not where you're going to find your sense of completion so that they could see that it's not where you're going to find your sense of completion. Everything you gain in life will rot and fall apart and all that will be left of you is what was in your heart, in your heart, in your heart. Thank you so much for tuning in to Star of the Eagle, feed the Soul. Please leave us a five-star written review on Apple and Spotify podcasts. It's a free way you can give back to the show and show your support and, as always, if you want to work with me one-on-one, head over to wwwnicoborazacom.