I had intense fear and panic because we were obviously crashing. Out of my heart came the
thought, oh god help, I'm going to die.
From the time that they pronounced me dead was a good 45 minutes.
It's determined that I was not breathing for 20 minutes.
They cut my clothes and then they paddled my heart, my heart had stopped. And I could
see people screaming and crying, but I didn't realise that was actually my physical body
because I was somewhere else.
By which you went to the past far, in the afternoon, by half past seven I was dead, clinically
dead, four minutes.
And they were crying because I was dead and I was trying to tell them no, I'm not dead,
I'm just fine, I'm okay.
I was greeted by people I'd known in the past.
I started to feel like I was surrounded by all this warm, loving, beautiful, soothing,
loving energy.
I'm back with God again. I just felt this all in my two breath of these, like, wow,
I'm back.
I'm back home again.
Incredibly safe and felt at home. I'd come back home. It was a very strong feeling that
I've come back home.
The only thing that I could feel, if you could imagine, absolute love and peace, there wasn't
anything else to be felt.
And light is literally emitting from him. And I could feel that that tremendous amount
of love was coming through him as well.
They were brighter than everybody else. And I just knew who they were.
Welcome to Roundtrip Death, everybody. And I'd like to welcome to the show today a very
special guest because we don't get celebrities very often.
Jason Rittington from Buckinghamshire in England. Oh, I hope I said that close.
Absolutely fine. Yeah, it's like Buckingham without the palace and then Shaw. Yeah, I'm
looking at Shaw.
Okay. Believe me, you're allowed to correct my American accent. It is.
No, no, no, I wouldn't dream of it. I wouldn't dream of it.
No offense here. For those that don't know Jason, I'm going to just read a couple of
things from his resume. It is long, long, long, long. He has been doing all kinds of
acting for years. You may have seen him in films like Death of an Author, Once Upon
a Time in London, Lucid, Motherhood, Weathering Heights, King Lear on TV, and things like
Doctors, EastEnders, Luther on stage, etc., etc. Jason, wow, it's an honor.
It's an honor to meet you. It really is. Thank you for having me on your show.
Now, of those things that I mentioned, do you happen to have any favorites?
I guess, yeah, Wuthering Heights would be probably my favorite for a few reasons. The
first is that was my first ever kind of gig. I was acting with Ray Fiennes and Juliet Benoche.
Juliet Benoche was really established even back then. I was kind of like, oh my goodness
me. I was kind of just given a real consumer lesson in film acting from Juliet Benoche.
It was also the time that I learned to ride. Riding is a really big part of my life. I
actually have a horse in common with Kevin Costner because I rode this white stallion
called Chico in Wuthering Heights. I was told to ride on Chico in Wuthering Heights by the
stunt coordinator, the riding stunt coordinator, Steve Dent. Steve had just finished filming
Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves with Kevin Costner. If you know the bit where my friend Brian
blesses in that movie with him as well, which is weird, but anyway, there's a bit where
he jumps on the back of this white horse, wax it with his sword, and then gallops off.
Well, that's Chico. I'm like, yay.
Wow. I like that. Do you want to tell us anything about who Jason really is, where you came
from, what you do when you're not acting?
You know, that's a hard question in a way because since my brain injury, that's a tough
one to really answer. I mean, I don't know about me and an acting now. I guess that's
why I've kind of gone full bell into the writing side of things because it's a creative outlet
and it allows me to have that kind of self-expression. But I struggled with so many things since
my brain injury.
All right. We're going to dive deeper into that in just a minute as a lead up to your
NDE. But let me tease your book right now. It's called Life, Death, Tai Chi, and Me.
And I think we're going to find out why in the next few minutes.
Yeah.
Okay. So tell us a little bit about what happened leading up to your near-death experience.
Did you have any indication before the actual day of?
Well, yes, I did, but I didn't think I had. I had basically, I'd been out cycling and
I've done lots of cycling in my life and I'd done lots of cycling up big mountains in
France. And I'd kind of had altitude sickness before from doing that kind of training. So
I was like, I thought that when I did this bit of cycling at home and I got this really
terrible headache and I was sick and all the rest of it, I thought, it's altitude sickness.
I'm fine. So if anybody's listening and that happens to you, oh, too, you are. Straight
away. It might be that it's altitude sickness, but equally, those are the telltale signs
of a brain hemorrhage that has ruptured. So there were signs, but unbeknown to me.
I cycle up a few mountains myself. I live in the mountains here in Utah. And I always feel
lousy at the top of a mountain. It's hard work. So what's the difference?
Tell me about it. Look, I went up this hill that we've got here called White Lip, right?
Now, if you've cycled up mountains or you follow the tour or whatever, I used to have
an apartment on the Colder Beesk. So I used to do the Colder Beesk, the Colder Salaw,
the Colder Maribelon, Colder Port-A-Lay, all in one hit. So for me, going up a big climb
in inverted commas in Buckinghamshire is kind of like nothing for someone who's done that
kind of cycling. Right. It's a little hill. How much vertical
is it? I couldn't say. It's nothing like the kind of ramp up that you get. Well, no, it
is. It's as steep as that, but it's just short, really, really short in comparison to a big
climb like the obese called the Port-A-Lay or something like that.
And knowing it's short, I'm guessing you push real hard.
Listen, I used to go up and down it five, 10 times just for training.
Yeah, you don't have to pace yourself. So just push and next thing you know, you've got a
great high intensity workout under your belt.
Absolutely. And that was what I was going to go and do. I kind of hit the gradient and
then I was, and this sounds sexist and it isn't sexist at all, but I was overtaken by a lady
rider who asked me what happens. I hate when that happens.
She asked me if I was okay and I was like, yeah, yeah, no, I'm fine. You know what I
mean? I was like, just going for this. I was thinking, what is, what's going on? What's
the matter? And I kind of felt okay. And then when I got to the top, I just, I really obviously
didn't look okay because people were saying, are you okay? And I was like, yeah, I'm fine.
I think, you know, my, my ego got the better. You know, I was like, yeah, no, no, I'm fine,
fine. So I took off down the slope, got to the bottom of it. And that's when I started,
did this horrendous headache and started throwing up. And I was like, okay, is, you know, I'm
just, I'm just not very well. That's why I couldn't do the climb very well. I'm just
not very well. My wife's a show jumper. So we've got horses, you know, so I was like,
I need to go and sort the boys out. So I went to the stables and I kind of fed the horses.
And again, I was, you know, it was, I felt ill, but I wasn't kind of like stopped in
my tracks ill. And I thought, okay, well, it's flat. I'll just, I'll just cycle back home
gently. And then, you know, take myself off to bed and try and try and get better. So
I did that. And I kind of felt a bit better. And then the rest is kind of murky phase,
the one that really knows the time scales of things. Apparently I, I, I took Phoebe
to school and drove back. And this isn't because I was, I was not in the right state to drive.
This is because I can't remember things clearly after the brain.
And it's okay to fill in with what Faye told you happened.
Well, she told me so I drove, so I drove Phoebe, Phoebe back, I came home, got out the car
and I, and I seemed completely fine. And then the next thing she heard was like a thud.
And then apparently I'd kind of collapsed on the floor. I'd hit my lip on the, on the
radiator. And I was out called she did CPR. Bless her the second time in her life that
she's had to do this. She did that. She had a partner who she had to do this with and
he didn't make it, you know. So she did CPR called the emergency services. And apparently
everybody arrived like air ambulance, everyone gave me an adrenaline shot, put me into some
kind of recovery. And then I was on my way to the hospital. And they put me in an induced
coma to wait for, I think it was at the weekend. So they wanted to make sure they had their
surgeons. They obviously stabilized me and everything. So they wanted to make sure that
they had their surgeons to deal with what they knew was a burst aneurysm. And, and you
know, I have no memory of it. That's all. It's, it's kind of insane really.
But you do have some memory, I believe of what happened in, was it in surgery or after where
you felt like you left your body? I didn't feel like I left my body and I have no idea
when it, whether it was in surgery or after, you know, I have no idea of what was actually
happening to me at the time. I just know that the experience that, that I had was, was very
visceral was like being in a, in a, in a place for an indeterminate kind of amount of time.
And there was no sensation of leaving my body or of, or of, or of being different to me.
So did this feel like just a regular dream or somehow different?
No, it was completely different because the first thing that was different was at the
start of it. Have you, have you ever had the, the falling dream?
Yes.
Okay. So you know, in the falling dream, you wake up and you've got that feeling in the
pit of your stomach. Yeah.
So I had the falling dream four times in rapid succession. And then I had this feeling in
the pit of my stomach. So the main sensation that I had was that feeling, the feeling of,
of, I've, I've just fallen. But unlike the dream, I was there. Next to me was to begin
with it was black all around me. Then it was kind of an, aic sort of white. And then I
somehow was looking to my side, but also above at the same time. And don't ask me how, but
that's kind of what the, what the visual image was. I wasn't seeing myself. I was literally
seeing through my eyes. It was happening to me. So I wasn't witnessing anything other
than I was, I was experiencing it. And then the person entity that was next to me was,
was kind of almost sort of cheerfully comic in the most surreal and bizarre way. Because
he had on this kind of, it's like, if you, if you were going to go to a fantasy dress
costume and you thought, well, I'm going to dress like a crow. And I'm going to look
like Robert Smith from the cure underneath this crow's outfit. That's kind of what you'd
look like, which sounds ridiculous. But there he was lying there. And I could see all the
details of like the little feathers on the, on the beak, because the beak had kind of
feathers to it. It wasn't a different color. It was black, had little feathers that wafted
in the wind. And then all of these big feathers, I couldn't really see it clearly. Couldn't
see the whole figure or the whole of the, the costume for one of a better word, but
it wasn't because it was, it was him. It's just the only way that I can describe it.
And he was kind of lying there with this, this countenance of like just a sort of semi
smile. So he was lying. He wasn't upright next to you.
Oh, he was lying horizontal, just lying there, floating.
This is interesting. So unusual for a near death experience. Keep going.
Tell me about it. I've Googled it. I've done everything possible. I can't figure it out.
So there he is, horizontally lying there, just kind of like with this expression of
fineness beneath this, this beak. And so I could only really see kind of his, his jaw
line and the, and the lips. So what happened then is, is all stuff to do with me. So I
kind of straightened myself up and he was still lying there. And I became aware of my
granddaughter, Layla, who was yet to be born. So the first time this happened was the 29th
of June, 2021. And Layla was born on 12th of July. So I became aware of, of, of Emily
and her. And I just said, no, I want to meet her. I didn't shout. I didn't scream. There
was no, there was no sense of conflict. There was no sense of panic or worry. But I heard
myself say it.
And you did say the word no. Does that mean, does that mean you were not going to come
back, but through this communication, whatever we want to call it, maybe you were allowed
to?
I genuinely don't know. I mean, I literally, I'm just saying verbatim what, what happened.
My interpretation of it, I don't know because I genuinely would be kind of, I guess, making
assertions that it meant this or it meant that or it meant the other. I don't know what it
meant. I equally don't know why in that, in that situation I started to then do the simplest
of Tai Chi, Chi Gong moves with him lying there. And now I'm kind of upright, floating,
doing this and I can see him sort of, I see my hands in front of me and then I can see
him in the background. I do this maybe four or five times, this simple Tai Chi move and
then boom, I'm back and Mr. Pujaro, who was one of the three brain surgeons I had. So
we, we nearly lost you. I guess what, I guess what I would say, I suppose one of the reasons
that I don't have a kind of interpretation of it is because it's so different to anything
that I'd kind of heard of before or thought of before that I'm just, I just kind of, I
let it, I let it sit where it is really. If someone had, you know, at that point, I guess
I would have been totally cool and fine and would have forgotten about it. I'd have put
it down to the medication, I'd have put it down to, you know, the surgery, I'd have put
it down to all of the, all of the stuff that was, that was going on except that what happened
with me is I had a, I had a raft of complications and I had a seizure and then on the 10th of
July, I experienced it again, identical down to the last millisecond, the exact same thing.
So it's because of that that I'm like, whoa, this, this is like, this is different. This
is, this is something that I can't put down to the chemicals or the, you know, this is,
this was like a massive, massive mammoth thing.
Yeah. These weren't dreams. These were real experiences. And Jason, it's only been two
years.
It's not even that. It was July. Yeah.
I mean, 21. Yeah.
It's been just under two years and you've had a lot of healing to do over that time.
Yeah.
With your, your brain and everything. You might find over the next few years that it comes
a little bit more clearly into view. In other words, you may be able to interpret it a little
bit or maybe not. You know, I don't know. And this show isn't about, you know, interpreting
these things for you, but just to find out what happened to you. But I have a feeling
you're going to understand it better as time goes on. Have you had a chance to talk to
other people that have had near death experiences?
Not really. No. The thing that I found is that people, people are quite reticent about
mortality. So no, it's not been something that I've kind of broached with people.
Yeah. Well, and times are changing. And I don't know how it is in England. I know how
it is here in the States. And that is that, you know, if you had an experience like this
30, 40, 50 years ago, people just thought you were crazy. But it's being much, much more
accepted now, not only by the general population, but also by the medical field.
Yeah.
They're realizing there is something happening because we're hearing this often. And these
people are not crazy. These people are completely lucid. They know what's going on.
Exactly. And I guess it's kind of like when people have asked me to explain it to them.
So imagine that, imagine there is a metro, right? And there's all these different stations,
say in New York or in London, right? And I don't know whether you've been to Piccadilly
Circus, let's say, or you've been to...
Yes, I have.
You have.
And I'm familiar with your underground.
All right. So supposing you've been to Piccadilly Circus. So you can picture Piccadilly Circus.
You can visualize Piccadilly Circus. So all of the things that you're thinking at the
moment, all of the thoughts that you're having, everything is framed within your physical
experience of having been to Piccadilly Circus. Now, my physical experience of this near-death
experience is the equivalent of you've never, let's say you've never been to Manchin House,
right? But you imagine now in your mind the Tube Station Manchin House and you're basing
it on Piccadilly Circus. But what if Manchin House was completely different outside of
what you have experienced? If it was an entirely different concept, you would still infer Piccadilly
Circus upon Manchin House, even if it's totally, totally, totally, completely and utterly outside
of that realm. And I guess one of the reasons I haven't really talked about it is because
it's very, very difficult to find words to express if going to Manchin House meant going
to a different realm of space and time and trusting me and believing me that that's what
would happen to you if you got out of Manchin House. It's a really difficult subject to
be able to speak about when you've actually experienced it because you would not accept
having been to Piccadilly Circus. You'd be, wait a second, Manchin House is not going
to differ that much from Piccadilly Circus. This guy is a lunatic. This guy is being ridiculous.
He's telling me that Manchin House is like, is this entirely different world? And I'm
saying, yes, Piccadilly Circus is dreams. Manchin House is a near-death experience.
They're completely miles apart in terms of what they are from my human experience. And
maybe that's why I've been reticent about talking about it until speaking to you, which
is a relief. It's so nice to be asked to talk about something that is so profound and so
life-changing to actually be encouraged and wanted to speak about it is in many ways a
relief.
Well, I'm glad. I want you to know that I believe you what you're telling me. And our
audience in our show is completely non-judgmental. We're not in this to say, oh, you're making
this up or something. I do a little bit of that before I put people on the show and they
don't get on if it doesn't seem real to me. But maybe that's not fair. But anyway, that's
besides the point. It's interesting what you were just saying. I think one of the things
that I have found in interviewing so many people that have had these experiences and
the fact that they are all different, one of the questions that constantly comes to
my mind, are they different because people are different? Are they different because
their spiritual experience just was different? Do we interpret it different? Are we presented
with something different? One of the conclusions I've come to is that people are put in a situation
that they're comfortable with. For example, some people that you would say are very religious
and pray a lot and all those kinds of things have experiences where they feel like they
were very close to God, not all of them, some of them. Some feel like they've even seen
and talked to Him. Others, it's more of a blur. It's more of a just a wonderful, loving
feeling and I saw lights and things like that. I don't know if it's because some people
are prepared for this and some people prepared for the other. And I have no idea at all why
you saw someone in a black crow kind of costume. That's very unusual and that doesn't mean
it's not real. And I don't know what it means. I think you'll figure that out someday because
why would you have been given this gift of this experience if it was never going to mean
anything to you? What's the point of that?
I certainly think that that figure has kind of had meaning to me since. At first, he was
a figure of terror. When I came home from the hospital and the security of the hospital,
just my wife and I trying to deal with this guy who's just barely able to kind of move.
I couldn't see, I couldn't hear very well. I had this kind of terror that what I'd experienced
was that when I said no, that I should have said yes, that he was there to kind of get
me. And so I had this whole thing where I thought to myself, he's going to come and
he's going to come and get me and everything is going to go wrong. So I got paranoid about
every single thing. Then I had this, I had this idea that, well, I'm going to have to
get used to this somehow. And I'm going to have to deal with this somehow. So I did this,
I did this, you do a lot of meditation in Tai Chi. And I thought, okay, I'm going to
meditate myself with him all night long. So I'm going to see myself do the whole of Tai
Chi to go all the way through with him. If he comes and he gets me and I don't survive,
then I don't survive. But if I do survive, then it's okay. He's not there to kind of
take me away. Now, the first thing is I had no idea whether that would, whether I'd be
able to do that, to kind of see myself with him. And I was pretty scared of doing it.
I was terrified of doing it. But I did. And I guess I was able to really kind of find a
way for us to sort of be friends in a weird kind of way.
Sort of like facing fear in other times in life.
Yeah, I guess.
You know, sometimes when we face it head on and go, okay, I'm afraid of this and I'm going
to do this anyway, then we gain all kinds of power from it.
Did you have an, would you say an unusual, unusually high fear of death before this experience
happened?
No.
Do you have less or more fear of death now?
I have zero fear of death now.
If I had a shilling for every time that someone has told me that on this show.
Really?
Yeah, I hear that every day.
Really?
Yeah. Yeah, the fear of death usually nearly always completely goes away after an experience
like this.
Totally gone.
Yeah.
Completely gone.
And that doesn't mean you want to die today. No, there's great things to live for. But when
it's my time, that's okay. I don't need to be afraid of it.
Yeah.
I did want to point out one thing. It seems like you came back for your granddaughter.
You really wanted to meet your soon to be born granddaughter, right?
Yes. And yes, I think so. But it wasn't like a massive, emotive thing. That's the bizarre
thing about it. It didn't contain, because people have said to me, oh, you fought for
your life. Like, who was I going to fight against? I did Tai Chi.
Yeah, fight is definitely the wrong word.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
And in terms of like all of the emotions that I was feeling, of course I wanted to meet
Layla. But I equally wanted to be there with everyone all kind of at the same time. I think
it's just, I just said it.
Yeah. Some people that have near death experiences are given a chance, their opportunity. Do you
want to stay there? Do you want to go back to your body? Some people are not given a
chance to make that decision. Of those that are given the opportunity to decide, quite
often the decision is based on, I just really feel like either I need to get back to someone
or I want so badly to get back to someone. And I just kind of feel like yours falls a
little bit into that category where, yeah, it wasn't a fight. This was a conscious, almost
discussion where it was like, I want to go meet Layla. So let's do that.
Possibly. But it wasn't that conscious. It wasn't that narrative. I just happened to
say it. But it was probably the most profoundly peaceful experiences I've ever had.
Can you describe that more? Profoundly peaceful. What else did you feel?
I felt like there was no kind of time. The thing I felt more than anything was this,
was the falling in the pit of my stomach. I had this physical, visceral feeling still
with me while all of this other stuff was going on, which I guess is the thing that
made it so absolutely kind of like real both times was that, you know, was preceded with
this falling backwards thing four times. And they were like proper, you know, the proper
falling treatment. It wasn't just like, oh, I'm closing back. It was like proper bang,
bang, bang, bang. Got your attention. That's for sure.
Yeah. And but I have no idea of the time it took. I've no idea of any of those kind of
qualities other than those were the events that I can pinpoint within the context of
that whole kind of experience.
So let's talk a little bit about what's happened since then. How has it changed your life?
I mean, physical trauma, but what else has happened?
I have a lot of difficulty with fitting back into society with my brain injury. You know,
people with brain injuries don't do well with background noise, fluorescent lighting. It's
over stimulation.
Yeah, everything is just all comes at once. Brain fatigue. I think it's I think it's made
me kind of quite feel I've described it as feeling like an alien being or in a foreign
land. It's very difficult to have those points of connection with with people. Those points
of understanding. I don't know whether it's because I don't have that sort of sense of
community anymore. I think that I've become really connected with with that realm and
with that place. And in a way, it's like sometimes the world of potential death or the world
of otherness is so much easier than our world. I think I've gained a lot of foresight into
like the human condition. I think that's what this experience has given me. See, I used
to I used to think I think like most of us think in very binary terms, good, bad, right,
wrong, black, white, life, death. But I think this has taught me that my experience of like
near death experience and people facing extreme things is that none of that is actually true.
What is really true is that we're we are, I believe we live on an astral plane, a spiritual
plane, and that everything that is contained within that astral plane, we have an indomitable
spirit to adapt and overcome. And that we therefore can create, we can build, we can
have the incredible medical science that saved my life and all of those aspects of life that
is so extraordinary and so unique to the to the to the human experience. It's also the
indomitable spirit is also the thing that makes war possible. The indomitable spirit
is the very thing that, you know, the greatest thing for us is the biggest thing against
us in many ways, I think. It made me aware of of people under those circumstances. Because
I think what tends to happen is people think, you know, this sort of stuff is what happens
to other people. And it's not. It's a cosmic blink away for every single one of us. It's
a cosmic blink. Not if but when this stuff happens. You realize that I don't have to
summon up the courage to overcome my fear that there is no fear instinct. There is no
flight instinct within human beings. We have an indomitable spirit. Our instinct is to
adapt and overcome. That's what we do. And that I think is what I've become like super
aware of since this experience is the and I feel sometimes like I just want to I just
want to get the world to listen to just say, look, if you could just understand that all
of this binary stuff is just stuff that you're being fed. Wars cannot be fought by people
that are overcoming an instinct. It's an impossibility. They can only be fought by people who actually
don't have that instinct, but you're made to believe all the time in the binary world,
not in the world that is the astral plane. I'll give you an example. So let's take your
microphone, for example, that's in front of you. So that microphone is in existence. There
it is. We you and I can both see that might we can touch it. We can feel it. Now for some
of that Mike's life, it existed on the astral plane. It existed in the mind of its creator.
It existed in the mind of the manufacturers. It existed as a design. It was then put together
and it became manifest. And that's what we do stuff that's in the astral plane. We create
we create whatever is kind of going on in that astral plane. And I think that the whole
coming back from that world, coming back from that place, coming back from wherever it was.
That made me realize that there wasn't anything special about me. You know, it wasn't that
I'm brave, although the people of Ukraine are brave or the people in hospital there
isn't bravery about it at all. It's just part of who we are to adapt to overcome to make
to create to believe in something. You have to believe in the microphone in order for it
to become a microphone. You've got to believe in it. If you have a thesis, you've got to
believe in the potential outcome of that that that thesis. When I think about the black
and white way of thinking that is required in order to get a kind of tribalistic reaction
in people to control people, I just get a profound sense that it's so far removed from
who we actually are and what we actually do.
And I just add something to that. And that is that who we actually are is so much more
than just what I'm seeing of you and you're seeing of me right here. Right?
Yeah.
There's more before, there's more after, there's more that we don't understand. There's
all kinds of more going on here. Okay, let me ask you a few other questions.
Yeah.
Based on the last just under two years now, how, you know, I feel like this has changed
you. Do you have interest in picking up your acting career again if you felt physically
and mentally able to do it? Or do you want to stick with writing and other things?
That's a really, really difficult question. The problem with picking up an acting career
is that it's like, yeah, if someone were to just hand it to me, then yeah, no problem.
But, you know, acting careers take a lot of fighting for and certainly in the moment,
I'm not recovered enough to
Take on that fight.
Yeah, or confident enough.
Right.
I mean, I would do to do that. Whereas with the writing, I mean, it's partly a good way
of dealing with insomnia, you know, but
Well, you can also do writing more on your own and at your own speed and pace.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, for me, that would be the coolest thing. You know, if this book
were to do well, you know, and I could then, because I've written a second book called
The Art of Letting Go. And if that could be made to work, then that would be an amazing
creative outlet. I don't think I would need the acting side of things.
Okay. How has what happened to you changed your relationships or has it with people that
you love, your family, for example?
I think it's been incredibly hard on my family, especially on Fay and my wife. You know, she's
always she's always worried about me. She's always got something to worry about. I mean,
I'm not in any way kind of out of the woods as far as brain injury is concerned. And,
you know, the ill effects of that. I mean, I'm sure you can hear I struggle formulating
words sometimes I struggle, you know, with what it is I'm trying to express. Just going
to the supermarket is like a nightmare sometimes.
Making decisions. Are they difficult?
It's just the physical thing. I literally I will just start crying and blubbering in
the middle of a supermarket and because it I'm overwhelmed.
Yeah. Have you been able to get back on your bike?
No, I got rid of it. I got rid of it completely. I've been like a Shaolin monk in terms of
Tai Chi.
Tell us about that. I see that you're teaching some how are you spreading goodness with Tai
Chi?
Yeah, I'm I'm I'm teaching Tai Chi twice a week. And I'm teaching in a local college
in Henley three days a week. And you know, I'm I'm I'm managing I'm managing it. And
the Tai Chi is is a lovely experience because I have these I have groups of people or I
have individual clients who come to me. And you know, they they really want to they really
want it. They really want to know about it.
It's great in a way because I'm just like the Tai Chi messenger. You know, it's just
literally like, come along and and follow me and and and and here we are. And this is
it. The difficulty I have is because my long term memory loss. You know, I don't remember
learning like I don't so much in my life. I don't remember. It's like being dropped into
a black ocean. So everything from the hospital until now, I remember with absolute clarity.
But from before the hospital, it's not very much. No, I think it's pretty amazing to have
written two books in less than two years since that traumatic of a brain injury.
Oh, thank you. Yeah, it's it was a lot of it was was my friend Brian Blassett, who was
like, you know, you're going to write this book. It's like, okay, Brian, yeah. And and
then I think a lot of it was a kind of therapy in a way to do with also being so heavily
involved with with with Tai Chi with with the doing of Tai Chi. You know, it's some
the doing of Tai Chi and the teaching of Tai Chi. It's become something that is like supremely
important and part of like a daily ritual almost this like this is this is who I am
now and if I if I don't do it, I won't be all right. I do it all the time.
Sounds like it's been very healing for you in many different ways.
I think so. You know, they I've been told by numerous kind of medics and so on, but
there's not many people that come back from the first thing that happened. And it's almost
always the second infection meningitis in my case and seizure and all of that. The virtually
nobody kind of comes back. Nobody survives it. And I guess I feel like it's been possibly
something to do with the residual physical strength of Tai Chi, possibly the residual
mental strength, although it doesn't feel like it often, but some but I guess the repetitive
nature has a real healing quality to it. Perhaps it helps with the reformation of neural pathways
that have been damaged because I had a lot to repair. I was blind in one I couldn't really
see couldn't hear had some paralysis I had, you know, various things I had to kind of
overcome. I think that I think there's a there's a fair group of people that feel that that
Tai Chi has had a very positive and influential effect upon that kind of healing. And I guess
the thing and I guess the you know, the thing about the book is that, you know, there was
a big part of me that wasn't going to include it at all. That I was just going to I was going
to talk about, I don't know, I mean, I wasn't going to write a book, I wasn't going to talk
about this. But it's been so there's been so many people. And Brian blessed was the
was the kind of biggest voice for this who said, But Jason, this is this is so helpful
to so many people. It's not just about coming back from where you've come back from. It's
such a helpful thing for people. And it's such a positive thing. And it's such a spiritual
thing. I guess I was persuaded to to share in that sense.
So if you could summarize the message of hope in that book into a very brief statement,
what would you say? I want our listeners to get something from all of this today. And
I know you have a message to share. What is it?
I guess I would say that the message of the of the book is that there are principles contained
within Tai Chi that I think connect with near death experience and connect with who we really
are deep down inside the kind of energy that drives us, the kind of people that we truly
are. My hope is that that that the book kind of unlocks that to an extent, the people will
kind of get those connections. And we'll sort of see from the book that it's it's a kind
of there is in in in practice is practical. I guess the other thing I would say is that
no belief is required in terms of what is Tai Chi. All you have to do is kind of just
do it. It's a physical, visceral experience that enables people to have a kind of meditative,
physical experience. I think there's a I think there's a big hour within that. And the potential
is for kind of everyone to experience to experience that to taste that that sort of hour is hard
to explain because it's connected to the near death experiences I had is connected to the
crow man and all of that. All right, last question. Yeah, tell me about Leila. Is this
your first grandchild? Yeah. All right. When we're done, we're going to compare grandkids
photos. Okay, we'll do that off air. How's Leila? Leila's great. Leila's doing brilliant.
Emily sent me a little video of Leila just chatting away. And yeah, she's fantastic.
All right. Thanks a lot for being on the show today, Jason. I appreciate it. Thank you.
And I apologize that I'm not perhaps as fast as I once would have been. You know, it seems
like we often speak before we think in this life. We have so much that we need to get
in or somebody's going to cut us off or something that I find it refreshing to watch your brain
go and think before you say something. I liked it. Oh, thank you. Thanks. That means a lot.
Thank you. Thanks again for listening and remember to share this podcast to be notified
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good that you're looking for in this life and the next.