Musical Healing #303

Pamela Florea:

We've known for centuries, since the beginning of time, how sound impacts a person's emotional well being. For instance, you think of Gregorian chant and churches and Tibetan monks chanting and Native American drumming, for instance. These are traditions that have been around for centuries.

Daniel Connor:

Thankfully, I've learned a lot about the brain, the science of the brain. The tumor was located in the left frontal lobe, which is where you get your executive functioning, your ability to plan, your ability to organize. Your right frontal lobe is where you get your creativity. And so I still have that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Love Maine radio show number 303, Musical Healing, airing for the first time on Sunday, July 9, 2017. Music is part of our celebrations and our inspiration. It can serve as a means of commonality between humans. It can also heal. Today we speak with Pamela Floria, a psychotherapist who integrates sound into the modality she offers her clients. And in order to help them break cycles of physical, emotional and spiritual suffering, we also have a conversation with Maine singer songwriter Dan Connor, who has returned to his music as a way of returning to health after having surgery for a brain tumor in 2012. Thank you for joining us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

who has been in the nursing profession for more than 40 years and has a private practice in Freeport. Over the past two decades, she has worked as an intuitive energy psychotherapist, integrating sound and color healing with traditional talk therapy. Thanks for coming in today.

Pamela Florea:

Oh, thanks for having me, Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'm very interested in what you do because there are a lot of people out there who are trying to make changes in their lives, which is not easy, and you're giving them a new way to do that.

Pamela Florea:

I think that's Pretty accurate, yes. My practice sort of integrates the principles of energy medicine. So working with the human energy field, working with the meridians, the chakras, person's auric field, to work at balancing and creating harmony in the physical body, as well as employing traditional therapeutic interventions like cognitive behavioral therapy, for instance. So a session kind of combines both, so it's very holistic.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you came at this after having been in a pretty straightforward nursing field for probably at least half the time you've been in nursing.

Pamela Florea:

Yes, exactly. I have been in various clinical settings, hospital settings, and. But I've always, even though I've worked out of nursing school, I worked neonatal intensive care, for instance, and very aware, even early on in my nursing profession, that I always had an interest in the alternative, always interested in what other things we were doing. For instance, in neonatal intensive care, being aware of how the premature babies in the isolates needed to be held, they needed to be touched, and aware that we would pipe in music into the isolettes and the incubators, which, you know, made them calm down and affected their growth rates, you know. And so even though I was in very traditional settings, you know, working in the operating room, you know, allowing people to have headphones and, you know, be able to listen to music would have an overall impact on the recovery time, you know, for instance, so very aware throughout the 40 years. But then in the last 20 years is when I really kind of came into my groove and I would say found my passion being able to really integrate sound healing into, you know, a private practice, because I had gone back at that point, being able to be out on my own and independent, you know, from working in institutions. So I started incorporating sound healing for one, which is a really fascinating discipline to incorporate with traditional therapy. It's amazing to see the progress and see people move through difficult transitions in their life more smoothly with introducing sound. For instance,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

if I was going to come see you for sound healing therapy, what types of things might I be interested in dealing with? Well,

Pamela Florea:

I'll use the example of somebody who might be dealing with anxiety or who has a trauma history, for instance, and has some PTSD or chronic anxiety. My goal would be, first of all, using some cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness, stress reduction kind of techniques to get them comfortable in their body and feeling, teaching them ways to elicit a relaxation response in the body, like Herbert Benson's work with his cardiac patients. This is just basic as being able to provide an antidote for the. The fight or flight response. So a lot of people who experience trauma, for instance, are not comfortable in their bodies at all. So there will be part, you know, talking through that sort of thing, giving them guided visualization exercises to do at home. But then they would get on the table and I might use tuning forks on the meridians, for instance. I might use my hoop drum to really ground them and center them in their body. I have crystal singing bowls. I have different instruments of sound. And it's all about working with the energy and being able to balance and shift. And it provides a tonic to the nervous system. And not only that, there's a whole branch of medicine now called psychoacoustic. And although that term may be new for some people to hear, we've known for centuries, since the beginning of time, how sound impacts a person's emotional well being. For instance, you think of Gregorian chance and churches and Tibetan monks chanting and Native American drumming, for instance. These are traditions that have been around for centuries. But now in more modern medicine, what we're doing is through the use of imaging, you know, PET scans and EEGs, you know, we're noticing how it impacts the brain waves and, and how it impacts a person's neurochemistry. So it actually has an impact on producing more serotonin, which, you know, of course, is the neurochemical that influences mood and sleep and, you know, managing pain. And so there's actually changes going on, you know, on a cellular level. So it's a combination of various modalities that I would use.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you're doing things that kind of go across the spectrum. Everything from cognitive, behavioral, which is more of a standard psychotherapeutic practice, to things that have been going on for a long time, centuries, but just haven't necessarily been incorporated previously into the type of practice that we've been offering patients. So why sound? There are so, you know, we have various senses, and some people are really a lot more impacted by something visual. I know that we've talked to people who do light training, for example, but for you, sound was important. Why is that?

Pamela Florea:

It's basic, you know, to. We know that, you know, I'm thinking of, you know, you could be in your car and listen to, you know, a song on the radio, and it just can completely make you smile and relax and, you know, just shift your mood from this, you know, difficult day at work. It's accessible to everyone on every level. Even if it's just, you know, listening to, like I say, a song on the radio. You don't have to go to a sound healer to feel impacted. So it's, It's. I think it's just because it's so profound. And I, I know of so many integrative doctors that, you know, like the late Mitch Gaynor, I mean, he. With his oncology patients in particular. So I'm. I'm just fascinated by that. And also color, the. The frequency of color and how color influences our mood too. So I've personally experienced the healing benefits of sound. And because I, you know, was personally impacted by that, you know, I think that makes it, you know, I'm more passionate about it. I guess that would help answer the question.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So was there a turning point where you were. I don't know where you were, were lying on a table yourself and somebody was doing something with sound and you felt just so profoundly moved that you realized this is something that you needed to learn more about?

Pamela Florea:

Well, I did. I grew up in a big Catholic alcoholic family. So there was. I experienced a lot of chaos, a lot of dysfunction, a lot of trauma, I guess you would say, as a kid. So I was very open to being able to. And how that, you know, created stress in my own body and, you know, in my. As I was approaching adulthood and just wanting to deal with some of that. And so I kind of experimented around with different modalities. And I went over and did some training in France, learning how to use tuning forks on the meridians. And they had these huge instruments of sound that you would sit in and then the sound would just reverberate through your whole entire being. And I just, I felt tremendous purging from that experience. So I guess that's what would come to mind is that I. I just felt I had cleared out a lot of emotional baggage and really was able to shift some perspectives and understanding about moving through things and how I could help other people be able to shift and move forward and instill hope and, you know, that you can kind of overcome anything really.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it's interesting as you're talking about the chaos of a large family, because I, as, you know, I'm the oldest of 10 children, so. And my family was as functional as a 10 child family can be.

Pamela Florea:

I think it wasn't.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We didn't have some of the bigger issues that other families struggle with, but it was chaotic. I mean, there definitely was a lot going on. And for myself in my own life, I actually have. I found myself gravitating towards silence, probably as a result of early on being kind of impacted by all of the stuff, none of which was really bad. It was just very Normal. But I think there is something really formative about being in a household that has a certain level of whatever noise there is.

Pamela Florea:

Yeah, same. Totally relate to that experience. You know, I'm particularly interested in, like, back in the mid-90s, the CDC had done ACE study, they called it, and it's with Kaiser Permanent. And it was a study done with like, I don't know, 15 to 20,000 people. And it was measuring, looking at adverse childhood experiences and seeing the correlation between adult illness.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So.

Pamela Florea:

So those early experiences and what they call adverse child experience doesn't have to be like the acute trauma that we're. That it doesn't necessarily have to be like abuse of some kind. It can be the chaos you're describing growing up in just a huge family where there's only so much time that parents have to devote to kids. It can be a depressed parent. It can be financial strain, of course, loss of death or illness, a parent that's chronically ill. But the interesting thing is that I'm really interested in making this connection, and this is where I feel like I can be a bridge is the early experiences in childhood like that, where there's kind of a chronic, you know, like, relentless sort of stress. It sets the nervous system in a way that's like fight or flight, you know, chronically. And what we're seeing in adults is a lot of inflammatory kind of chronic illness because of the surge in cortisol levels. They are more prone to autoimmunity, cancer, heart disease, you know, all the major obesity, you know, and then, you know, of course, diabetes and even looking at addiction, you know, ways that adults cope. And so I think there's a huge opportunity or an educational piece as part of prevent, you know, preventive medicine, because we're not hearing about this, you know, in med, students are not learning about being able to make that connection and be able to ask the right questions. Because, you know, quite often, especially in the, you know, primary care setting right now, the way managed care is set up and the, you know, these limited visits, people aren't sharing these things with their physician and they're just dealing with what they. Nobody's making the connection or asking questions about what your childhood was like. It's just sort of not time for that. But there certainly needs to be more education or even have it be part of the intake or the questionnaires for your annual examination. I think that that's a huge gap that I think we need to look at because it's, you know, since that study was done in the mid-90s, there have been, you know, thousands more that are supporting this evidence. And, you know, these people are still being followed from that original study. And oftentimes it doesn't even have to be a big, you know, just, just for somebody to make that connection. For your physician to make that connection and to maybe recommend that you go see someone to talk about it or to have somebody, you know, who may be working energetically with them is oftentimes a relief. And it may be the first time in their life that they've ever shared, you know, their experience or thought that it might even be relevant, you know, so I think we, you know, it's just an educational opportunity, I think.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you think that the reason that

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

we don't always think to ask about people's childhood experiences is because we're not really sure how we could possibly impact them?

Pamela Florea:

Well, again, I think that. And you could speak to this too. I mean, when you went through your training, you know, it's an area of discomfort because if somebody opens up and shares, you know, something about their childhood, you know, you have to be equipped with being able to offer resources, you know, out in the community or be able to, you know, I think that I used to work for Big Group Medical Practice in Portland and opened a behavioral health department there for the first time. And I think that's a real need too, is being able to integrate behavioral health into the primary care setting to be able to keep track of those clients instead of them going out into the community. You lose track of whether they actually followed up on anything, whether they're getting some help. And so, you know, I think part of it is not knowing what to do with the information then is my guess.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Now we've been talking about dealing with dysfunction, but I remember you and I, we knew each other through delivering babies together when I was a resident, right. And you were one of the nurses who, who always made sure that the lights were low, always made sure that all the beeping loud things were kind of turned down, obviously taking care of the patient, but being aware that this was a small, fragile baby being born into the world and the mother that was doing a lot of work. So are there preventive things that we can be doing? Are there things that we can be incorporating into our lives energetically or sound wise that can be helpful?

Pamela Florea:

I think that the time honored traditions of energy medicine, which incorporate all the eastern philosophies with yoga, tai chi, qigong, acupuncture, any kind of moving the physical, physical body, even just getting out and walking in nature. So, you know, being aware of our energy bodies and being able to, you know, work with that. And, you know, qigong and tai chi are wonderful ways of on your own and yoga, being able to shift and move energy in the body. I mean, you don't have to go to a sound healer to have an impact with moving energy in your body. So I think, yeah, getting out and being able to walk in nature is a wonderful tonic to the nervous system and. Or just sitting in nature, you know, being able to de. Stress.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And what you're talking about with tai chi, qigong, acupuncture, you're talking about the use of meridians in a slightly different way. You've been talking about previously using sound to activate, I guess, the meridians that are used traditionally in Chinese medicine. So it's the same. You're just using them in a different way.

Pamela Florea:

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Another, when you talk about things that people can do on their own, you know, for, for instance, you know, chronic stress, worry, anxiety, pretty much, you know, it exists in your. Your left part of your brain is more of the worrying mind, you know, the, the one that's ruminating and constantly, you know, just fretting about life. And the more things that you can do to activate your right brain, which involves all this movement I'm talking about. But in addition. So dance, singing, for instance, being in the car and singing activates the creative brain. And for instance, it's impossible to sort of sing and worry at the same time. So the more ways that you can incorporate more. More joy, more laughter, you know, being able to sort of counteract that, you know, left, left brain that wants to be in a chronic state of worry. So with my clients, I'm often recommending more play and more fun and more pleasure in their life. You know, how can they incorporate, you know, dance. How can they incorporate, you know, and make. Make sure that they're moving their bodies, you know, that's a way of keeping. Keeping everything in balance.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What I wonder is we've spent a lot more time focusing on physician and provider wellness. Not just physicians, but all healthcare providers and their wellness, which is a conversation that we weren't even having 20 years ago. And partially it's because we've had more providers across the board feeling the chronic stress of things being ramped up, shorter time frames with patients and more productivity and quality goals that need to be met, all of which are very legitimate. But it does increase a certain amount of stress, which is leading to provider breakdown. So I wonder if the more providers themselves See that they need to come back to a place of balance in a healthier way. The more the types of things that you are doing will become embraced.

Pamela Florea:

Do you think it's reaching that point?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it's.

Pamela Florea:

In your experience.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think we're still talking about provider wellness at this point. I don't know how much we're actually doing about it. I think it's a little bit like the crisis that people have to get to the places of crisis before anybody recognizes it. And then they're still considered the outliers. So I would love to say yes, it's so much better. I think we're still working on it. I don't think we've gotten to a place of prevention quite yet.

Pamela Florea:

I think some things have changed. If you think about the on call schedule, for instance, in residencies and all of that, that seems to be improving and certainly more realistic. I know having worked in the hospitals during the time when I worked there, you know, the demands and the rigors of, you know, the physicians who were on call were just over the top and you know, you had a lot of sleep deprived physicians that were, you know, having to, you know, function the next day. And it's part of the reason why I didn't go into, I had contemplated midwifery instead of becoming a psychiatric pediatric clinical nurse specialist because I, you know, it was, it was whether or not I, I wanted to have that kind of on call schedule and all of that. So it was kind of a quality of life decision. But I think we have to look at what is going well and what has changed. And you know, there's an awareness there that, that, you know, it's an overall system that needs to change, you know, how we approach medicine. And you know, and a lot of it is just a time management thing. You know, it's a lack of time to really properly address the preventive kind of piece of medicine that is so needed. And I think maybe, you know, like in Maine here, the crisis with the opioid addiction, that is a direct correlation to how our society, you know, is dealing with stress with, you know, what I was talking about earlier with the adverse childhood experience, that's how we cope as adults. You know, do we turn to alcohol, do we turn to, you know, drugs? And so that's reaching, you know, an epidemic proportion. So things like that may help us look at how we can deal with, you know, the bigger issues in a broader way. Because it is about, you know, the drugs, but it's, it's about what is underneath you know, what is underneath there that. That is not being treated that properly, you know, so I'm not an expert. I don't have the answer for all of that. But I, you know, so I see. I see a path and it's. However winding it is, I think that we'll hopefully be able to get there. But I do think it needs to be. There need to be classes in med school about this. I think they need to start talking more about prevention and not just treating symptoms and, you know, looking at. Looking at the whole person.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I agree. And as the mother of a child who's starting med school this summer, I really hope they start these classes soon because I want my kid to come out on the other side to not only be a good doctor, but also to be psychologically and emotionally whole, because that will make him a better doctor and a better human being. And I think absolutely all of these things that we're talking about, from your lips to God or the Creator, to the ears of the greater energy, I guess. I've been speaking with Pamela Floria, who has been in the nursing profession for more than 40 years and has a private practice in Freeport. Over the past two decades, she has worked as an intuitive energy psychotherapist, integrating sound and color healing with traditional talk therapy. Thanks for coming in today.

Pamela Florea:

Oh, this was great. Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It is my pleasure to have in the studio with me Dan Connor, who has been an integral part of me music community over the last two decades. Prior to focusing on his solo career, Dan was the singer and songwriter for the band gypsy tailwind. In June 2012, he suffered a seizure and doctors found a brain tumor the size of a peach. After a year of recovery, Dan was again able to drive a car and took a job as a taxi driver. He has since begun playing his instruments in songwriting and recording again, and he released a new single in April. Thanks for coming in.

Daniel Connor:

Thanks for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think I would have to correct this bio. Maine's music community over the last two decades. I have known you as a musician since we were both in high school at Yarmouth High School.

Daniel Connor:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That's a few more than two decades ago.

[Unidentified voice]:

Yeah.

Daniel Connor:

That might be three or more. Three and a half.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah. Who's Counting, really, But yeah. You've been doing this a long time.

Daniel Connor:

I have, Yes, I have.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah.

Daniel Connor:

Yeah. It's kind of kept me alive, though, I think, somehow.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah. Well, I was very shocked to hear about this. This brain tumor.

Daniel Connor:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I mean, that's crazy, because I had known you kind of in high school and then more recently, and then you went through this big, big thing. So I guess I want to learn more about that.

Daniel Connor:

Well, it was a shock to me as well. I. Geez. I was at Old Port Fest. It was the day of Old Port Festival. I was out with my dog. Beautiful day. Had just recently started dating this girl. And that night we hung out, and I decided to stay at her place. And you know what's crazy is we had talked about seizures. She had talked about she had had a seizure, and I had said, my mom's epileptic, and I have epilepsy in my family. And about 2 in the morning, I had a seizure at her house. And of course, she. At first, she thought I was kidding and, you know, making it up or faking it. And then she realized that that wasn't the case. She's a blessing in that. She's a trauma nurse at Maine Medical center. And so she knew right away, and she woke me up, and I came out of it, and she said, you just had a seizure. And of course I thought she was joking because we had talked about it, which I found kind of odd, that of all things, we had been talking about seizures. And then I knew it had happened. And she put me in her car and brought me to Mercy. I had a CAT scan. They found something on that scan. They then brought me to Maine Med and put me in an mri. And I came to the following morning, opened my eyes in a hospital room at Mainmed, and there's this tall, lanky guy sitting at the end of my bed. And I looked around, I saw all my family members, and I thought to myself, what's going on? And he said, do you have a brain tumor? And I thought, oh, this can't be true. I must be dreaming. And the following morning, I was in emergency surgery to have it removed. And thank God I had that seizure, had I not. The tumor was advancing and, you know, could have been fatal. And I was saved. Really. It's ongoing. It's called an oligodendroglioma. Say that one 10 times fast and wow, it's something that I'll have to deal with for the rest of my life. It's not thought to be curable, but it's manageable. Like chronic illness is the way they like to put it. Although it's cancer, they just look at it like any chronic illness. Have to have MRIs every six months. That's always nerve wracking. But, you know, I can have treatment, more surgery. They can manage it, I think, for a long time, which I'm lucky. If you can have a brain tumor, you'll want to have an oligo because it's slower growing and more manageable. So it's not a great thing to deal with, but it's in some ways a blessing to me in that it put a lot of things in perspective, what's important. And yeah, so here I am, alive, doing well and feeling pretty darn good, aside from the seizure medication, which is yucky, but that's okay. I'll deal with it. Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Before you had the seizure, there was no indication that anything was going on for you?

Daniel Connor:

Well, in looking back, my behavior had changed pretty significantly over the prior three or four years. I was provocative, risk taking, bursts of anger, just things that were out of character for me. Of course, to me at the time, I. I didn't notice it, but a lot of other people did, and I can't blame it all on that. Right. But a lot of behavioral changes, lack of follow up, follow through, a lot of things went haywire. I got fired by my own band and. And then that happened and they had it removed and the recovery was long and tough. But I think ultimately I'm better, I feel better. My brain's working a lot better without that big, you know, tumor pressing on all the adjacent areas.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, that's a good size for a tumor to be.

Daniel Connor:

Yeah, it was. My doc said it was maybe the biggest one he had ever removed and he does a lot of those. But, you know, the way I look at it is I'm strong to have a tumor that large and not have it be found earlier. So ultimately it's a blessing. It's hard to look at it that way all the time, but I'm here. I think it's really inspired me to work harder at music knowing that life can be very short and at any moment you can lose your life. And that goes for anybody. So about a year and a half to two years maybe after I started to recover, get my thoughts back, be able to use my words, and I started writing and playing and recording on my own. And yeah, so here I am five years later. Coming right up will be my anniversary. They don't call it remission with primary brain tumors. They call it stable. So the tumor is stable. And I'm really happy about that, actually. So

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

you have a daughter who is starting high school next year.

Daniel Connor:

Grace.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This must have been really difficult for her.

Daniel Connor:

It was. And we didn't let her know because, you know, she was eight and a half, you know, so it was. I don't know how her mom and my mother put it to her because I don't have a lot of memory of the whole time period. But just over this last year or so, we've kind of clued her in as to what's going on and. And let her know that, you know, your dad has a. An illness and he goes for MRIs and it's brain cancer, and he's. He's gonna be okay. But, you know, it's. It's important to understand it and to know so that if something goes wrong quickly, it won't be a total shock to her. So she's been clued in, and she's strong. She's a tough kid. And she's a hell of a musician, by the way. Multi instrumentalist. Records her own songs, plays guitar. Horn. Piano. And I'm not so sure if there's enough room for both of us in this town, but it makes me really happy. I must have done something right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I would think that as someone whose primary interest in life is being creative, to have something like a tumor in the brain must have been really deeply

Daniel Connor:

unsettling, you know, it was. Thankfully, I've learned a lot about the brain, the science of the brain. The tumor was located in the left frontal lobe, which is where you get your executive functioning, your ability to plan, your ability to organize. Your right frontal lobe and prefrontal cortex is where you get your creativity. And so I still have that part of me, and maybe more without the left frontal lobe dragging it down into trying to overthink or over plan. I feel like maybe it's allowed me to just flow creatively. But planning is still tough. I have help from a very important person in my life, Gretchen, who helps me plan and record and takes care of the, you know, web things and the Facebook and all the social media platforms, is also pretty darn talented engineer. So she kind of holds it together on that side. She plays left frontal lobe in my band, I suppose.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it sounds like even absent a tumor, it's good to have somebody who can compliment you. Well, regardless, it is.

Daniel Connor:

It's good to have someone who understands, you know, and knows the limitations. Memory, things like that, you know, the ability to remember and schedule and things like that are difficult. And, you know, the iPhone isn't always the best way to do that. You know, sometimes I enter appointments and things and I think to myself, well, why didn't it pop right? So, you know, using a calendar, things like that. You know, I was kidding with someone here at the office, Chris, about

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

he

Daniel Connor:

had had a stroke and I was asking him, is that why all the ink is all over his palms? So, yeah, it's really important to have that support. It's critical. Without it, things don't go very well.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Given that, as you said, you were fired by your own man, did you have the opportunity to go back and talk to people from Gypsy Tailwind and other parts of your life to say, hey, this is what happened to me?

Daniel Connor:

Yeah, I mean, I was half joking when I said fired. They just decided that I was just too crazy. And that's the truth. And I still feel badly about that. And you can't always blame that on a head injury or brain injury, you know, so. But I have been able to go back and talk that through with them. And I can remember when I was being wheeled on a gurney, I guess, from my room, my hospital room, towards the surgery room, and I was kind of half out of it, but all of them came running through the hall and sort of escorted me to the surgery room. And that says a lot about those guys. They're incredible people. They, you know, really, they made the band. Although I was the primary songwriter, none of that would have happened without all of them, you know, and I understand it and made peace with it and I've made peace with them and. And that feels good for everyone. I think it's really important to heal. There were a lot of wounds that I created and I look back and I feel badly about it. Some of it was me, maybe some of it was having a tumor, but that's been healed and that feels good.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

After a year of recovery, you were able to drive again and became a taxi driver.

Daniel Connor:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Which probably wasn't something you had thought about doing for a job prior to that time.

Daniel Connor:

No, I hadn't, you know, and I never thought I'd be a taxi driver. I had a friend that did taxi driving and said, you know, hey, maybe you ought to check it out. I can get you sort of an interview or a job maybe, you know, driving for a local taxi company. And I thought, eh, I don't know. But then I thought, well, maybe, why not? You know, it's something different. So I got in a cab and I was early on in my Recovery. So my memory wasn't great and my ability to remember directions was not healed completely. But they knew, they were aware of my condition and that I had had surgery. And so the funniest thing is the first day they put me on the road in a Cab, it was St. Patrick's Day, the busiest day of the year. And I had had minimal training and you know, you're working on a radio with rough and tough dispatchers and, and they put me in a cab and, and I needed to go fill it with gas. I drove it up the road to the Big Apple, pulled it up to the pump, had to lock the cab because you never leave your cab open. I lock the cab, put the nozzle in to fill it up, went in and paid, came out. Oh, I've locked the keys in my cab. First day on the road, went in, had the store called the store, had to call because my cell phone was in the cab. Now I'm absolutely. My heart's racing a million miles an hour. And so they call down, they say, one of your cab drivers locked his keys in his cab at our pump and they had to send another guy up with a backup set of keys. Open it now. You got two cabs off the road on the busiest day of the year. I finally get back in my cab, I book in, which is, hey, I'm back on the road. This is cab, whatever number. And the dispatcher said, oh great. A rookie cab driver locking his keys in his cab on his first day on the busiest day of the year. And every cab driver hears this. Well, and that started that. So what was amazing about cab driving is I actually really enjoyed, really helped me recover. It helped me with memory tasks, following instruction, directions, remembering to pick people up when they gave me a job, having conversations with, you know, passengers, sort of practicing, conversing, if you will, with people that I didn't really know. So it was good in that way. It was sort of anonymous and safe for me. So, you know, after a couple years, I become really good at driving a cabin. And then I suffered another seizure. And my neurologist said, yeah, pretty much cab driving is over for you. And I said, oh, well, it was a good two year run. And that was my best form of rehab. To rehab my brain. It was pretty incredible. Wasn't necessarily by choice, but in looking back, I really improved significantly over that period of time. And you know, during that time I became inspired and really started thinking about music, playing my instruments, taking my recording gear at home out of a box, that it had been Sitting in and where I was living, had an old woodshed out back that I sort of converted into a. A makeshift studio and. And started. Started doing it again and. And. And really found the love and. And really worked my. My butt off, so to speak, to. To, you know, create songs that are real. And, uh, I'm feeling pretty. Pretty good about it, actually, at this point, which is nice. I don't know what I'd do without it. I don't know that I'd be who I am today without it. It's. I'd be. Be a different person, you know, There was a time I thought I would, you know, just give it up and that I couldn't do it anymore. But giving up music is. It's not something I can do. I've tried. Can't do it. So here I am back at it again, recording songs and putting them out. And that feels amazing to me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think about people in music and I know that, for example, Spencer. I'll be our sound engineer. He is roughly our age, a little bit younger, and he's just released his 20th album. That's a lot of work over many, many years. And what you're describing is kind of continuing that work. Continuing something that is just. It's a process. You keep showing up, you keep being creative, you keep doing the work.

Daniel Connor:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And it seems to me that you'd really have to balance out what the energy is required to do that.

Daniel Connor:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

With the love that you have for this music and what you can give.

Daniel Connor:

Right. There are times when it's difficult. You know, I have a lot of days where I don't feel good. And they warned me about that. Said, you won't feel good all the time. My brain is constantly changing. It's healing. Scar tissue is growing from the surgery. There's tumor there that's growing slowly. They can't actually see it, but they warned me about that. So, yeah, there is a balance, you know. What I really love about it, however, is the process of doing it. And that's what I've sort of figured out. It's not necessarily the end result. It's the getting there that I've really learned to love. It frustrates people, I'm sure, because by the time I'm done with a song and recorded, I've done it so much that I've moved on. And my whole thing is, yeah, that song is cool, but you gotta hear all this new stuff. And of course, they're just hearing the things that I've recorded and put out for the first time. Well, I don't want to say I'm necessarily bored with that. It's more about. I want to continue the process of doing it and seeing what happens. That's where the real love is, doing it. There is no end for me, I hope.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Dan, we're going to leave the show with a song that you have written and performed. Tell me about that.

Daniel Connor:

Well, you know, I really started to think about when I was told of my tumor and of my illness and what that felt like, and, you know, I sat and thought and wrote and journaled thoughts about it and what came out in terms of the lyrical content and the whole sound was a sort of analogy or comparison of a. Of a person who's a prisoner that's escaped or that's trying to escape. And. And that I really felt as though I was in jail. And so it's story of a person who, you know, hides out in a woodshed, which is where I worked, where my studio was. And in the morning, they went on the run, and they were found in a hotel room hiding out because they were playing the blues too loud. And they were. Somebody called the front desk and the cops showed up, and the cops arrested me and said, son, you better come with me. I'm going to take you out and set you free. And the police sort of drove me, and this is sort of my surgeon. Right. I'm going to set you free. And they drove me to the desert and set me free and said, if you survive the desert through the night with no clothes, no water, you deserve to be free. And, you know, I. In the morning, I woke to extreme temperatures after a long night, shivering and being cold, and got out of the desert and started hitchhiking and was picked up by an old man who drove me to the sea, and I threw a bottle with a message home and stripped myself of those prison clothes. And so that's sort of the analogy of what I've been through from the eyes of a. Of a prisoner. And that is set free and makes it and survives.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I'm sure people are going to enjoy this song and certainly extremely appreciative of the fact that you have made it through all of this and you have been set free.

Daniel Connor:

Yeah. You know, I hope it's inspiring to people who, you know, have everyday struggles and wonder if they can make it through whether they have an illness or not. Life is hard, but if I can help as an example of just, you know, persistence, not giving up, I hope it inspires people.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We've been speaking with Dan Connor, who has been an integral part of Maine's music community for at least the last two decades, probably more, and we will continue to look for music from you and really wish you all the best and thank you for still being here with us.

Daniel Connor:

Thanks for having me. It's nice to be here.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have been listening to Love Maine Radio show show number 303, musical healing. Our guests have included Pamela Floria and Dan Connor. For a preview of each week's show, sign up for our E newsletter and like our LoveMain Radio Facebook page, follow me on Twitter is DRLISA and see our LoveMain Radio photos on Instagram. We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of Love Maine Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Lovemain radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Musical Healing show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.

[Unidentified voice]:

Not ready to give up the fight and play possum for another night I'll be not behind the worship Tomorrow morning I will go ahead I'm walking in the midnight sun My skin smoking and I'm on the run the cold water comes down to fe another mile to lay a decree Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. I roll the river to the nearest town I check myself into a chief motel Sang a bruise until somebody that tell the stories of a thousand tears man come and knock it on my door Blue lights and I was on the floor he said son you better come with me I'm gonna take you

Daniel Connor:

out and set you free.

[Unidentified voice]:

To the desert it was cold at night I shiver shiver to the morning light sun rising 105 degrees One more thing that brought me to my knees Hitchhiken never felt so free oh man he drove me to the sea I threw a bottle with a message home Shook the set out of my prison clothes. Whoa, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Pamela Florea:

It.

[Unidentified voice]:

Sa.