Love Lives - Celebrity psychic Chris Riley shares what a reading could do for your relationship

Episode Date: October 28, 2022

This week, we’re thrilled to be joined by celebrity psychic Chris Riley who explains what a psychic reading could mean for your love life.Having first experienced psychic abilities when he encountered his grandad’s spirit as a child, Chris now helps people with everything from their relationships and careers, to communicating with loved ones after they pass.We talk with Chris about why some may choose to seek guidance from a psychic or medium rather than a conventional therapist and how this can help people with their romantic relationships.Chris shares his own psychic predictions and even gives Millennial Love’s own Olivia Petter a reading on her love life.Check out Millennial Love on all major podcast platforms and Independent TV, and keep up to date @Millennial_Love on Instagram and TikTok.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Where can I get help hiring people with disabilities? There are hundreds of thousands of Canadians with disabilities who are ready to work. And many local organizations are available to help you find qualified candidates and make your workplace more accessible and inclusive. Visit Canada.ca slash right here to connect with one near you today. A message from the Government of Canada. Hello and welcome to Millennial Love, a podcast from The Independent on everything to do with love, sexuality, identity and more. This week I am so excited to be joined by celebrity psychic

Chris Riley. So for those who might not know Chris he is a psychic medium who works with people on helping them to heal and connect with loved ones who have passed away and so much more which we are going to talk about today. We have never really delved into spirituality here at Millennial Love so I am very excited to do that today. It's something I have become increasingly interested in and it's Halloween so it is perfectly fitted for the time. So enjoy the show. Hello Chris, how are you? Hi there, I'm good. Thanks for having me. Oh, thank you so much for coming on. Honestly, I am, like I said in the introduction, I find this stuff so interesting. In the last year alone, I have been to a psychic, I have been

to a Reiki healer, I have had an astrological reading. I am becoming... Have you? Yeah, I'm becoming very into all of it. Getting open-minded very open-minded i went i went for an astrological reading in this famous kind of witchy shop in san francisco a few weeks ago and they told me that i have a scorpio moon she also told me that that means that i'm maybe a little bit psychic which i've now decided to take on board and i'm telling everyone that i'm

psychic um i do get like witchy feelings like predicting things that do happen. It's so big in America. It's huge. I want to go. I want to go. If you do, there is this shop in San Francisco that you have to go to called The Sword and the Rose. And it was incredible. I absolutely loved it.

But let's just get started. For those who aren't familiar with this kind of stuff could you introduce us to what you do and how you work with clients? Cool so I'm Chris I'm 28 um I don't really know well do you know what the first thing is I never thought I'd be doing this so my life kind of took like a bit of a turn um you know when you're younger and you've got all these career ideas and you know I wanted to do cabin crew and I wanted to be a vet and I wanted to do this and that and you know but I grew up really knowing things that other people I suppose knowing things that other people wouldn't know and knowing things that I'd say

for example she's pregnant and then they'd be like well and then a week later you know just when I was young at school and and things so over the last say from I'm 28 so from probably about I've been doing this now say around about 12 years um started like very young um and really the the the the work varies like day-to-day for me varies and a lot of people come for readings because as you say they um they're curious about their love life or you know they're having a hard time about anything, relationship. And tell us a bit about the different terms, because to some people listening, they might not understand what the difference is between a psychic and a medium.

And I know you sometimes use tarot cards as well. So what are the different kind of things you work with and you do and how is it all different? So for me, I feel like the psychic and the medium all kind of things you work with and you do and how how is it so for me I feel like the psychic and the medium all kind of like blend into one I think when people people come for a reading normally they would like to know about their life or they'd like to know more about people who've passed um so the psychic being about your life so being everything on earth so everything to do with your relationships your career your past your present your future and then the mediumship is where as a medium it's the ability to connect with past loved ones and talk about you know I've got your grandad dear John he was 80 when he passed

so that's the mediumship is like the proof of um life after death basically um and you know sometimes it's that people come and they're open to both. Sometimes they would like to know more about their love life from their career, or they come for a reading because they've, you know, they've just lost their mum or their dad. So it's really, it varies. But yeah, that's the difference between the two. And how often is it that people come to you with these kind of love life questions? You know, how common is it for someone to come to you, for example, after a breakup, you know, asking you, will I ever find love again? Because that's the kind of thing that I've done in the past.

Or, you know, when someone is considering a breakup, like, should I do it? Am I going to be OK? How common is that kind of thing? And what do you how do you help those people all the time? But you know what? Relationships, I think you you're very I don't want to say lucky you're very blessed if you've got a relationship where it's like smooth sailing I think every relationship is going to have an issue from time to time at the end of the day and I think a lot of it is when people it's all different things it can be that be that they don't trust their partner, that they feel a lack of love or support.

And when they come to me and it's about love and they'll just, I'll say, look, you know, my standard introduction is like, if you had a reading before, is there any area of your life that you want to focus on? And sometimes people say, especially if it's like a 15 minute phone reading, because I say to them, look, the time's going to go quick.

So they'll say, love life. and the things that come up can be I don't know you know so let's say for example March of this year um you broke up with someone you know or it could be at the moment you've been having arguments with your partner or you've been on a break for two weeks or whatever it is and sometimes they're just looking for that um sense of reassurance sometimes they're looking to just know I had a lady the other day and she said to me I said will you work with your partner you've got a business with your partner she said yeah and you're married and she said yeah and I said you want to move to America she said yes I do and she said look she said I just wanted to know I said your business is getting in the way of your relationship your marriage she was like it really is she said I said you need to take on another member of staff and she was like I I want to sorry I don't want to my husband does she was like and it's just our

business is causing stress and strain on our marriage and our relationship so for her she just wanted reassurance it was going to be all right sometimes it's just reassurance sometimes people don't get closure from relationships sometimes people cheat they're unfaithful they ghost you they cut you off they do these things and you can be left kind of like almost picking up the pieces and sometimes it's helpful for someone to just say look do you know what you went wrong or that person felt that way or whatever it is so I think sometimes it's just it's very helpful for people. It's so interesting isn't it because I think you know whenever you have these kind of issues in your life the more conventional route is to go talk to a therapist about it right but

we've all got ways of dealing with our grief and our issues and I say that to people like when I date myself right and I meet someone and they might say oh you know I don't know about that and I'm like hold on a second that's fine if you don't if you don't you know believe in what I do, that's absolutely okay. That's no issue for me. But you can't take away someone's coping mechanism, someone's way of healing, someone's way of dealing with their issues in their life and their things, whether that's a counsellor, whether that's a therapist, whether that's a psychic.

If you're on the phone to a psychic every day of the week, listen, if that helps you with your life, what's the problem? You know, if you see a therapist frequently and that's your way and that helps you, then so be it, you know, let people do what they, the way they want to heal with their life and the way they, you know, and it's all different, we're all different. They, you know, and it's all different. We're all different. I think for me, it was that I just wanted, I think, you know, I've had a lot of therapy and I sometimes find it hard to feel seen and understood by the therapist, which is why I wanted to see a psychic

because I just thought maybe they will have a better understanding of me because that is their you know their ability to really see people and understand people in a way that therapists aren't necessarily able to do and it did it really offered me that and you know I do I really I do believe in all of this stuff and I do think that the more you believe in it the better it works for you I don't know if you think that that's the case. Is that right? The more, I always say, the more open, friendly people

get a better experience. Always. You don't like readings. You don't have to tell me anything. Don't have to tell me a thing. And I say to people, the only time I'll ask something is if I'm trying to understand a piece of information.

Say, for example, I don't know, I might say, say right the name's Steve and yeah that's my boyfriend and I could say can you understand the age 34 yeah he's 34 right so there might be there might be a time I ask something like that oh you know is this his age or can you understand this as a time frame like I'm not gonna, my job, and I always said this in the very beginning, if I'm going to do this work, like I need to be good at the end of the day, right? And I need to give people specific information, specific detail. I was, what's the point? You know, Joe blogs can make it up. So I'm very kind of, that's the way I look at it. And I try and look at quite a lot of it from like a sceptic point of view as well. And I, even now, it's been like 12 years.

I don't, I still don't understand it, really. And like when you say to me, you know, how does it work and stuff? And it's like, I always say, I don't know where it comes from most of the time. It's crazy. Does it, so does it work? I'm talking from my experience of having predicted small things. When I say small things, I mean, I don't know if this is a thing, but there have been things that have happened to me recently

that I have foreseen in some way. We all have intuition. Exactly. We all have an intuition, every single one of us. I've got a feeling. We think of a friend and they phone us we we drive to work and we might think oh don't go that way today go a different way and then you find out the road's blocked for an hour the other road whatever it is to like that intuition is like

a feeling and a sense that we get we meet people and we gravitate to people we don't we like people or we don't we can trust people or we don't and that is intuition that's our that's our gut which we all have and like but some people don't you know like human mind right we're conditioned to like see normally we're conditioned to well to not believe something unless it's physically there unless we can see it with our own eyes we're normally conditioned and tall you know like so when it comes to the psychic stuff I can say the most amazing things to people but I can't physically you know if your mum's passed away in the most respectful way I can't bring your mum back in front of you so you have to be you have to be open-minded how how did it affect you the first

time I guess specifically with the medium readings when you were talking to someone about someone that they'd lost and then you know you had this feeling that someone someone they'd lost was with you and you gave that person information and that information was correct how did you feel were you really surprised and how seeing that person's reaction because I think that's obviously a huge responsibility and so I'm interested in how that happened the sort of first few times um and how you navigate that responsibility now well you know I've got a big responsibility on my hands as as a therapist to deal people's lives. I'll try and make it a very quick story. But I think I was about 16 and I was just really going out into doing like, say, private readings. And it was, I went up north, north of me, it's towards Leicester, so north of southeast.

southeast um and I read for this lady and it was great and then I got an email and she said um got an email from a lady and she said oh you read for my mum last week my name's Sharni she said uh and I think her mum was Joan you read for my mum last week my mum just wanted to say it was incredible it was like she was reunited with her parents and I was like that's amazing like I've just really starting out to didn't trust myself didn't trust what I'd say doubted myself so much so to hear that was like amazing and about six months went by and I got an email from the daughter bearing in mind I read for the mum and the daughter said can I come back and she'd like a reading I went back I sat down with the daughter and I did the reading. Now, bearing in mind, I hadn't I hadn't seen her mum for about six months. And during the reading, it came up and I said to her, can you understand?

I said, your mum's been to hospital with breathing issues. And she said, yeah. OK, you know, I carried on and the reading carried on and I got to the end and I said, is there anything you want to ask me? And she went, we were sat knee to knee like chair chair knee to knee right she's looking at me and she's like and I'm you know I was thinking oh my god this lady really wants and she said I just need to know about my mum's health and I thought I've just told you I thought your mum's gone to hospital for a breather and I thought and I was talking about responsibility I was like I was a little bit at that point I was learning thinking learning a lot about what to say what to not say you know I have a lot of people come for readings that are quite anxious

about what's going to come up you know and I don't really do I don't do health predictions I don't do death predictions I wouldn't even pick it up right but said to me, I need to know about my mum's health. She said, I just need to know. And as she said it, I could see like, you know when you're at school and you're shown in your science classes like diagram of the human body, where I could see this sort of diagram and that's I could see, it's a bit like a film in my mind. And then I could see what looked like the inside of someone's stomach. Right? And I could see what looked like the size of a pea. And I thought, I thought, no, that's not cancer.

I thought that's got to be cancer. I thought, no. And I'm thinking, it's a tumour. I thought that's a cancer tumour and listen this happened all in my head in the space of like 30 seconds because we sat like so close and she's like tell me, I'm thinking I can't say that, she's thinking, she's like please tell me and I said and I just said cancer to her and at at the same time, we both said cancer. Now, since then, I've never given, like, if someone came to me and like that, they were like, please tell me this about my mum.

I need to know what's wrong with my mum. Like, I'm probably going to give you an idea. But, you know, so she went away. And I said, here's my number if you need me please ring me and two weeks about two weeks later she called and she said it is cancer she said it's a tumor in the stomach she said it's about the size of a pea they're just like you said she said but I just wanted to let you know she said they removed it I was like I'm so pleased now about her mum her mum sadly passed away but about two or three years later now her mum might not have had that two or three years if she hadn't have you know if I hadn't have told her that there

and then and she needed to know that she was desperate to know what was wrong and you know and then after her mum passed away he called me and I said this for a short story I've got stories that are not short and I try and cut them down but honestly I want all the stories she called me not long after mum passed away about about a week later. And she's done me a video review that I've got somewhere about this as well. And she called me and she said, I'd love a reading. And I said, oh, you know what? You know, your mum's just passed away. And as I come off the phone, I could see a pink balloon.

You know, like people let balloons go. I thought, I've got to ring her back. Phoned her back. I said, Shani, I said, if you let a pink balloon you know like people let balloons go i thought i gotta ring her back phoned her back i was a shiny i said if you let a pink balloon go like mum written on it she said yeah i said i tell you now give it till the weekend someone's gonna phone you and i i i you know i like this is a true story right i said someone's gonna phone you and they'll tell you that balloon is in their back garden by a pond do not ask me where this come from she went okay the weekend she phoned me the balloon was found not far from our home in a back garden by a pond this giving tuesday the center for addiction and Mental Health is on a mission to make better mental health care for all a reality.

And we've made incredible strides forward, breaking down stigma, improving access to care, and pioneering research breakthroughs. But now is the time to aim even higher. Together, we can create a world where no one is left behind. Donate at camh.ca from November 25th to December 3rd, and your gift will be doubled for twice the impact. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. I'm Jessi Kirkshank, and on my podcast, Phone a Friend, I break down the biggest stories in the show that we recommend. And I get schooled by a tween. Facebook is like a no. That's what my grandma's on. Thank God Phone a Friend with Jesse Crookshank is not available on Facebook.

It's out now wherever you get your podcasts. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com did you have this sense of being like wow this is actually something that i should be doing because this is an incredible you know ability did you have like this kind of confirmation that what you were doing was the right thing to do and that you... Yeah, well, when I... Yeah, well, when I was, say, 16, 17,

my dad's dad passed away. He was like a dad to me. He was incredible. He was very sceptic. He didn't believe in anything. He was always very supportive. And that's just the older generation. And I went to bed one night.

It was about three months after he passed. And I'll tell you what, I've never had an experience like this since. So I went to bed, got into bed. I woke up about two or three in the morning. As I woke up, my granddad, people think I'm mental, right? My granddad was laid on the bed next to me. Like I look at you with my own eyes. And as I looked around, this happened. You know, some of these things, like, they happen so quick. Like the visions and the feelings you get are, like, so quick. So, like, I woke up, opened my eyes, looked around, my eyes look around thought well and he was like almost laid there moved the court cover and he didn't move and as I moved the court cover

again it disappeared as he disappeared it was like I saw his arm his arm was the last thing that I saw so the arm to my my side was I saw and he he was 70 odd so he he was in the um worked on the docks when he was young they they often did their tattoos with like ink and you know like the dodgy old way so he had these tattoos that that I never knew what they were they were like blurry you know that green that greeny, bluey, blurry colour. And as it blurred, because sometimes you think this is me. I mean, an experience like that, like you can't imagine. But anyway, as it blurred away, as I saw his arm, I saw birds. My fault. Anyway, I went back to sleep like it was a dream, like it never happened. Next day, gets up, forgets, forgets it happened. Something that afternoon made me remember.

I was like, oh, my God, like, then I sort of remembered what happened. And my aunt was a medium um my aunt was a medium my aunt's a medium and at the time we was all kind of like developing together around a very similar time and she said to me she said I keep getting your granddad around you and I was like she was like have you had a dream about him at all I was like last night or the night before and then when I when I looked into it and I pulled out managed to get some old photographs and stuff of when he was very young, the tattoos on his arm were birds. Wow. So I was like

okay, there's my validation completely that I wasn't just going absolutely crazy. Wow. Does it run in your family then? Because you mentioned your aunt. Yeah, like, yeah. It's through the family. My great-aunt who passed away, she was a bit psychic and not, you know, not practised it,

but would always say things and she'd tell I'm psychic, you know. It'll be like, yeah, I'm psychic. But no, she used to sort of joke about it. But actually, genuinely, I think she probably was a little bit. God, there's so much I want to ask you. Going back to like sort of specific things that people come to you for, I'm imagining that one of the things when people are coming to you for relationship advice, that they're coming to you for one of the most common anxieties that people have is,

is my partner cheating on me? I feel like that's something that you are probably able to offer information on that therapist isn't. So do you get that a lot? And have you had kind of, you very tricky thing because you don't want to be pointing fingers at someone you don't want so again it comes back to how how you say things to people and how you you know i i obviously i wouldn't mention the name everything's confidential with me but i had someone not long ago um come for a reading and I said to her would you be surprised if your partner's gay and she said and I'm thinking oh that was quite for me I'm thinking that's quite a strong thing to say you know and she went no I said well he's been with men before she said he has had someone else come to me um um again no no name but someone

came to me and the first thing I said to him was straight out right said to him was I've got HIV around you well I said the guy you were with listen I said you made the right decision leaving him and he went no one knows this no one he said I found my partner was taking HIV medication and the long and short story is that he hadn't told me wow and yeah you know and a lot of and a lot of people I work with that, you know, are in the public eye often, they'll put reviews on their Instagram and they'll talk about their experiences and stuff. And obviously you appreciate sometimes things are very personal. Of course they are.

And, you know, going back to, like, the responsibility thing you asked about earlier on and you have to be I say what I feel I say what I feel and if I'm wrong I'm wrong right I'm not always going to be right I might say something you think I'm right or that don't make sense yeah you so you mentioned you work with quite a lot of people in the public eye how how often do you work with celebrities and why do you think they seek why do you think they seek psychic readings and do you have to sign a lot of ndas presumably when you do readings for them do you know what it's more kind of um i think with with tv things it's different as in non-disclosures, blah, blah, blah.

Privately, a lot of the people that have seen me, where there's like reviews on my Instagram, so Sophie Kasai, Jack Josser, Gemma Atkinson, you know, Shanette Shanice, Fudge Off Love Island, Belle Off Love Island, you know, all these people normally just come through Instagram. They just message me. I've been recommended to you. When they come to you and you tell them about loved ones that have passed, yeah, that's not online.

When you tell them about people they're dating that's not on the internet, that the press don't know. And they come, I guess, and I started to realise that they're like you and I that's all they are they're you and I they're human they have feelings have emotions just like you and I but people think because they're celeb because they're public high because they're like different they're not different you know and they they come with the same the same things the same struggles the same concerns the same issues just like you and I would experience in relationships in Korea um with family they still go through grief like we do now I know

that this obviously you mentioned before we started recording that this must take a huge emotional and psychological toll on you you know constantly receiving this information and um helping people and having that kind of emotional burden um so i guess i want to know a bit about how you deal with that and i suppose before we conclude i also want to know if you are getting anything from me through the and obviously if it's too personal i'm going to have to edit it out so the first one is I just want to know how you deal with this how you how you look after yourself yeah yeah um so I'm quite into my fitness and I'm not like a gym freak or anything but I find that um you know I've been to PT this one I would do three times a week and I try and do a bit more myself and I used to run quite a lot and um

anything like that I feel like you you know you sweat out the toxins in your body basically and all the crap that's no good for you and I feel like when it comes to readings your mind has to be clear so your mind it's almost like the way I explain to people is my mind becomes replaced with thoughts and feelings of yours and thoughts and feelings of your loved ones and stuff so my mind has to be at like a clear space right have you picked up let me see let me see what um right I'm gonna say as it is to you yeah um I feel like I've got to talk about a relationship I'm going to call it a situation okay um I'm feeling like I'm I'm feeling like I'm being led on by a string okay but October I need to go back a little bit with this. More to like May, June to July, June to July, keep going.

Only a few months. I want to say to you, you're 28. Yeah. Right, okay. So I feel like you need to try and not put so much pressure on yourself with relationships because I feel that that pressure is only going to take you backwards and not forwards. You're seeing other people settling down and you're seeing other people engage,

married, blah, blah, blah. I'm exactly the same, right? I see these proposal videos and I'm like, oh, you know, or, and like amazing. And I'm, I'm so like people I know that are with some blog I'm so happy for other people but when you think I wish I had that it won't happen all right so interesting thank you Chris honestly it's so fascinating to to hear from you and I mean we're running out of time so we don't have time for lessons in love but I just want to say thank you so much thank you everyone for listening if you're a new time for lessons in love. But I just want to say thank you so much. Thank you everyone for listening. If you're a new listener to Millennial Love,

please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever else it is that you get your podcasts, Spotify or Acast. You can comment and leave us a rating too so that more people can find us. And do watch us as well on independent TV. You can keep up to date with everything to do with the show on Instagram. Just search Millennial Love and I will see you soon.

Happy Halloween. Bye. This Giving Tuesday, the Center for Addiction and Mental Health is on a mission to make better mental health care for all a reality. And we've made incredible strides forward, breaking down stigma, improving access to care, and pioneering research breakthroughs. But now is the time to aim even higher. Together, we can create a world where no one is left behind. Donate at CAMH.ca from November 25th to December 3rd, and your gift will be doubled for twice the impact.