The Current - How near death experiences change your look at work and life

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

Oji-Cree musician Aysanabee almost died when he was 19, after falling through the ice on a frozen lake. That experience changed the life of the Juno award winner, pushing him to his career today. A new study shows his experience is a common one among people who have near-death experiences. So why do a brush with death might help people have a better work-life balance — and how do we gain the same attitude without almost dying? Well, that’s the question.

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experience or you know somebody else who has, you will likely understand the profound impact this can have on someone's life. That kind of experience can lead people to shift how they approach their lives and their relationships. What about their approach to work? There's new research that suggests these moments can forever alter your career trajectory and how you think about just going to a job. That was the case for the Juno Award winning OG Cree musician Aysen Abie. He wrote a song called Near to Death. That song is about surviving, falling through the ice on a frozen river in Northern Ontario

while on location for a mining job. Coming down into the deep dark cold Oh the river tried to swallow me whole Coming down into the deep dark cold I called out to a foreign who's gone Just one prayer before I was gone If you let me get out of these paves, see my loved ones once again. If you let me get out of these paves, see the world I've been buried in. It was a pivotal moment for him, helped shape his career as a musician. Aysen Abbey is with me in our Toronto studio. Good morning.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for being here. That's a wild moment. Tell me about what was going on. You were snowshoeing on a river? Aysen Abbe Yeah, I was snowshoeing on a river. And I can't even remember the lake, but like, it was like, if you were to go there from here, it'd be like a 25-hour drive north to Ear Falls, and then like a four-hour drive up some logging logging roads and then a couple hours up these ice roads and then unload the skidoos and camp and then snow machine for like another 65 kilometers. It's deep out.

So, yeah. And I was working and everyone worked by ourselves, so I think like my nearest colleague would have been maybe like 10 kilometers through, just like kind of through the forest. And I was snowshoeing across this frozen river and I just wasn't paying attention, you know, I was like listening to music and like snowshoeing and I didn't see that there was a lake there and I was close to the mouth of it. So I was just walking and then yeah, the ice just gave way. And yeah, I could like feel like the icy water filling up my snow pants and I knew I couldn't swim with the snow shoes and, you know, all these different things are running through my mind about how

I could survive this. But… What do you remember about that moment? You talked about the icy water in your snow pants. What do you remember as it seems like you're going to be swallowed up by that water? Yeah, I started imagining like, okay, well, I can't swim with snowshoes on. So maybe if I go under and manage to get the snowshoes off, well, I don't know how far the current would bring me under the ice. And, you know, even if I got them off and could swim, I don't know how long until,

you know, my body starts getting too cold to move and, like, how thick the ice is down river, if I can even, like, manage to, like, push my way through it. So… And time is, I mean, of the essence, right? The clock is ticking as this is unfolding. Yeah, like this is like late January in Northern Ontario, like this is like negative 40 to negative 50 weather already like outside of the water. And so, like I fall through and then managed to fall forward a bit and I had an axe and like, I stuck the axe in the ice

and just pulling myself kind of one swing at a time and the ice is breaking, the ice is breaking. And I think in my mind, I just thought like, wow, this is it for me and I haven't done anything with my life. What do you mean? You thought you were going to die. Yeah, yeah. But you were thinking at that time

that you didn't think you'd accomplished anything in your life. Yeah, you know, I was 19 and I was playing music in like little bars in Thunder Bay. But like I knew music was what I wanted to do, I just didn't know how to do it. And I think that whole experience just like definitely made me realize how precious time is and how easily you can just be walking around and that could be the end of it, right?

I mean, you'd also, part of the other story is that you've had family members who had died in similar circumstances, right? So yeah, the thing about this job is like, yeah, so many people had near death experiences that everyone kind of joked about it, right? Even I did, like I had been stalked by wolves, I had been charged by a bear and like, and we joked about it, right? But like this one really hit a lot harder because yeah, I had an aunt who had passed away from exposure after kind of like leaving the hospital in like a nightgown and then an uncle who had been snowmachining, he was out hunting, and

the snow machine went through the ice. And I just had like this deep fear of just like, I think a lot for my family, because I just remember, I remember when my uncle went, you know, missing, like everybody thought, like, he's still out there somewhere, he's still, he's just lost, and everyone was like, thought we would see him again, right? But then as time went on and then eventually the spring came and that's when we were able to kind of find him. There's the line in that song that we just played, what is it, if you let me get out of this space, I'll be a better man? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think, yeah, you know, I think I never tried to do anything. And I think, you know, even working in mining as well, you know, I think I always had my

reservations about it. You know, I consider myself an environmentalist as well. And like, I'm just like, this is not the path for me. But that sounds like one of those bargains that people make. Do you know what I mean? Like, if I can get out of this, then I'm going to be somebody on the other side. Definitely, definitely. I think, you know, I was definitely, whether or not I was talking out loud or in my mind, it was, I couldn't quite tell the difference, but I was like talking to myself, but also like whoever was listening, you know, making a promise to, you know, a higher power or something. And I was just kind of, yeah, in this moment where I like, I was just like, this is the end. And I, if I get out of this, I promise I will, I will do this thing. I will go play music. So I like, I made it across and kind of like,

you know, crawled onto the snowbank. And then like, I can feel myself getting still colder because like now I'm wet and it's still like, you know, maybe negative 40 something. And so like, I remember someone on the crew had told me like old man's beard. So like, I just went into the forest and found all the old man's beard, which is like that mossy tree branches and like started just snapping them off and throwing as many as I could into a pile. And like, at a lighter, but like, my hands were kind of like, these like nubs at this point, right? So, I'm just like, kind of like, using both hands to try and get this lighter going, but it's still wet and I'm like blowing on it and doing this and it's windy. And then, but the old man's beard ends up like, it's just like tender. So, it managed to like,

set on fire and I managed to like, start warming up and start drying off. Pete Slauson That's an amazing story. Yeah. It's the kind of thing, I mean, you come out of that, you've made this promise, if I get out of here, then I'm going to be... When you managed to get free from there, how do you think going through that changed your life? I mean, this is a promise that you make. Did you live up to that promise? Yeah. You know what? I walked back to where the Skidoo was supposed to pick me up. It

was like kilometers through the forest, right? And then I get to the little lake and the Skidoo isn't there. There's just the tracks. I'm like, okay, maybe the other person just got tired of waiting. So then I had to like snowshoe, I had to like follow the... I had the snowmobile tracks, so it made the snows shoe a lot easier, but like, still it was a couple hours walking kind of in the twilight and just kind of like really reflecting at that point. Like, at this point, I've dried off for the most part and... Pete Slauson Reflecting on the fact that you should be dead but you're not.

Jared Slauson Yeah. Yeah. And reflecting on all the things, you know, reflecting on my uncle, reflecting on my family, reflecting on my life, reflecting on how fragile we are, and just thinking like, wow, like this is, like, what do I want to do with my life and what do I want to do with the second chance, right? And so, I just, I know she's thinking about, like, what the next move is, and, you know, I went back, got back to camp, because we were staying in like these prospectors tents, right, which is just like these 16 by 14 canvas tents and they have like a barrel stove in it and I kind of lived there for two months in the

winter. And so we went there and I, you know, told them what happened, we joked about it, but it was like still very much in my mind. And, you know, we finished the job and then, you know, three months later, I bought a one-way ticket to Toronto to go do music. I was just like this. And so, yeah, you know, I moved to Toronto and it's kind of crazy all the things that have happened. But yeah, that was a life-changing experience, you know. I'm not sure if that hadn't happened. Maybe I'd still be living in the North, playing music at bars. Do you think about that? I mean, I hear, I was just saying when you came in, I hear your music on the radio all the time. You are in this moment now where your songs are kind

of everywhere. Do you think about, not the fact that you could have died, but where you would have been and who you would have been had you not gone through that experience? Yeah, you know, I probably still would have been up there. You know, I probably still would have been, you know, looking for whatever job. I'm not sure if I would have went to school because, you know, post-secondary, maybe I would still be, I don't know, working in some similar field or maybe working as a cook and just trying to figure out how to make music, do it from the north. But yeah, you know, I think that experience happens and then all the things that followed is kind of just a weird, I don't

know, weird divine intervention maybe, I don't know, weird divine intervention, maybe, I don't know, like, because I came down here to play music, but then, you know, I ended up, my grandmother was like, make sure you have a plan A, B, C, and D if you're going to be a musician. So I went to school for journalism, right, and did that for a minute. And then again, like, this global pandemic happened, and then it brought me back to music. And I think faced with like mortality again, you know, my grandfather, his health fading, his memories fading. It just again showed me kind of how precious time is.

I'm glad that you made it out and glad that it is the kind of thing that changed your life. I can't imagine what it would be like to go through, but the music that you're making now is kind of a reflection in some ways of what you've been through. Thank you very much for coming in. Of course, thank you so much for having me. Aysen Abhi is a Juneau Award-winning Oji Cree musician.

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As I mentioned, this new study has been looking into the impact of near-death experiences like that on people's attitudes towards work. Jamie Gruman is part of the research team. He's a professor of organizational behavior at Guelph University. Jamie, good morning to you. Good morning. Hey, Sanabhi was talking about what he went through, falling through that river, that frozen river,

and thinking he was going to die, then surviving. From your perspective, just looking at the research, when we talk about a near-death experience, what are we talking about here? How do you classify something like that? So what he was describing certainly as a near death experience, he came close to death. Technically in the research literature, when we talk about near death experiences, not to take

anything away from his very life changing experience, but technically when we talk about these near death experiences, their NDE's, they tend to involve an experience like he had, but then when you're under the water, you lose consciousness and potentially actually even die. No more oxygen to the brain. And during those experiences,

people have certain features, certain things happen. So for example, they will report floating outside of their body, having an out-of-body experience. They find themselves, you know, we've seen this in movies sometimes, you know, they're in the dark tunnel and they see the pinprick of light, and then they race at the speed of light towards it, and then they're enveloped by it. Sometimes they see spiritual figures, could be dead relatives. light and then they race at the speed of light towards it and then they're enveloped by it.

Sometimes they see spiritual figures, could be dead relatives. If you're a Christian, it could be Jesus. If you're a Buddhist, it could be Buddha. Could it just be spiritual beings that you don't know? And they report it feeling fantastic. They're just infused with love. And then at some point they either, they see a border, it could be a fence or a lake, a river or something, and they realize if they pass that border, there's no going back.

And then either they make the decision to come back or they're forced to come back and poof, they're back in their bodies, alive again, maybe still under the water, being dragged out of the water or on their hospital bed or whatever it is. And then they report, you know, what happened. And that in the literature on near death experiences is, is what they are.

I actually don't know. So at the start of this paper we just published, I discuss other things like having cancer or life changing experiences that make a difference. I don't know what the term is for that. Actually, I should, I should look into that, but technically near death experiences is having all of those other features about, you know, going term is for that actually. I should look into that. But technically near death experiences is having all of those other features

about, you know, going unconscious and visiting another realm, so to speak. You spoke with 14 people who had gone through this sort of experience. What did they say to you about how having a near death experience changed their feelings about work? So we identified in the end six themes. I won't bore you with going through each of the details of everything, but just to summarize, they said that they had these new insights and realizations as a result of the experience. So for example, they all claim that, and this is consistent with the literature more broadly, that they learned that consciousness survives death,

that death is the end of the physical body but not the not consciousness. They learned that you know we're all one being nobody is better than anyone else no matter your skin color or religion we're all of the same source we're all one and everyone has an individual purpose we're here for a reason. As a result of these insights they they they were personally transformed some became well they all became much more spiritual. Interestingly, some became more religious, but many didn't. And again, consistent with the literature, some people say that the religion, religions are just too confining, too restrictive,

too condemning you for things that are natural. And so many people became much more spiritual, but less religious. you for things that are natural. So many people became much more spiritual, but less religious. Some interestingly, some people claim to have developed psychic abilities, like being able to know what other people are thinking. One woman reported being able to pass by car accidents

and know immediately what happened in the car. So if someone got a rash from the, or a burn from the seatbelt, or they had a Broken bone or if they had passed on impact she knew immediately that was new after the experience And then in terms of work specifically that as a result of those things the insights and the personal transformations Work often became much less important to people They thought well, why am I doing this? Like what's the point? Is this meaningful? Does it matter? And so often they lost interest in doing the work.

And as a result, they changed jobs. In some cases, they just changed careers completely. In other cases, it was just a refocus in how they oriented themselves to work. So for example, one of our interviewees was a teacher and she didn't really like teaching, but after her NDE she didn't stop teaching, but she considered herself now to be a teacher

in the school of life and teaching math and science was just incidental to teaching students about the importance of treating people well and living well. And they often lost motivation because they didn't see the work as important. And so they changed jobs. And then their motivation came back when they started working on what mattered to them. And one of the key themes that came up a lot that I hadn't anticipated would was the idea of alignment.

So they all wanted afterwards to do work that was in alignment with their newfound meaning and purpose. And once they did that, they were very motivated and their relationships changed. This is again, consistent with the broader literature. They were really interested in every day promoting love, being caring, and that was part of their insights about learning about why we're here. Being infused in the light, realizing in their words that the entire universe is made of love. Then when they're back here,

they claim that well, the purpose of being here is to promote the essence of the universe, which is love. So their relationships change so they could do more of that. One of the really interesting findings in this work, and again, nobody had seen it before because no one had studied these experiences in the workplace, was that they all completely lost interest in making money and any external measures of success.

So they didn't want big houses and cars and boats, they didn't wanna be the executive vice president, they didn't wanna get rich. In fact boats. They didn't want to be the executive vice president. They didn't want to get rich. In fact, one of my interviewees said, you know, would I like a million dollars? Sure, but I'd probably give it away. I don't need it. As long as you have a roof over your head

and food in your belly, what else do you need? So it was really interesting that the things that we tend to think of as most important in our careers, these people say are not important at all. Most of us don't want to go through an experience like that. I mean, the brink of death and then be pulled back. Is there something, I mean, in doing this work that's kind of sad about the fact that we need that near-death experience

to be able to see that light, to be able to make those realizations that maybe money isn't the most important thing, maybe that you want to do something that's meaningful, that you need to have that experience to be able to make that shift? It is, it's unfortunate. Years and years ago, I was speaking with a rabbi and I don't remember what we were discussing specifically, but he said to me, you know, the reason we have these books, these religious books to teach us how to live is because knowing how to live well doesn't come naturally to us. We need lessons.

If it was easy, we wouldn't have the books. And I'd never thought of things that way before, but it's true. And all of the work that I do really is about promoting healthy organizations, learning how to live well, learning how to work well. And yeah, it's often the case that we have to have these difficult experiences to sort of wake us up to get us to think about what should we be doing with our lives. In

fact, I was listening to Mr. Nabil Tag gonna, I was curious about whether if he had the choice to go back and not have that, uh, this, this comfortable, you know, unfortunate experience, would he choose now to not have it given who he is today? I don't know that he would. It's a good question. He's sitting right here. If we could ask him, would you go, would you,

would you pick up on that? Would you, would you choose to have that experience knowing where you are now? You know what? I think so. I think so. I think so. Like I think I've, I've, I've, I've, I've come to a more fulfilling place in my life.

You know, I really enjoy making music. It makes me feel really good. And it's, it's, um, it's been beautiful to be able to, to travel and share songs and share music and see that it does that for other people too, even though some of the stories can be personal and some of the stories can be so far from home. Yeah. And it's kind of an amazing feeling. Yeah. Have you rethought your relationship? I mean, I don't know whether you've had a near-death

experience or not, but in speaking with people who have, have you rethought your relationship with work? You know, to be honest with you, um, I try to do, I've been trying to do this forever. Uh, the reason I do what I do for a living, the way I approach my work, I try to wake up every day and look forward to the day ahead of me and, uh, you know, I'm no saint.

I mean, I could, I could, uh, do more. I could give you one example of implementing these lessons when I do speaking outside of the university for the consulting workers, speaking engagements, on my website at the bottom of the page, first page it says, I donate a portion of every speaking fee to charity

and the client is free to choose the charity and the amount donated. So if Apple calls me up and says, you say, we want you to speak for us and we want you to give a hundred percent of your fee to big brothers and big sisters, I would do that. And I just love, this is part of me trying to, you know, if I benefit other people benefit automatically. And that's the key here. And I'm not trying to promote how wonderful a person I am. Lots of people donate to charity and most people

do. In this case, this example is automatic, right? I don't make any more of the decision about what to do. If I benefit, others automatically benefit. And it's a way of structuring things so that I'm making a difference to people in need automatically when work comes in. So yeah, I try to live according to these principles. I mean, if I made a million dollars,

if I won five million in lottery, I don't think I would give it away. So I'm no saint, but I would give some of it away and try to do something good with it. And you haven't needed to see the light at the end of the dark tunnel to be able to do that. Yeah, that came up so often in our study, my research assistant Akira and I would say, you know, if we could feel these people report, not just knowing these lessons, but feeling them in their

bones, it'd be nice to have that confidence. And if we could feel, these people would report not just knowing these lessons, but feeling them in their bones. It'd be nice to have that confidence. And if we had the choice, would we want to experience it? I would like to, but I wouldn't want to go through what you have to go through to know what the lessons are. Jamie, thank you very much for this. Thank you.

Jamie Grumman is a professor at the University of Guelph, one of the researchers behind a new study called Dying to Work that looks at how near-death experiences shape our attitudes to work. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr.