Kind: captions
Language: en
not just why are they using a substance
or why they are obsessive pornography or
gambling but what is that doing for them
what is that giving them that they need
what peace of mind what temporary relief
I think a lot about what my North Star
is what I want in my own life what sort
of my ideal life looks like and then
when I'm working with other people and
trying to help them I think about you
know what what is the North Star that
somebody's really in trouble I would
advise hey adopt this as your North Star
do you have something like that that you
think that people
ought to strive for for their own sake
the reason I
smirk when you ask that question is
because
um
it puts me in a position of some kind of
expert
um
whereas believe me
every day
I still work at figuring myself out and
finding my direction and and or or
refining my direction and so on so
it's not like I can say here's this
pearl of wisdom take it and run with it
then this will you know just not like
that for me
um
well let me turn the question on just
for a moment and and as a way for me to
think about your question sure
um so
like I don't know a lot about you you
know but
but I do understand is that in
significant ways
you've made a tremendous success in your
life
a lot of you know achieve things that a
lot of people look at my God if I only
had that
I'd be okay
but let me just ask you this I'm just
absolutely curious
having achieved all that in the material
world
did you come to saying to yourself oh
I'm okay now
the quest is over definitely not so what
so so what were you looking for
so my North Star in the beginning was
wealth and that was I showed up every
day trying to get rich
and at about eight years into that I was
absolutely devastated spiritually is
probably the right way to think about it
I just felt dead inside and I at that
point I was worth about two million
dollars on paper so my actual life was
not the life of a wealthy person but
um I had equity in a company and I went
to my wife and I said hey I know that I
promised I would make you rich one day
I'm gonna need to take a step back for a
minute because I am profoundly unhappy
yeah and she was like hey what I want
for is your happiness and so do whatever
you need to and so we were going to move
to a tiny village in Greece and I was
going to go back to writing which was my
first love okay and just do things that
made me feel alive
long story short
um my then business partner said hey
don't leave
um we actually feel the same way so why
don't we build something that would give
us what we're looking for and so if I
had to shorthand what I came to realize
I'm looking for which is very much my
North Star is fulfillment and I'll
Define fulfillment as working really
hard to build a set of skills that I
care about that serve not only me but
other people
and in doing that I am addressing what I
think are the physics of Being Human now
I may be misunderstanding that it is the
physics only of humans in this era I'm
very open to this is within the context
of the civilization that I grew up in
here are the things that seem to come
pre-built into our hard wiring
um and maybe not
um historically accurate but given the
world that I live in
um
doing something working really hard is a
big part of
um I feel
there's just a subroutine in my brain
that wants me to earn things and when I
do that I feel good when I work hard in
the gym I feel good when I take a cold
shower I feel good when I
um you know do something difficult for
my wife I feel good about that and I
definitely enjoy that Loop and then well
let me let me look okay yeah please so
if I could find one word to summarize
like you what I think I heard you say
it's meaning
definitely yeah so so that's that's one
of those human expectations is meaning I
think
that's a need okay now how you find that
is a very individual thing
but let me ask you a very scary question
though because it it puzzles me
um
you identify meaning with hard work
well
I've seen this happen by the way not God
willing it won't but what if you had a
stroke tomorrow
or
some idiot plug into you and you were
bicycling and and and and you you became
quadriplegic now you couldn't work hard
anymore
I love that question I obsess about
things like that so I thought a lot
about that one in particular
um so I would give myself 30 days to
mourn whether I should or shouldn't uh I
would and I would be very I would allow
myself to wallow in the sense that it
was unfair and that now I have to change
um the things that I engage in that
bring me joy but then at the end of that
it it is what it is and so getting lost
in unfairness is not going to serve me
so then I would immediately turn my
attention to
finding a way to have meaning and
purpose I think that that nothing that
I've ever experienced in life leads me
to believe that I would ever feel
fulfilled without meaning and purpose
okay great so finding a way to tap into
that and then I have a sort of safety
valve which is my wife and I remind each
other of this all the time because we've
already had all the financial success at
this point to do something for the sake
of money would be so crazy so we
definitely don't do that and what we
remind each other of is you should love
your life like just from a joy
perspective and if you don't check in
with is this joyful because if you're
working hard and it's joyful that makes
sense to me if you're working hard and
it's deteriorating your joy your sense
of self whatever then that's just
Madness so for even for our employees
what we say is look you're an adult I
want you to control when you need a day
off so you have an unlimited policy use
it as UC fit I do want people that are
hard workers don't get me wrong but I
know there are some times where on a
Tuesday I'm just like I'm I'm burning
out like this isn't Fun and so I stop
immediately because
I know what my priorities are in life
and joy is extraordinarily high and it
is certainly higher than success okay
well that's great
um that makes it easier for me to answer
your question
um
in terms of my new star
um
Joy is something that
um for me is an ongoing project you know
and I really do think that goes back to
the lack of play that I received in the
first year or two of my life you know
on the conditions of wartime and
genocide there's just not a lot of
cheerful play that happens with the baby
um
but what really likes my fire is truth
I just want to know the truth whatever
that is
because you like knowing how the world
works
this is not because
you see a truth is its own value
I
I mean I could give you all kinds of
good reasons why truth is a good thing
but ultimately
uh it's just a value in itself for its
own sake
and so I'm passionate about truth
um both internal truths and external
truth and I'm passionate
then my work is to as much as I can
perceive truth and as much as I can
communicate my perceptions
that other people have access to truth
as well or that they or that their own
passion in truth is kindled uh in its
own right so that's
that's my
if you ask for a North star that's what
I would say for myself
it's really interesting not at all what
I thought you were going to say can I
interpret when I look at the books
you've written and I look at you know
your willingness to come and do a
podcast like this can I read that all as
an exploration of Truth or are these
sort of side tangents no purely that's
what it's about it just so happens that
as a medical doctor
somebody would dealt with depression and
ADHD myself
dealt with terminal illness and
palliative care dealt with addictions
deals with babies
um
my path to truth has been to my own
experience and through my medical
experiment my personal experience
what I've been through as a person when
I'm going through as a person and what I
saw experienced and learned as a
physician so the books Express all that
when it comes to physical illness or
addictions or
Child Development or whatever but the
lodestar is always the truth
and from that point of view
I never cared much who agrees with me
and who doesn't and
to what extent my colleagues value or
don't value it you know that's just as I
see it folks you know and uh
um
in this society and this is not a
personal event it's just a general
comment that
um
truth is not hard to come by not easy to
come by because
uh for all the
knowledge that's out there and for all
the expertise
um
it's also split and it's also
disintegrated
so people have a hard time seeing the
overall reality of things and so my
attempt always is to
look at the context and look at the
overall reality so not just
how do you how do you change a kid's
Behavior but
why is the kid be having that behaving
that way and what is it in the
environment that the kid is reacting to
or somebody who's addicted
not just why are they using a substance
or why they are obsessive pornography or
gambling but what is that doing for them
what is that giving them that they need
what peace of mind what temporary relief
what numbing of painful emotions and
what did those painful emotions come
from and what happened to them what's
the context thing which should happen so
that
everything leads back to everything else
and so I'm always looking for the larger
truth of things which
demands a broader look
not isolating everything but looking at
everything as as one which
scientifically and spiritually and
materially it is
I am obsessed with what is true so I
resonate with you there big time what I
don't understand and so I'm going to ask
you a follow-up question to see if I can
isolate
um what it is about the the nature of
Truth just in and of itself that is
Meaningful to you so I'm interested in
the truth for one reason and one reason
only if I'm really honest with myself
and that is it has so much utility
once you understand it's like it's like
physics to me because we understand
physics we can send things to the Moon
we can create satellites you know better
manufacturing whatever
um
would the truth be as meaningful to you
if you were trapped on a desert island
with access to all the information in
the world but you could never engage
with another human so you could
assimilate the truth you could learn
what it is synthesize it maybe even have
insights that other people are missing
and and know to the core of your being
that you have uncovered something that
is true would that be meaningful or is
part of what makes it matter to you that
you can put it back out into the world
and that ultimately somebody can use it
well so first of all
that's not confuse truth with
information
uh interesting so help me understand
what I'm missing
well there's lots of facts out there
but truth is much larger than facts it's
it's integrating the facts
in a in a in a picture of of reality
so that and I I'm maybe putting very
clumsy language on what may be a far
more beautiful sentiment
um so when I when I hear you say that
and I take it in totality of how all
these things come together I come back
to this idea of the truth is that is the
way the world works so don't ask about
the the addiction ask about what caused
the pain like that makes sense to me
because now you can actually address it
and heal but what makes that capital T
truth interesting is the healing for me
but that's why but why do you want
people to heal
um because of my North Star so my North
Star which seems self-evident to me and
I'm always surprised that it isn't
everybody's North Star is that there is
uh the only thing that matters to me in
the way that I view the world is your
neurochemical state
and your neurochemistry
the only thing that's resilient because
Joy comes and goes suffering comes and
goes hopefully and the only thing that
gives you the resilience to even in the
middle of a painful moment a storm to
have emotional equilibrium is what I
call fulfillment so again meaning and
purpose derived from working hard for
something
um that you have developed a unique set
of skills so you really matter in that
situation and it it isn't only
alleviating your suffering it's helping
other people and that to me feels so
inherent to the human animal
that as a social species we're just
never going to be able to escape getting
psychologically punished for failing to
help others and we're never going to
escape getting rewarded for helping
others and I think that the more
uniquely we can do that so in a way that
matters to me right so you're not still
a high school teacher you're you're
expressing
helping others in in a very unique way
that I mean literally I've never come
across anybody that's got the unique
um conflagration of things that you have
so that makes your contributions all the
more individual and therefore I would
imagine precious to you so anyway
because of my North Star I want to
alleviate that Pain by having worked
hard to offer something to somebody that
they go whoa like this alleviated my
pain and now I can also go do something
that helps other people
um that's why the healing matters okay
so look so then to go back to your
desert island question
you know I mean metaphorically speaking
isolated in the forest didn't see
anybody you know
he
no I'm not talking with me I'm talking
about him the way I understand that
historical figure
he would have been perfectly okay being
on his own
because he attained
a sense of reality that was complete
and then he made a decision
out of compassion
to come back and teach others
and you are talking about compassion as
well you're talking about
not truth is utility you're talking
about truth as compassion so
it's not just useful because you can
build things with it the way you define
it
is you want to truth so you can
alleviate the suffering of others
and that's part of the truth
and
or Jesus said you know he is another
great
spiritual Avatar and teacher he says you
will know the truth and the truth will
liberate you
he didn't say the truth will liberate
you he said you will know the truth and
it will liberate you so when you know
the truth that's where freedom is
so truth goes Way Beyond facts
it was ultimately
as I understand that then as I've been
taught
has to do with Liberation and freedom
and it has to do with compassion
uh in exactly the way you talked about
it as well
So when you say tell me what truth is
well I'm telling you
it's got all these aspects
and it goes back to our conversation
what meaning
so that life without truth is not a
meaningful life
[Music]
that is uh that's very interesting as
you were talking I was like oh please
God let him write a book about truth I
would uh hearing you say all that I
would definitely sign up for that book I
want to talk about the idea of a
bodhisattva so this is one of the things
that I found
super interesting about Buddhism and
again hey a guy that understands it at
30 000 feet does not know the specifics
but
that idea of hey there's two things you
can do with Enlightenment you can hey
you're enlightened and and now you sort
of stand apart from everybody else or
you get enlightened and decide to be a
bodhisattva to re-engage to go back in
to help other people
and
do you think this is maybe a dangerous
question but do you think
any
body would like knowing what you know
about the human mind would anybody ever
that attained Enlightenment actually
just go peace I'm out
it seems like the very nature of that
moment would sort of propel you back to
other people
well first of all
the last thing I could I want to present
myself as is any kind of an expert on
what is I thought that might be your
response yeah you know
but yeah I mean there have been
in the Christian tradition there were
saints that went to the desert then they
just stayed there
and then certainly on the all the Hindu
Traditions there are all these people in
the Buddhist tradition as well I think
there are people who um
you know sit in caves and they just
contemplate reality and that's what they
do
um
which doesn't mean that what they do has
no impact on others
but they're not going out but they're
not out there trying to recruit others
or to teach others they're just doing
what they're doing
I
have extraordinary difficulty imagining
myself being one of those people
um which I'm not sure is either is an
advantage for me I mean I might be more
advanced if I could handle the idea of
being on my own
and and not doing anything
and just being
and just valuing being period
I imagine that for a person like me
might be a step forward
but I
but yeah I think from my limited
understanding they have people there
have been people who have done that and
they're part of the human Spectrum
aren't they
very well said
yeah but what at this point you're 77
yeah
you're so productive what is it that
keeps you going when most people are
like counting the days until they can
retire at 64 or whatever
um what what keeps you going
uh Botox steroid injections
um
well look I mean
you talked about meaning uh there's so
much meaning in my life I am I'm so
fortunate you know that that
and I've never stopped
developing not that I've arrived there
but I've never stopped developing like
I've never stopped being curious
um I believe I have a
I've finally come to accept that yeah I
do have a contribution to make and and
and and and and uh
and and that that has value in the world
and it is value for me so
uh at this point it's just
it keeps me going it's it's it's like
it's just who I am at this point
you know is is I'm curious about what
I'm doing I'm excited about
much of what I do I'm excited about
having conversations like this I'm
excited about the book I'm writing the
teaching that I do I'm excited about
spending time with my wife of 51 years
now I'm excited about
I can still go swimming and bicycling
and do the yoga and and just you know my
life is just a very blessed one at this
point not that I feel like that every
moment but since you ask it's not like
I'm you know what it is
when people talk about work
what is work I I think
um
if I remember right from physics
one way to look at work is energy
expended against resistance
and the more energy is
you expand against more resistance the
harder you have to work the more
fatiguing it is
but I'm fortunate enough that I'm free
enough in my life right now
that I don't have to face resistance
internal resistance
I want to do what I'm doing and
uh there's just so much more and and um
and I'm sure that my vision of reality
is still very limited and maybe there's
more to find out in fact I'm sure
there's more to find out so
it's just uh
it's just an expansion into old age I
think if if we're fortunate enough
we'll see how that goes and you know one
never knows what tonight will bring
later on the day after tomorrow might
bring but so far
it's an expansion
not physically
because as we get older physically I
don't swim as fast as I used to but
but there's an expansion
that's available to us mentally and
spiritually relationally
in terms of understanding
and that's
I don't know if that's
I don't know what that sounds like but
that's what keeps me going
how how do we expand spiritually and
that's probably a word that would
warrant definition but I'm curious how
you think about that
well
so
spirituality is really Beyond Who We Are
as bodies in his Minds
so it's an awareness
that
lies underneath all that and it can hold
all that but isn't identical with it
and this is where it's hard for me to
say am I saying anything
I truly know am I just repeating what
spiritual teachers that I've respected
and have learned from have mouth and I'm
just repeating what they told me
but it's both I think I I do have a
sense that there's more to us and that
more is
I think what we call spirituality and if
it's all kinds of shapes and forms and
I'm not concerned about that
but
I do know that
um
I am not who I used to think I was
and that nobody is who they think they
are
um they're they're beyond that
and I
that's the common teachings I think of
all spiritual traditions
which I'm very
inadequate and this is not false modesty
I'm just telling you uh
it's it's I mean adequate at translating
because
I haven't
had that deep experience
that other people have had
the truth is hitting your career goals
is not easy you have to be willing to go
the extra mile to stand out and do hard
things better than anybody else but
there are 10 steps I want to take you
through that will 100x your efficiency
so you can crush your goals and get back
more time into your day you'll not only
get control of your time you'll learn
how to use that momentum to take on your
next big goal to help you do this I've
created a list of the 10 most impactful
things that any High achiever needs to
dominate and you can download it for
free by clicking the link in today's
description alright my friend back to
today's episode
it's very interesting and I believe you
that you're not just being um falsely
humble but as somebody who
um works so much with
there's two two parts of your background
that
um probably lean into what I would
consider spiritual uh but I think we may
Define that slightly differently but
um one is the palliative care which I'm
extraordinarily fascinated by people
that do that
um and then your
I don't know if you would call yourself
a guide of
um
of hallucinogenic transformation I'm not
sure exactly what your involvement is
with that but I know that you've
um you've explored it enough to to sort
of have at least a sideways glance at
what's going on there
um
talk to me first about palliative care
I know that you sort of ended up there
by accident but
what makes that fascinating to me is
you've got subtracting out the pain
you've got somebody who's there
themselves but all of a sudden their
future is a known quantity and it's very
short and the profound change that that
makes in the human mind I find
interesting
um what did you learn about life about
yourself
um in your time in palliative care
well
the the people the nurses and the
Physicians and the um the social workers
and and the others who work in
palliative care
tend to be a very special breed
um in that they're not afraid of death
um
so learning not to be afraid of human
death
and giving up your sense of omnipotence
uh array liberating
by a sense of omnipotence I mean
Physicians are trained to save lives I'm
telling you Tom
I knew Physicians
that would barely visit their patients
in palliative care because they couldn't
stand
what they considered to be their own
failure which of course it wasn't
but the the their self-images healers or
physician curers
just couldn't withstand the white Heath
of death
and so that's very liberating when you
just
you get to talk to somebody and you get
to minister to them and you're not
pretending to be able to do anything
more than you can do
but you can really listen to people
and get to know people in their final
days and their final hours
final weeks
it's an absolute privilege
uh what what about it is a privilege
getting to know people without retention
you're not pretending to do anything you
can't do
in their past pretending
if they want to die right they pass
pretending that's interesting what do
you mean die right
well there's ways of dying you can you
can resist it
you can resent it
you can be angry about it
or you can uh
actually accept it
and allow
so much of what may be repressed in life
to finally arise for yourself
because before then you were too busy
and you were too intent on your role and
your personality and getting this done
and getting that done
you know
in one of my books and the body says no
I talk about this guy
who
who had a company
selling shark cartilage
as a treatment for cancer
that was a total shock
but he believed in it
and then he developed cancer himself
and he was admitted to the value of
carrying it and I was looking after him
and he was still eating he had terminal
cancer all of his body ate a week or two
left
he was still eating shark cartilage
which smelled awful you could
when you stepped off the elevator to the
pivot carefully you could smell the
shark cartilage
and I finally said to him
what is it smells kind of like the smell
what does it taste like does it tastes
awful I hate it
I said why are you eating it and I said
do you think it'll help your cancer he
said no I no longer believe that but my
business partner would be so
disappointed if I stopped eating it
and so
one of the last things I was able to do
for him is to say is to actually
convince him to help him see that look
you don't have to pretend anything
anymore
it's not your job whether or not your
business partner is disappointed
he had to literally
walk into the last week of his life
before he could let go of his role as
being responsible for other people
so that
coming towards death experience can be a
powerful teacher for people
and I've seen real love and real Beauty
and real inspiration from a lot of these
people so it's beautiful work and I I
know that everybody who
Works in palliative care will tell you
the same thing it's a real privilege
can you share some of the beauty
well I think I just did
just people being allowing themselves to
be touched to be helped
um
to be honest with themselves
um
to share stuff that they maybe never
told anybody else before in their lives
because they're too afraid to
um to accept
real lessons and acceptance
you talked earlier about how you might
use of a month to resent and so on you
know
so these people are very often past that
point
but that's a privilege to witness
knowing horizontal I can get when life
doesn't go my way you know
are there things that um
would it be a valuable exercise for
people to run the thought experiment of
you know look I might not make it to
tonight like you said let alone tomorrow
um do you think that there is uh insight
to be had from that or is there another
way for us to access
um
getting Beyond like if if you're
defining Beauty as
you don't have to pretend anymore you
don't have to play a role you can really
be who you are and maybe this dips into
Big T truth
um
how do we access that now without
needing to be truly facing a terminal
illness well again I don't know that I
am it's very easy for me to speak
from a present position as a healthy
active 77 year old and I know what I
like I know what it gets like when I get
a stop toe and how
life is unfair you know why did I don't
know I can't get on my elliptical
machine you know so again I'm in no
position to give you stage advice but I
can tell you two things one is I've
talked to a young fellow in his 30s he's
written a book called blessed with a
brain tumor
his name is Will pie and this guy's a
brain tumor
and I said well what's the blessing here
I interviewed him
he said well for one thing
when I'm interacting with somebody now I
value each moment
because I never know that this might be
the last time I ever speak to them
um and the Buddha again I'm talking like
some of the Buddhist which I'm not but
um he had his monks do a meditation
where they had to imagine themselves
dead
in the in in the graveyard and they had
to imagine themselves
being eaten by worms to the flesh melts
off their bones
it's a Rotting Flesh
and they need to imagine themselves as
bones just lying there disarticulated
bones and finally even the bones being
grown into dust you know
I can't say that I've attained any of
that I mean I'm just telling you there
are practices
there's a book on my shelf by Stephen
jenkinson who's another fascinating guy
it's called die wise
and he said you know it's basically
about you want to die well start
preparing it for it now
what's the wisdom if you remember from
the book
the wisdom is that I haven't read the
book yet my son just gave it to me um as
a birthday gift a few weeks ago so I'll
read it but I haven't read it again
that's really interesting
um yeah I for me it has been a very
useful thought experiment to remind
myself that for a long time I focused
entirely on um I want to live forever
and I was
um really trying to uh do all the things
that I thought would extend my life to
say 120 years believing that in that
period of time you know the science
would get better and we sort of hit
Health escape velocity where every year
that I lived there was you know a year
and a day added to our ability to cure
illness and that really served me for a
long time and it allowed me to make
long-range plans that other people not
might not be willing to make and really
made me feel excited and connected and
then there was something about probably
about a year ago that I started to have
this feeling that I would be better
served and more motivated by flipping it
and to start now thinking about how
transient my life is and that almost
certainly since none of us know what's
going to happen almost certainly I am
going to die and
I don't get a heaviness from that
um
quite the contrary there's something
about it that I find very motivating
that I do see the beauty that people so
often talk about that you know you have
this life for such a limited time and to
waste it playing a role to waste it
doing things that don't fill you with
joy to wasted chasing somebody else's
dream like it just doesn't make sense
and that that has been fun and I I
enjoyed both sides of the coin and I got
something very beautiful out of each and
it I didn't even like consciously
make the shift I just found myself more
and more sort of getting a bigger gust
of wind of of elevating wind if you will
uh from the side of thinking man this
really is like
how lucky how transy and how beautiful
in its sort of ephemeral nature how
wonderful it is
um and I think part of that part of what
was releasing in that for me is I am
very much driven to matter but never at
the cost of Joy right so it's like I
really want to matter I want to do
things that like are going to be felt
but I don't think about Legacy I don't
think about living beyond myself or
doing things that need to outlive me
um I just think about like hey what can
I do right now that will bring me more
fulfillment that will give me more joy
and yeah it was very
it was very fascinating to see that
transition happen where I went from the
only thing that gave me that push was
thinking of myself living forever and
then all of a sudden realizing no it's
actually now more advantageous to think
of sort of imminent death which trust me
I'm not in any way shape or form eager
for if we are imperfect and do you agree
with I think it was
um soldier knitson who said that the
evil runs through or the line between
good and evil runs through the heart of
every man
which Rings true to me does that ring
true to you I would say that the
potential
for both runs through every person
Hitler was a human being as I say this
in the book Jesus was a human being
at least let's agree that in his Earthly
manifestation whether you're a Christian
he was a human being
um even Jesus was tempted wasn't he you
know he was in the desert and he's
tempted by power and ego and acquisition
foreign
the Buddha
in the Buddha story he's tempted
by lust and by greed and by aggression
and
egotism
so yes the potential for for for that
kind of egotistical self-regard which
turns out to be evil at its ultimate
expression
is is that that strain is in us so is
the strain for compassion like the
Buddha infinite Love Like Jesus humility
like Moses that's all within us as well
the question is which conditions promote
which in his development the Buddhist
talks about seeds of which seeds in our
minds are planted in which you get
watered and which don't
so yes I agree that the potentials are
there
and in an embryo everything is there but
the question is what gets nourished and
what gets suppressed
and I'm saying that in this Society it's
the worst of us that gets nourished and
the best of us that gets suppressed all
right so let's define those what I would
assume that loving attachment
unconditionally loving attachment
certainly towards your children that's
part of the best of us yeah what are
some other attributes of the best and
then we'll move on to some of the worst
so let's talk about children and now
let's talk about people in general so
children's needs are
unconditional loving acceptance
from everyone or just their parents or
their parents or well ideally from the
community but certainly they're
nurturing caregivers whoever they are
and they're meant to me wasn't just a
parent by the way
we're never meant to be parented in
nuclear families okay it's pure that's a
modern thing so unconditional living
acceptance rest from having to work to
make the relationship work
say that again rest from having to work
to make the relationship work in other
words the child should not have to be
mold themselves into anything to make
the relationship work with their parents
they shouldn't have to work they
shouldn't have to be good nice pretty to
make the relationship work
they shouldn't have to take care of the
Parents emotional needs to make the
relationship work
like people that have to work to make
their to meet their parents emotional
needs end up in deep trouble as adults
very often physically ill you go into
tremendous detail in the book about that
so
children should be able to allow to feel
all their emotions
and I mentioned play before those are
the needs of the child
as human beings more generally we need a
sense of connection a sense of meaning a
sense of belonging a sense of
transcendence so that there's something
we're part of something greater than
just our legal egoic concerns these are
all the needs of human beings to the
extent that they're met we thrive
to the extent that they're not met we
shrivel
and there's lots of shriveled people in
positions of great power in this Society
no doubt okay so what are What are the
as we're creating this soil that we're
going to nurture things in yeah how do
things start to go awry and how do we
begin to prep the soil for something
better well we've covered that to some
degree so things will begin to override
when we lose contact with our pending
instincts and we'll and we is it just
that like is this would you
um
uh speaking from experience the book is
very broad but if you were going to
really like bring it down is this
largely an echo of a parenting system
that has become dysfunctional it's
it's a society that's become humanly
dysfunctional that transmits its
expectations through the parents
and that actually begins before birth
because already the the most stressed
and troubled the parents are
that has a physiological impact on the
child's brain development
so I'm just talking pure science here so
mothers who are stressed and depressed
they're infants in the womb were already
getting those messages hormonally and
through uh nerve conduction and so on so
that you can actually
um
monitor the heart rates of mothers who
are stressed and those heart rates will
be different than the heart rates of
infants whose mothers are not stressed
in the book you talk about the uh the
crazy ice storm
yeah it ends up showing up in the
epigenetic markers of kids if you don't
mind walk us through that it's pretty
crazy
well it's only that um
in in the laboratory they've shown that
the more you stress
um
parent animals the more troubled and
stressed the kids will be
so in Quebec there was an ice storm
some years ago and the and the parents
under when the mothers underwent great
stress
and
you know there was really cold there was
no heating a lot of stuff wasn't working
um
those mothers who experienced that
stress their children were shown to have
more troubles later on
behaviorally and learning wise and and
in other ways as well
so again the stress of the parent
translated into the physiology of the
child
there's a there's a study that I quoted
in the book about
they looked at
um
marriages that were
stressed and you could
there's two ways you could tell how
stressed the marriage was once you could
ask the parents
and they could they would talk about it
the other way is you could marry you
could measure the urinary thresh hormone
levels of their children
wow and the parental conflict was
reflected in elevated stress hormone
levels in the urine of the children now
elevated stress from our levels in the
urine means that the immune system
itself is under assault
and that has an implication for health
later on
we know for example that the more
stressed parents are the greater the
risk of asthma for their children
and that the degree of stress on the
parents is correlated with the amount of
medication the kid will need for their
asthma
amongst other studies lots of stuff
studies so in other words there's a
correlation between the emotional
environment that we grow up in and our
physiology
yeah I mean that's really the core
thrust of the book is hey all these
things that you think are maybe just old
age or
um bad diet they're actually related to
trauma or even disease in fact one of
the ones you talk about that was the
most eye-opening was ALS yeah which you
know I would think of as a genetic
disease bummer horrible roll of the dice
but walk people through the the um there
is a predictable personality trait of
people with ALS that I was like well so
um first of all there's nothing genetic
nobody else nobody's ever shown I mean
there might be some rare examples of ALS
genetically induced
tiny infinitely small minority
so genes don't have much to do with most
chronic illnesses there are some
illnesses that are genetic this is one
that runs in my family my mother and my
aunt had it muscular dystrophy
gradually they became weaker and weaker
already when I was a child my mother
couldn't lift her arm up
and in the end she was not immobile at
all
so if you get that Gene you're going to
get the disease
but those diseases are very very rare
about one in ten thousand most chronic
illnesses have very little or no genetic
basis to it
so for example there's a breast cancer
Gene but out of 100 women with breast
cancer only seven will have the gene
and out of 100 women with the gene not
all of them will get the cancer
so
in many cases even if these genes are
implicated it's the it's the interaction
of genes and environment
now in ALS is to you know the the ALS
personality which I noticed in
palliative care when I was a part of
care physician also in the literature
are people that repress their healthy
anger and emotionally very rigid and
they don't ask for help from anybody
um
and usually that's based on childhood
trauma
and Lou Gehrig was like that you Define
trauma in you you go to very careful
links in the book to make sure that
people understand trauma isn't always
getting hit with a bat or uh being
sexually abused like there's a range
that can be wildly impactful well let's
think
uh Lou Gehrig
after whom the name the disease is named
in North America
his father was an alcoholic and Lou
Gehrig was one of these really nice guys
that took care of his mother emotionally
he had to that's what happens in the
home of an alcoholic very often the
child becomes the caregiver
now he was such a nice guy
that you know he's the the the record
that he set for uh consecutive games
played
that stood for so many many decades
why did you set that record because even
if he was sick he would play because
he's too dutiful to his teammates to
take himself out of a game is that a
healthy thing or not it's not healthy
on the other hand
when I was a young rookie on the on the
Yankees who got sick and he couldn't
play and the manager was very upset with
this kid says what are you talking about
he's sick he can't play took the rookie
to his own home we lived with his mother
his mother put the kid to bed the rookie
nursed him and Luke slept on the couch
so that kind of self-sacrificing
self-negating emotionally repressed
really nice person is the person which
is typical of the illest personality and
there's been a whole lot of studies on
that that show that you know these are
the people that get ALS it's just that
the doctors don't make the link between
that personality pattern and the ls they
just basically swallowing your anger
swelling your Healthy anger direct yeah
sorry swallowing your Healthy anger is
directly causative
to ALS
I think it's a major contributor you
never see it
you never see it and you never see that
the anger in anybody with ALS and you
always see this
hyper conscientious hyper autonomous
self-sufficiency but no I don't need any
help
no
and when you talk to neurologists
which has been done in studies
they always describe their patients as
extraordinary nice ALS patients is
extraordinarily nice why they're so nice
because if they repress their healthy
aggression
which is that the neurologists don't
make the link between that and the
disease I'm saying that that plays a
major role because that repression of
emotions
again the emotions are not separable
from our physiology
the nervous system and the immune system
and hormone apparatus and the gut and
the Heart they're all one system
when something happens in one area
something happens in the other area as
well look the analogy in the book is
this
think of a person with a big beach ball
trying to push a beach ball under the
water
that takes a lot of effort
now
I've ever been angry
of course okay now when you're angry
it's not just an emotional state in your
head it's a whole body is no how much
energy would it take to suppress that
energy to suppress that anger can you
imagine so that you don't even feel it
but not feeling your anger was an
adaptation to your childhood where the
anger wasn't permitted
so that emotional physiological effort
of repressing anger takes a toll on the
nervous system and on the immune system
it's a major role in disease
I'm saying yeah it plays a major
contribution
yeah this is where the book really
starts to get into some fascinating
territory as you go through all these
different diseases and you start talking
about okay repressing anger you go into
the God is it the natural killer T cells
end up being suppressed because you're
putting so much energy away from your
immune system your immune system can't
keep up and so there's all kinds of
things like cancer that are afflicted
there was one thing where you said like
back in the 1800s or early 1900s there
was a doctor that was like oh whenever
you see somebody with heart disease they
have this type of personality and you
even talk about in the book the type C
you said it's not a personality type but
that there are traits yeah that people
with type c have that end up being sort
of pro disease personality traits yeah
what are some of those traits
well before I answer that let me go back
to something let's talk about a healthy
anger for a minute if you could okay
um
then I'll illustrate these traits okay
what is healthy anger
why are we given healthy anger so
there's a there's a system in our brain
for anger
not just for us
mammals
what is it there for
is there to protect our boundaries
samita invades of space
physically or in the case of human
beings emotionally used to say no stay
out
that's the role of healthy anger
now you first if I repressed that
healthy anger
what would happen to you to me in life
people would be just trespassing all
over me all the time
because I Had No Boundaries so healthy
anger is a bundle of defense is that
clear
okay healthy anger is a boundary defense
it just seems like one of its uses I'll
be honest I don't know that I'd say it's
its only use but I don't know if healthy
anger that's its only use that's his
major use just boundary protection
that's his major that's why it came
along animals have it you're in my space
how far are you extending that to loved
ones so now if you encroach upon a loved
one well if your loved one includes your
space emotionally no I mean if somebody
else is intruding on my loved ones oh
yeah that too yeah yeah oh yeah yeah you
or your loved ones anything you cherish
absolutely for sure
so that's healthy anger so the role of
anger is to set a boundary between
what's nourishing uh you know to to let
in The Lord of healthy anger is to keep
up what's dangerous and unwelcome right
what's the role of the emotional system
in general
is to let in what's healthy and
nurturing
and to keep what was dangerous and
unwelcome is that fair enough seems good
what's the rule the immune system
exactly it's the same the role the
immune system is to keep up with
dangerous and toxic alone was nourishing
and healthy
the immune system and then and the
emotional system
are not separate systems
they're part and parcel of the same
apparatus they're Unified
when you suppress the emotions
you're also suppressing the immune
system when you say when you when you
when you don't know how to defend your
emotional boundaries that also
um weakens your immune boundaries
physiologically
it's that simple
or if you oppress the anger that anger
doesn't go away
it doesn't evaporate into the heavens it
turns against you in the form of
depression or self-loathing and so on
in the same way the immune system turns
against you and now you have autoimmune
disease and so the traits that were
identified with chronic illness most
chronic illness like cancers or immune
disease or emotional self-suppression
inability to experience healthy anger
desire to please others to fit in to be
acceptable to be nice
to be ignoring of your own needs these
are the traits that are over and over
and again identified in the literature
whether with multiple sclerosis or
rheumatoid arthritis or with cancer now
there's a not the real per these are not
the real person these are adaptive
traits in response to the childhood
environment but they take a heavy toll
or take another so-called illness and by
the way the case I'm making is that what
we call illness is actually response to
life so take a take depression
this so-called
biological disease of the brain
what does it mean to depress something
try to push it down to push it down what
gets pushed and what's got pushed on in
depression
well I can tell you I've been depressed
what gets pushed on depression is your
natural emotions everything is flat
nothing matters nothing has any meaning
and that starts with people pushing them
down that's that's the word that's what
the word means it means to push it down
it starts in childhood but people having
to push down their emotions why do they
have to push their emotions to fit in
with other people's expectations so and
I don't know the literature on this at
all so they're oftentimes then the
depression will just sort of creep in
slowly I always assumed it was tied to
something being stuck in
um a bad relationship a death in the
family loss of a job that there would be
some sort of triggering event well the
okay fair enough
if you're in a bad relationship the
healthy response is not depression but
to deal with the challenges the nerve in
the relationship either by work them out
or by leaving the relationship
depression is not necessary outcome
the response to the death of a closed
one of a close one is not depression
it's grief
grief is the healthy response we have a
system in our brain for grief by the way
so grief becomes depression when you're
not allowing yourself to grieve but you
don't know how to grief properly yeah
and you don't know how to give properly
because your emotions were suppressed as
a child
and uh so yeah we have uh
these healthy systems but they get their
activity gets deformed through our
natural expectations
okay so to stay with depression for a
minute so you're pushing all this stuff
down it starts in early childhood you're
trying to fit in you want unconditional
love you're not getting it so you have
this directive for attachment and so you
begin to oh I see what I can do if I if
I don't yell scream if I'm not
expressing frustration if I'm the
caretaker or whatever that situation
demands then all is well so now I've
learned this adaptive response to
suppress my emotions and over time it
begins to
numb me I would assume I have not been
depressed so but uh so you're beginning
to be numbed but now something it gets
starts to be very extreme and you
what I have heard depression explained
as is just like
the skies are permanently gray you will
never see Joy again and so what what is
breaking in that that like the beach
ball analogy I like right I'm pushing
something under the water but if I stop
pushing it will pop back up and so if
that thing or my emotions is when you're
treating depression let's say
non-pharmacologically is it the release
of the pressure on those emotions to let
them finally come up yeah so the so the
the difference between the pushing the
beach ball down is that I'm doing it
consciously and deliberately
but the repression of emotions that a
child engages in is not conscious is not
deliberate it's an automatic response
it's unconscious therefore the child
can't just that go like that
and then as you say it numbs and and
becomes overall a depression now the by
the way I'm not against pharmacological
treatment
I've taken antidepressants they have
helped me so I'm not here to Advocate
against them
I could talk about their misuse but in
principle sometimes they're helpful and
occasionally they're life-saving and
much of the time they're over prescribed
for way too long and we're not dealing
with the real issues because the
pharmacology deals with the symptom but
it doesn't deal with the underlying
problem so yes the healing of depression
and I talk you know the last
the the final part and the longest part
of the book really is unhealing is you
have to
reconnect to yourself so you can feel
your emotions that's the treatment of
depression talk to me about reconnecting
how do you reconnect what is that
process
oh
well first of all you recognize that
you're disconnected
and you notice how that disconnect shows
up
you know in so many areas of your life
uh in your on the job or in the uh in
your personal relationships for example
on your relationship to yourself so you
have to become aware and this is where
I talk about disease whether it's
physical or so-called mental