0:01

Hello friends, my name is

0:03

Tammy Simon and I'm the founder of SoundsTrue

0:05

and I want to welcome you

0:07

to the SoundsTrue podcast, Insights

0:10

at the Edge. I

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1:01

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You can learn more at

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1:12

in advance, thank you for your support.

1:16

Hello friends and welcome. Welcome

1:19

to this special edition of

1:22

Insights at the Edge. I'm here

1:25

with Dr. Gabor Mate.

1:28

Gabor is someone whom I

1:30

consider a friend and someone

1:33

whose work I find

1:35

incredibly illuminating. And

1:38

I'm so pleased that he's here a

1:40

year ago. We had

1:42

a conversation together when

1:44

his book, The Myth of Normal

1:47

was published. And

1:49

I felt at the end of the

1:51

conversation that we weren't quite complete. In

1:53

fact, we'd only gotten partway through the

1:55

many things that I wanted to talk

1:58

about. And at that time, I

2:00

said to Gabor, would you be willing to come

2:02

on? Well, you know, we'll put some time in between,

2:05

but could we have a second part to

2:07

our conversation? And he

2:09

gracefully said yes at the time. And

2:12

now here we are a year later. So

2:15

much has happened in our worlds and

2:18

in our lives, our

2:21

respective worlds and our shared

2:23

world. And I'm very

2:25

grateful for Gabor for coming back

2:27

a year later fulfilling

2:29

the promise that was spontaneously

2:31

made live on

2:34

the air. Gabor is a

2:36

physician, author, and speaker who

2:40

is world-renowned for

2:42

his expertise on the interconnection

2:44

of trauma, stress,

2:46

addiction, illness, and

2:49

the journey of healing. And

2:51

it's the journey of healing particularly that

2:54

I want to highlight and

2:56

emphasize in our conversation that we're

2:58

going to have here. His

3:00

books include In the Realm

3:02

of Hungry Ghosts on

3:05

Trauma and Addiction When the Body Says

3:07

No, Looking at

3:09

Stress and Illness, and as I

3:11

mentioned, The Myth of Normal,

3:13

which explores trauma, illness, and

3:16

healing in a toxic culture,

3:18

a book that immediately hit

3:21

the New York Times bestseller list, and

3:24

a book that I have to say, look, if you

3:26

haven't read it, please just read it. It's

3:28

a kind of book, first of all for me,

3:30

what, 500 plus pages? And I went

3:34

through each page marking

3:36

things absorbed in

3:38

a page turning involved kind

3:40

of way. I was so impressed by

3:43

the book. Also, I want to let you

3:45

know that with Sounds True,

3:47

Gabor has partnered with

3:49

Bix Schwartz, who's the

3:52

founder of IFS, Internal

3:54

Family Systems, and

3:56

the approach to healing that

3:58

Gabor now has. now teaches,

4:00

it's called Compassionate Inquiry.

4:04

Dick and Gabor explore together in

4:06

an online series called

4:09

Embracing All of You, how

4:12

compassionate inquiry and IFS

4:15

relate, look at

4:17

things similarly and differently. They also

4:20

both offer demos

4:22

working with students. Gabor engages

4:24

in the Compassionate Inquiry technique

4:26

in the Embracing All of

4:28

You series, so you can

4:31

learn more about that at

4:33

soundstrue.com. Alright Gabor, welcome.

4:37

Thanks for the intro and for the welcome. Here's

4:40

what I'd like to start with. You're

4:43

very forthcoming. You're

4:46

super real person. You

4:49

share yourself in a very

4:51

just truthful way and

4:53

a lot of times when people

4:56

ask you about healing, about

4:58

what works, about what works in

5:00

your life, you'll share, look

5:03

I'm a work in progress. I'm still figuring a

5:05

lot of this stuff out. I'm still dealing with

5:07

this, that, or that and

5:09

I wanted to start there

5:11

because what it brings up for me

5:14

is this question of a

5:16

gap that I often feel in my own life

5:19

between understanding

5:23

and real embodiment, especially

5:25

when it comes to the healing

5:27

of trauma and I

5:29

want to understand how you deal with

5:31

that gap, how you understand that

5:34

gap. Yeah,

5:38

so there's much more to healing than just

5:40

knowledge or awareness. If it was a matter

5:42

of intellectual awareness, I would have

5:45

been able to long time ago in terms of what

5:47

I was aware of or what I could tell you,

5:50

but embodiment is the word and trauma

5:55

happens, the disconnections that

5:57

trauma imposes happen in the body.

6:00

and in the nervous system and

6:02

in the immune system and the gut and

6:04

the nervous system. And

6:07

for healing, all that needs

6:09

to be worked through, and we can get

6:11

the states of awareness and knowledge long

6:14

before we're fully healed. So in a certain sense, it's

6:16

a matter of catching up to ourselves. Now,

6:19

recently, I was introduced to a song by

6:21

Leonard Cohen. It's called Come Healing. And

6:24

there's a wonderful line. It begins

6:26

with, oh, gather up the

6:28

brokenness, bring it to me now, you know.

6:31

But later on in the poem, or I should say

6:34

the song that has been said

6:36

to that poem, he sings, oh,

6:38

troubledness concealing an

6:40

undivided love, which means underneath

6:44

the troubles that we experience on the

6:46

surface, there is an undivided

6:48

love, which we may not

6:50

be always in touch with, but

6:52

it's what guides us. And then he

6:54

says, the heart

6:56

beneath is

6:59

teaching to the broken heart

7:01

above, so

7:04

that we can

7:06

be brokenhearted on one

7:09

level, but there's a

7:11

whole full heart

7:14

that's teaching that broken heart. And

7:17

it takes a while for

7:19

that heart beneath to

7:22

get through to the broken heart above, and that's

7:24

the process of healing. And

7:28

all I ever do is when people ask me is

7:30

I signal, where in that

7:32

journey from heart to heart do

7:35

I experience myself? So

7:39

from a somatic perspective, working

7:41

with the body, what

7:43

have you found is effective to

7:46

connect with that underlying full heart

7:48

that's underneath our broken heart? You

7:50

know, because I don't hear you

7:52

talk that often about body-based

7:55

interventions that

7:57

you use yourself. I'm

8:00

very curious about that. Well,

8:03

actually, compassion and choirs are

8:05

very body-based, and we

8:08

engage more with people's present state of

8:10

being rather than the material that

8:12

they're carrying in their mind. And

8:14

so to bring that... Yeah, I'd

8:17

love to understand that more. Yeah. To bring

8:19

that to myself personally. My

8:22

mantra, one of my mantras is, whatever

8:24

this tension, it requires attention.

8:27

So if we're discussing a

8:29

political topic, like what's happening right now in the

8:31

world, and

8:33

if I'm noticing a lot of tension in

8:35

my body, then before I

8:38

continue that discussion, if I want that

8:40

discussion to be one that

8:42

connects us, I better pay attention to

8:44

what's going on in my body. If I've

8:46

experienced tension inside, I

8:48

better just notice that and put attention

8:51

on it rather than just

8:53

try and push my way through it. So

8:55

I think

8:58

it's what Janden would have called a

9:01

felt sense of actually just being present

9:04

to what's happening in the body and

9:06

not to try and alight it, not

9:10

to try to move

9:12

through it or move past it

9:14

or to ignore it. So, okay,

9:16

if I were to check in with myself right

9:19

now, what am I experiencing? There's

9:24

a fair degree of calm. I

9:28

mean, a safe space, talking

9:30

to a friend. And there's

9:33

some tension, perhaps

9:35

anxiety. Will I live up

9:37

to my billing? Will this hour that we spend together

9:39

be worthwhile for

9:42

the participants and so on? So I would say I'm aware

9:45

of both. I

9:47

calm and there's some

9:50

degree of tension in the middle of my chest.

9:53

That's what I would report. And I

9:55

need to pay attention to that. Okay,

9:58

just to go a little deeper. into

10:00

it because, you know, I noticed tension

10:03

a lot in my body, a lot. And

10:06

it's one thing to pay attention to it,

10:08

but you seem to indicate it's not

10:10

about focusing on letting

10:12

it melt away or dissolve or

10:14

using the force of gravity so

10:17

that it sinks into the earth. You're more

10:19

just, what are you doing when you're paying

10:21

attention to tension? You're

10:24

noticing it because that's

10:27

all it needs. So,

10:29

if you have tension, it's

10:33

got nothing to do with the present moment. I mean, let's say

10:36

I talk about my anxiety that this conversation won't be as

10:38

useful as I'd like it to be. Okay,

10:42

so what? You

10:44

know, like, do

10:47

I have to be perfect all the time? You know,

10:49

can I be forgiven if this

10:51

is my third teaching session

10:53

of the day? What if

10:55

I'm not at my best? Okay. I

10:58

still be good enough, you know, so what's

11:00

the tension about? It's an old

11:02

fear of mine. It's got nothing to do with the present

11:04

moment of not being good enough. Now,

11:07

that part of me, that fear is not being good enough,

11:10

is a child part. All

11:13

that child ever needed was attention. Didn't

11:16

need reassurance. Just needed to be

11:18

held. So I don't

11:20

have to make it go away and tell

11:22

myself mantras or spiritual

11:24

techniques or anything to evaporate it. Just have

11:27

to, oh, there it is. Well, here you

11:29

are. I know it's you. I

11:31

see you. Thanks for showing up. That's

11:33

all. Okay, God forbid,

11:35

I'm going to dig in here and I'm going

11:37

to be confessional at the same time, which is

11:40

you shared from your own, you

11:42

know, I hope this is good enough, lives up to the

11:44

billing. And you know, I remember

11:46

when you and I went to lunch not that long

11:48

ago and I shared with you that I was nervous

11:50

about being with you and I'm nervous about having this

11:52

conversation. And in our conversation,

11:55

you identified that I was projecting

11:57

something about my relationship with my

11:59

father. where I needed to earn his

12:01

affection. And I'm very aware of that. So

12:03

I'm aware of that coming into this conversation.

12:06

I have the insight. I know that's

12:08

exactly what's going on. I know that.

12:11

And it hasn't actually helped

12:13

my anxiety, reduce my anxiety.

12:15

I'm just aware of it. Well,

12:21

I'll tell you what I would say, arrogant as

12:23

it sounds, you just haven't had

12:25

the right kind of therapy yet. I know

12:27

even therapy forever. I mean, we all have

12:29

been, but there's something that hasn't been, let

12:32

me put it non-negatively, that you haven't had

12:34

the right kind of therapy. Let me say

12:36

that there's something you haven't worked through yet.

12:38

You want to study intellectually, but you haven't

12:40

worked it through. So in

12:42

the moment, is there tension there for you? Yeah,

12:48

and I don't, you know, it's interesting because I don't

12:50

want to make it only just about me and about

12:52

you. And I want to make sure that our listeners

12:54

are tracking with

12:56

us. I noticed that in sharing it,

12:59

it's deflection, I know, but I

13:01

noticed in sharing it, there was a dramatic

13:04

reduction in tension

13:06

and that naming

13:09

it really helped. So I think that's

13:11

an important point. Well, I think

13:13

that's the key point actually, because what

13:16

you're doing when you're naming it, you're just

13:18

accepting it, you're recognizing it, which

13:21

is all you ever needed as a child, but you didn't get it.

13:25

You weren't seen. So

13:27

you give yourself that seeing. Like

13:30

if you want attention to go away, you're

13:35

basically saying to a part of yourself, go away,

13:37

you're leaving alone. You

13:39

know, in other words, you're rejecting yourself, which

13:43

was your, not

13:45

necessarily ever your father's or your mother's

13:48

intention, but it was your subjective experience

13:51

of not being seen, of

13:53

being demanded more of than you could

13:55

provide. So if you

13:57

can see yourself and just name it, like you just...

14:00

said, of course

14:02

the tension will abate.

14:04

Now what if you were to

14:06

do that on a regular basis? Ah,

14:08

here you are again. You're still a

14:10

fade, aren't you? Well, I got

14:12

it. So

14:15

I think noticing and

14:18

being with it is the working through. So

14:22

link this to the approach of

14:25

compassionate inquiry and for people who

14:27

are hearing about compassionate inquiry for

14:29

the first time, if you

14:31

can give them an introduction to how it

14:33

works. Well,

14:36

fundamentally, along with

14:38

my friend Dick, although I formulated

14:40

differently, I

14:42

do believe that all aspects

14:44

of ourselves, whether we like them

14:46

or not, whether we judge them

14:48

or embrace them, they're there for

14:50

a reason. And none of us

14:52

are broken fundamentally. That and

14:56

my view is that if we're

14:59

curious about all aspects of ourselves

15:01

and of our experience, or that

15:03

of our clients, and if we're

15:05

curious in

15:07

a compassionate way, then

15:12

all will reveal itself and

15:15

we get to integrate it. So

15:18

if I said to you, for example, I could

15:20

ask you a question. Um, why

15:23

are you tense? Now,

15:27

is that a question or is it a statement? It's

15:32

a statement. I notice your tense

15:34

and I don't like it. I want you to be different. But

15:37

if I said to you or to myself,

15:39

huh, I noticed this tension

15:41

here. What do you think that might be

15:43

about? Well, that's the

15:46

question. So

15:48

the issue is can we approach ourselves

15:50

with a sense of compassionate inquiry? And

15:52

furthermore, my belief is that we all

15:54

carry the answers within ourselves. We actually

15:56

do. I just,

15:59

um, read and

16:01

reviewed Peter Levine's upcoming autobiography.

16:04

It's entitled, An Autobiography of Trauma.

16:07

And let me just

16:09

actually quote

16:13

something from it, if I may, okay? Because

16:16

Peter's one of my mentors, and he

16:21

says it so beautifully. He

16:23

says, in working with thousands of adults and many

16:25

children over a period of more than 45 years,

16:28

I have found that all children and most

16:31

adults with their younger selves still

16:33

intact within have the

16:35

same innate pull of

16:38

curiosity and exploration. It

16:41

is this very vibrant

16:43

impulse that can be

16:46

harnessed to support our healing. And

16:48

so I believe, along with Peter, is that

16:51

as long as this curiosity about ourselves

16:53

is alive, we

16:56

can still grow. So my

16:58

approach is simply, there's nothing wrong

17:00

with you. Every aspect of you came along

17:02

for a reason to

17:05

support your survival at some point. It may no

17:07

longer be there to support you. It may not

17:09

get in your way. You stumble over it rather

17:11

than being helped along by it. But let's get

17:13

curious about it. And

17:16

then the answers will be

17:18

within yourself. The truth

17:20

is within yourself. We all

17:22

carry the truth within ourselves. And

17:25

with the right compassion, the right

17:27

curiosity, that truth will reveal itself,

17:29

or to quote, the

17:33

great Jewish boy from Nazareth, Yeshua, who

17:35

said that that which we shall bring

17:37

out of yourself will save you. And

17:41

so it's just a matter of helping people bring

17:44

out the truth of themselves. So,

17:49

Gabor, in my confessional moment, you said, you

17:51

know, in a way that was stung a

17:54

little bit, but I also appreciated it, especially

17:56

the way you reframed it, that there's something

17:58

you haven't worked through. yet, which

18:00

is why this is still an

18:02

active thing and that compassionate inquiry

18:05

would help. And my

18:07

provocative question to you would

18:09

be, how come

18:12

the compassionate inquiry method hasn't

18:15

in your own life, delivered more

18:17

of the results that you would like it

18:19

to deliver? What do you think is that

18:22

gap? Which kind of comes back to the

18:24

original question I asked, which is really what

18:26

I'm trying to sort of tell

18:28

myself the truth about about my own

18:30

life and trying to understand deeply?

18:33

Well, first of all, you're

18:35

putting words in my mouth. Okay. When

18:38

I said that you haven't fully worked it through

18:40

yet, I demonstrated what compassion inquiry, all I said

18:42

was you haven't worked it fully through yet. There

18:45

might be in a number of ways of working it

18:48

through. Internal family systems might be

18:50

one of them.

18:52

Peter living somatic experience might be another EM,

18:54

the might be another. Psyche deluxe might be

18:56

another. I never said. Sure.

18:59

Okay. I do

19:01

believe it would help you but I never said

19:03

it. Okay. And I certainly never said it in

19:05

exclusion of other modalities. I don't claim it to

19:07

be the be all and the end all.

19:09

So that's the first point. The second point

19:12

is in terms of myself. Well,

19:15

Tammy, did you know me 10 years ago? Personally?

19:21

No, I didn't. Okay. Are

19:23

you in a position to tell me where I am now as

19:25

compared to where I was 10 years ago? Right.

19:29

No, I think it's a beautiful point. And

19:31

I'm the point. No, no, I hear your

19:33

point. But I think it helps me appreciate

19:36

my own journey to where

19:38

I am now is not where I

19:40

was 10 or 20 or 30 years

19:42

ago, even though there's, you know, there's

19:44

so much more growth that I wish

19:46

for myself. But it's a deep way

19:48

of being kind to ourselves to see

19:50

it that way. Try not to

19:52

ask me, am I complete yet? No,

19:55

I'm not complete. However,

19:58

I would not, you know, I've often said this,

20:00

you know, pardon

20:02

the repetition of a joke

20:04

if it's tiresome for you, but I've often said, you know,

20:09

well, in a month

20:11

and six days

20:13

I'll be 80 years old, okay, and

20:17

I say thank God for growth and

20:19

development because I'm almost 80 and

20:21

I wouldn't want to be as young and stupid as

20:23

I was when I was 78.

20:25

So it's an ongoing process,

20:27

you know, and I'm

20:30

not looking for perfection, I'm just looking

20:32

for growth. So in

20:34

fact, it's helped me a lot. I've

20:36

come a long way and the other

20:38

thing that's helped me is

20:42

I know you're in a living relationship with

20:44

somebody and as am I,

20:47

and my partner does not

20:49

want to tolerate the gap between what I

20:53

know and what I can present and teach and then how

20:55

I live my life at home, you know,

20:57

so I'm constantly being called upon

21:01

to walk, to talk, you know, and so

21:04

both my own personal journey

21:06

which involves that compassionate questioning

21:09

and other modalities as well, including

21:11

yoga and meditation and reading

21:14

all kinds of great teachers and occasionally reaching

21:16

out for help and

21:20

also being called to

21:24

act what I know. All

21:26

that is contributing to myself being far more

21:28

present, far more accepting of myself, far

21:31

more capable of getting

21:34

to that heart below the surface than I

21:36

ever used to be. So that's where I'm

21:38

at. So I'm very happy to report that.

21:42

You know, I just want to thank you, Gabor, because

21:44

I think this is an important appreciation

21:47

of growth

21:50

that many of us can have in

21:52

relationship to ourselves. I notice it's helping

21:54

me soften. So

21:57

thank you towards myself.

22:00

Yeah. And

22:02

I also just want to check in. You and I, we're

22:04

okay, right? We're good. What makes you

22:06

ask that? Because we had

22:09

a fiery exchange. Is

22:11

this what you call a fiery exchange? Oh

22:14

boy. Okay,

22:17

you haven't seen me in fiery exchanges. If

22:19

you thought this is fiery, I thought this is one

22:21

of the gentlest discussions. So,

22:25

this speaks to, so

22:27

I'm wondering what you were experiencing doing this exchange, because

22:29

I wasn't experiencing any fire. I

22:32

experienced a disagreement, but so what? Very

22:36

good. Very good. Okay. You

22:41

quote A.H. Allness, a friend of ours, and

22:44

there are several times that you

22:47

quote him in the myth of normal

22:49

that really got my attention, really helped

22:51

deepen my understanding. I'm going to pull

22:53

out one of them here. Lack of

22:55

compassion is a suppression of heart. Yeah.

22:58

And I thought this was really an important

23:02

light bulb for me that went on

23:05

in times. So, even

23:07

here, when I'm talking about not being

23:09

compassionate towards my own development and how

23:11

long it's taking me to grow in

23:13

certain kinds of ways and the frustration

23:15

I feel, underneath it,

23:18

I'm just like, I'm just so hurt. I can't

23:20

believe I'm still going through all of this. You

23:22

know, lack of compassion is a suppression of hurt.

23:25

So, I wonder if you can explain that more

23:27

for people. Well,

23:29

Allness, as you know, and as

23:31

we have discussed, is one of my great teachers, mostly

23:36

through his writings. But

23:43

I'll quote another teacher of mine, who

23:46

is no longer alive, sadly. His

23:49

name is Yak

23:51

Panksepp, P-A-N-K-E-S-E-P-P. He

23:54

was an effective, effective,

23:56

effective, but also affective

23:58

neuroscientist, which means... he

24:00

studied the neuroscience of emotions. And

24:04

he points out that our brains are

24:07

wired for a whole slew of emotions.

24:09

We have brain circuitry for various emotions,

24:11

which include grief and anger and fear

24:14

and lust and anger and

24:17

caring and curiosity

24:19

and playfulness and so on. We're

24:21

born with these systems

24:24

in place in our brain. They need to

24:26

develop, but they're there. And we share them

24:28

with other mammals. So

24:31

care, which is the, to

24:35

put it different, which is the compassion for

24:37

the vulnerable, because that's

24:39

what helps a parent look after the helpless

24:41

infant. It's something

24:43

that's wired into us. So

24:46

it's unnatural for it not to be there. So

24:50

what happens? Caring

24:53

is vulnerable. If

24:56

I care for you, then

24:58

if you suffer or die or.

25:05

Let's just say suffer that hurts me. So

25:09

for caring, they have to

25:11

be vulnerability. But

25:14

what if I was really hurt when

25:17

I was small, so hurt, I

25:19

can't stand being vulnerable? Then

25:24

out of self-defense, my

25:26

care system will shut off. And

25:29

then my capacity to care and then

25:32

be compassionate is to that degree

25:34

limited. And in

25:36

the case of psychopaths and sociopaths. It's

25:40

even totally

25:44

obscured and disabled.

25:49

All because of vulnerability. And

25:52

it's very interesting what I can tell you about

25:54

people who have committed murder. If you go into

25:56

prisons, now if you don't. I've

26:00

done this a lot, but I've done a number

26:02

of projects that goes into prisons

26:04

and work with lifers who killed people. Once

26:08

they work through their stuff,

26:12

they become the sweetest, most gentle people

26:15

in the world. Unbelievable,

26:18

but I've seen people in death row like that.

26:22

So have others. Anybody

26:24

who's worked with prisoners will tell you this. Now,

26:30

what does that mean? It means

26:32

that their very shutdown of

26:34

caring to the point where they could

26:36

kill another human being came

26:40

out of a deep hurt. And

26:43

the more sensitive you are, by

26:45

nature, genetically, the more hurt you're

26:48

going to be. Some of

26:50

the worst criminals

26:52

are the most sensitive people in the world. And

26:55

by sensitive, I don't mean that

26:57

they are aware and care for the feelings

26:59

of others. I mean that they

27:01

were born so sensitive that they were hurt much

27:04

more easily than others. They felt more. When they

27:06

were hurt, they felt more. The more they felt,

27:08

the more pain they felt, the more they had

27:10

to shut down. The more they shut down, the

27:13

less compassionate and the more cruel they became. Once

27:19

those of them that can work through their

27:22

pain and their trauma actually

27:24

become very sweet and loving people. And

27:27

I've seen this repeatedly. And

27:31

so have many others. So

27:34

that's an example of what almost

27:36

was talking about, is that the

27:39

lack of compassion is a hidden

27:41

hurt, is based on a hidden hurt. Robert,

27:45

do you believe, it sounds like

27:47

you do from what you're saying, that

27:49

we're born with different levels of sensitivity,

27:52

that some of us are genetically more

27:54

sensitive than others? And what is the

27:56

research behind that? Well,

27:58

that's the research. that some are just

28:01

born more sensitive than others and that means

28:03

certain chemical messengers in their

28:05

brains are differently configured and

28:09

it means that these people when they're well

28:11

treated they become creators

28:16

and artists and leaders

28:19

and shamans and whoever

28:22

joyful, but when they're hurt they're

28:25

traumatized all the more and

28:30

I think Canadian born but now he's working in

28:32

California a pediatrician called tom boyce wrote a

28:34

book called daffodils

28:37

and dandelions and One

28:40

of them is the very sensitive kid and

28:42

the less sensitive kid they can endure a whole range

28:44

of experiences and not be so hurt by it the

28:47

more sensitive ones they're

28:49

more hurt. So I think that

28:52

was genetic when the people talk about

28:54

genes for addiction or or

28:57

mental health issues No, what

28:59

they're actually finding is genes

29:01

for sensitivity Which means that the environment

29:04

acting on those sensitive genes will create

29:06

more pain and all addictions

29:08

and all mental health conditions in my view are

29:12

ways of coping with pain and

29:15

so the more sensitive you are the more

29:17

prone you are Fall

29:20

into one of those diagnostic categories Not

29:23

because the genes dictate those categories,

29:25

but because the sensitivity potentiates

29:29

the pain that you're trying to escape from That's

29:31

my understanding And

29:33

do you think you're one of

29:36

those people who has hyper sensitivity

29:38

genetically? I

29:41

don't know. I see people Well,

29:48

I totally don't know I see people

29:50

far more sensitive than I are far

29:53

more affected

29:55

by what happens you

29:57

know from over rock when

30:00

things go wrong. Now, maybe

30:02

I have more defenses in the way. I certainly

30:05

am sensitive. I

30:07

do feel and see things that other people often

30:09

don't. But I wouldn't put myself in

30:11

a more sensitive category, not compared to some people that

30:13

I know. Yeah, I think

30:16

the question that comes up for me is,

30:19

you know, I've heard a lot

30:21

of people use highly sensitive person

30:24

language to sort of defend or

30:26

explain why it's so hard for

30:29

them to make

30:31

healing progress in their life or this or

30:33

that. And I wonder how to not use

30:36

that information or that possibility

30:38

as a kind of excuse for all

30:40

kinds of things. Yeah,

30:42

it should not be limitation. It should

30:44

actually be opening for more liberation and

30:46

more creativity and more joy and more

30:49

freedom, actually properly understood. So neither are

30:53

our genetically

30:57

determined temperament, if you like,

30:59

nor what's happened to us

31:01

should have been used as an excuse for just

31:04

staying static

31:08

and stuck in a certain pattern. The

31:10

more sensitive you are, it also means when

31:13

the environment is more supportive and

31:15

you take on a task of healing, you're also

31:18

more capable of growth. So

31:20

it shouldn't, it shouldn't all be an excuse.

31:23

Let's talk more about this full,

31:26

complete, undisturbed,

31:28

if you will, heart, the

31:31

full heart underneath our broken

31:33

heart. How

31:35

do you experience that

31:38

when you do experience

31:40

it? Describe it to me what it's

31:42

like for you. I

31:45

can't because I so

31:49

rarely, if ever

31:52

fully experienced it, it's a knowledge

31:54

that I have that's below the

31:56

level of conscious experience. No.

32:01

I regard

32:04

myself as a spiritual teacher of any

32:06

kind. The spiritual

32:08

teachers who are worth their salt

32:11

have all directly experienced this. Sonné

32:14

Cholmah, Sahamid Ali, you know, Thomas

32:18

Hulul perhaps, Naka

32:21

Tholi, and Ajay Shanti. These

32:24

people have experienced that in

32:27

a conscious level. I

32:29

can't say that I have

32:32

all the more remarkable that I completely accept the

32:35

truth of it. So I don't know on some

32:37

level, there must be some experience

32:39

there, but I can't give it

32:41

to you in the kind of words that

32:43

somebody with that direct experience could. Okay.

32:49

I appreciate that honesty. And

32:53

the interesting point that

32:55

you can still state

32:59

its facticity, if

33:01

you will, without even knowing

33:03

it wholly in your own

33:05

experience. And I wonder how

33:07

you can do that. I

33:10

don't know. It's

33:12

just what happens for me. You

33:15

know, also I

33:17

read a lot and I believe people. I mean,

33:19

at least I don't believe everybody, but I have

33:21

a good sense of who to believe and who

33:24

to not. So when Moses

33:27

sees the burning bush that is

33:29

not consumed by the flame, I'm

33:31

seeing a truth that is, logically

33:37

doesn't make any sense, but

33:39

it sustains itself, you know. And

33:42

when the Buddha talks

33:45

about his experience or when Thomas

33:47

talks about his experience or Eckhart does

33:49

or Hamid Ali does,

33:52

I've talked to Ajahnati, I believe them. And

33:57

nothing in me mistrusts what they're telling me. I

34:00

read Hafiz, I read Rumi.

34:03

I believe them. I sense

34:06

they're coming from a place of deep truth. Something

34:09

in me senses that. So

34:11

perhaps I'm influenceable that way. Or

34:14

more likely, what

34:17

they're saying and how they're saying it resonates

34:19

with something inside me deeper

34:22

than intellect can comprehend. In

34:27

the final section of the myth

34:29

of normal, you devote yourself to

34:31

looking at these paths to

34:33

wholeness approaches to healings. And

34:36

you offer a

34:39

description of six

34:41

different A's, and we won't

34:43

go into all of them, but you talk

34:45

about people should read it in the book,

34:48

authenticity, agency, anger, healthy

34:50

anger, and then also acceptance.

34:52

And then later in the

34:54

book, you add in

34:56

activism and advocacy,

35:00

and how these are all parts

35:03

of what it takes, if you will,

35:06

to activate our principles of healing in

35:08

our life. And, you know, in my

35:10

language, I would say something like being

35:13

true to who we really

35:15

are, mobilizing our, this is

35:18

my language, mobilizing our souls,

35:20

force, moving it out. And

35:22

I wanted to talk to you about

35:25

the activism and advocacy component,

35:27

because I think often people

35:29

wouldn't necessarily associate that with

35:32

personal healing, like how does

35:34

that connect? And I know

35:37

you've been very active, very

35:39

vocal, a full

35:41

participant, global citizen

35:43

in what's been happening in

35:46

the Mideast recently. And without

35:48

going into the details of the Mideast

35:50

conflict, what I want to look at instead

35:52

is just this whole notion of activism and

35:55

advocacy as an element of our healing.

35:58

Yes. Well, there was an article, prescriptions, their

36:01

guidelines. Some are called

36:03

and some are not. My friend Nan Golden, the

36:09

photographer, great photographer, who's photography

36:12

has been exhibited in museums from the

36:15

Met to the MoMA

36:17

to, you

36:19

know, the paid in Britain and

36:21

so on. But she

36:23

also used to be an opiate addict. And

36:27

at some point she realized

36:29

that the Sackler family, the

36:31

family that funds

36:33

so many artistic institutions

36:35

or medical schools, also

36:38

the same ones who profited off the

36:40

marketing of OxyContin

36:42

as a less addictive or

36:44

non-addictive opiate and

36:47

hands and hands, thousands of people have died. And

36:50

so for Nan, and there's

36:52

a wonderful movie about

36:55

Nan Golden that's actually available. You

36:57

can watch it online and think

36:59

it's not Netflix, but

37:03

Apple TV or you

37:06

can look it up. You know, the title

37:08

of the movie is something about all the beauty or something

37:11

escapes me. But for Nan

37:14

to say she

37:17

had sit-ins and lions in the

37:19

museums saying, take this name

37:21

off. These people

37:23

profited off the death of tens

37:26

of thousands. She

37:28

would not have been true to herself if

37:30

she had not engaged in that activism. So

37:33

for her, the healing process

37:35

involved activism following

37:38

an inner call. So

37:40

it's not a duty that somebody imposed on her.

37:42

It's an inner call that she obeyed.

37:44

It's the same with my activism in the Middle

37:46

East. Like you say, we're not going to go

37:49

into the, my views

37:51

on what's just happening or what's

37:53

been happening for a long

37:55

time. But I made a decision a long

37:57

time ago. that

38:01

I feel so strongly about this issue

38:04

that if I don't express myself, I'd

38:06

be doing violence to myself. And

38:10

so that I would express myself regardless

38:12

of whether my family liked it or not.

38:17

At some point, my views on this actually

38:19

in 1967 after that war, my

38:22

views on that conflict got me kicked out of

38:24

my father's house. And

38:26

I can understand why. My

38:29

parents being Holocaust survivors, as

38:31

was I, as an intern. But

38:34

I made this decision that for me, the

38:38

activism, the advocacy, the truth telling

38:40

publicly was more important than

38:42

any of my personal

38:44

relationships. And that's

38:48

a calling that I had, something was calling

38:50

me there. And

38:53

not to obey that call would have been to

38:55

suppress myself. So activism

38:58

and advocacy are not prescriptions for everybody

39:00

because neither of these call that way.

39:02

If you're not called that way, don't

39:04

do it. Don't force yourself into anything.

39:08

But if it's there, I suggest

39:10

you pay attention. It

39:13

actually sounds like if anything, the

39:15

quote unquote prescription, and I realize

39:17

you're an MD that doesn't give

39:19

out prescriptions in this

39:22

kind of conversation very often, but it

39:24

has to do with not suppressing ourselves

39:27

versus the form of expression

39:30

that is true for us. It's

39:32

like, oh, the key is don't

39:34

suppress. Is that fair to say?

39:36

Yeah, which goes back to us on Disney. And,

39:39

you know, there's all kinds of reasons why people

39:42

suppress themselves. And you and I

39:44

may have discussed this in our conversation last year, but

39:47

there's this tension that so many of us grow up

39:49

with where we want

39:51

to be attached to, we want to be connected with,

39:53

we want to be long held and loved.

39:56

But we also just need to be

39:58

ourselves. And sometimes all. too often, I

40:01

think perhaps in your growing up and in my

40:03

growing up and in a lot of people's growing

40:05

up, they found that if they were truly authentic

40:07

and expressed themselves, the acceptance

40:09

wasn't there. So then

40:12

there was this tragic conflict between what

40:14

I call authenticity on the one hand

40:16

and attachment on the other. Ideally, you

40:19

and I can be true to

40:21

ourselves, express what we

40:23

believe and feel and still remain friends

40:26

and supportive of one another. That's

40:30

the ideal. But what

40:32

happens in a relationship very

40:35

often early in childhood, but even later on

40:37

in life, where if I'm being myself, that

40:39

is to say if I'm expressing myself, you're

40:42

not going to love me and accept me. Now

40:44

I have a decision to make. Do I

40:46

want attachment still? Like as an infant, I'd have no

40:48

choice in the matter. Or do

40:51

I want authenticity? And I

40:53

often say to people, being

40:55

pain free is not an option because

40:59

you can have the pain of suppressing yourself or

41:03

you can have the pain of not being accepted. If

41:06

that's what's on the table, then

41:09

you have to decide which kind of pain would you rather have. Some

41:13

people would rather have the pain of suppressing

41:15

themselves and still being accepted. Some

41:18

people would rather have the pain of being

41:22

themselves and not being accepted. Now, ideally,

41:24

we'll find situations in life where we

41:26

can be both. I mean, that's what

41:28

we're working towards. But temporarily, we're going

41:30

to go for some pain one way

41:32

or the other. The question is, which

41:34

pain would you rather have? And

41:37

nobody can tell you which one you should choose.

41:41

You said this statement that I

41:43

wrote down and have referred to

41:45

very often in our last conversation

41:47

about disillusionment. And

41:50

would you rather hold on to your

41:52

illusions or go through disillusionment? And

41:54

I think this notion of there's a

41:57

way to possibly be in the world

41:59

that's pain. Is

42:01

it fair to say that that is an

42:03

illusion? Well,

42:09

I don't know if the Buddha still

42:11

experienced pain after his enlightenment. But

42:17

until I get to that point, I can't answer

42:19

it except to say, I can't envision a world

42:21

in which pain doesn't exist. I mean, on the

42:23

sheer physical level, pain is always going to

42:25

exist. On

42:28

the emotional level, I think

42:33

it's—do you know

42:35

anybody who's

42:37

at all emotionally alive? And I

42:40

don't care which side of the political spectrum

42:42

they're on, but if they're

42:44

emotionally alive, do you

42:46

know anybody whose heart is not broken right now about

42:50

what we're witnessing? And we'll

42:52

be having witnessing for a while now. Again,

42:55

I'm not making the political statement. I'm

42:58

saying that I don't have any option of

43:00

not feeling pain. For

43:03

what? I'm

43:06

bringing it forward because I also

43:09

pulled this quote from the myth

43:11

of normal healing is about unlearning

43:13

the notion that we

43:15

need to protect ourselves from pain,

43:18

from our own pain. And

43:20

I thought that's such a powerful statement

43:23

because I can

43:25

see how I do protect

43:27

myself from pain. I

43:30

try to all the time and how it

43:32

doesn't really work, but it's just like a

43:34

natural instinct. Of course, I'm going to protect

43:37

myself from pain. I don't want

43:39

pain. Who does? Yeah. Well,

43:42

I forget who wrote the

43:46

Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

43:48

at Tibetan— So Gilrampushe, yeah. Yeah.

43:52

Who, as we know, was

43:55

one of these characters who could convey

43:57

beautiful and deep and very— inspiring

44:00

teachings, but he didn't

44:02

exactly live the life that was consistent with those

44:05

teachings. But nevertheless, what

44:07

he spoke was absolutely beautiful. And

44:09

he said at some point, don't run away from

44:11

your pain. Because

44:14

don't we know that all our attempts to

44:16

run away from the pain will only create

44:18

more suffering. And

44:21

then we won't know what life is to

44:23

teach us. I'm paraphrasing him now. It's

44:26

a beautifully stated maxim

44:28

that he expressed in that book. And

44:31

he says, don't run away from your pain. Protection

44:33

from pain, he says, doesn't work. Now

44:37

I want to go back for a moment

44:39

and not lose track of these different non

44:42

prescriptive six A's that

44:44

could be calling because he spoke beautifully

44:47

about authenticity. And then agency

44:50

is something in, especially

44:53

as you're talking about the heartbreak of our

44:55

time, I think a lot of

44:57

people and then there's also acceptance, I think there's

44:59

a lot of confusion here. Do I accept what's

45:01

going on? I feel helpless. I don't feel

45:04

like there's anything I can do. This

45:06

relates to my own health. Do

45:09

I find some way to find

45:11

an agentic position? Yeah,

45:14

so acceptance does not mean resignation or

45:17

tolerating something. It

45:19

means accepting and that's how it is right now. Not

45:22

resenting it, not railing against it, but

45:24

saying this is how it is. Now, how

45:27

would I like to approach reality? That's

45:30

what acceptance means. So it's not

45:32

a, you know, my

45:35

partner beats me and I'm going to accept

45:37

that. That's not acceptance. That's

45:42

tolerating or putting up with or

45:45

resigning yourself. Accepts

45:47

sense says my partner beats

45:50

me. What would

45:52

I want to do about it? If I

45:54

had agency, what would I do? So acceptance

45:57

just says this is how it is.

46:01

how do I approach it? And you

46:03

know, an Eckhart says in one of his books, whether it's

46:05

the myth of normal, he

46:08

only wishes you what that looks like. Sorry,

46:11

I meant the part of now or the

46:13

new earth. He says in one of

46:15

the books that in the situations that

46:18

bother you, there's only three things you can

46:20

do. You can

46:24

leave it, you can try

46:26

and change it, and if you can't do either, you

46:29

might as well accept it. So

46:31

you and I live in Vancouver right now. We

46:35

might as well accept that it's going to rain here in a minute

46:37

time. We

46:39

may wish to travel away from it, but

46:41

there's no point railing against the rain. And as

46:44

Eckhart says in one of his, you know, he's so funny

46:46

sometimes, he says in one of his talks that you can,

46:49

there's something in the mind that will even

46:51

make the traffic jam wrong, you know, it'll

46:53

make you superior to the traffic jam because

46:55

you're resenting the traffic. What's he going to

46:57

do? He might as well accept

46:59

that you're in a traffic jam and then you're not

47:01

generally paid a lot of attention. So

47:03

that's what acceptance means. It's not

47:07

tolerance or resignation. Can

47:10

you just connect a link

47:13

for people about when we

47:15

suppress, whether it's our authenticity

47:17

or our healthy anger or

47:20

whatever of our emotions we might

47:22

be suppressing, bottling down, how that

47:26

leads to health challenges,

47:28

disease, like what's

47:30

the mechanism? Well, that's

47:33

very simple. And that

47:36

is laid out in the myth of normal. It's also

47:38

the subject of my book when the body says no,

47:42

which is very simple. So let's

47:44

say take healthy anger. I said that we're wired

47:46

for anger, which we are.

47:49

That's one of the, our brain is wired

47:51

for anger. So is the wiring of a

47:53

cat wired for anger. You

47:56

look at a mother cat and try and interfere with one

47:58

of her kittens. You're going to see mother anger. And

48:00

so healthy anger is simply a boundary defense.

48:02

It says, you're in my space, get out.

48:05

You're hurting me, get out. Get

48:07

out. That's healthy anger. It's

48:09

in the moment. It's protective.

48:13

It sets a boundary. That's

48:15

all it is. Now,

48:19

the role of healthy anger is to protect your

48:21

boundaries. The role

48:23

of emotions in general is to

48:26

let in what is nurturing and healthy

48:28

and welcome and loving, and

48:30

to keep up with isn't. By and large, that's the

48:32

role of our emotional system. If

48:34

I asked you a trick question, it would be

48:36

this. What's the role of our

48:39

immune system? Oh,

48:42

it's the same. To keep

48:44

up with what's not healthy and dangerous and

48:46

toxic and to allow in what is nurturing

48:48

and supportive. That's all the immune

48:50

system does. The immune system

48:52

and the emotional system have the same

48:54

roles. Can you see that far?

48:58

I can. Yeah. Now,

49:00

here's the news that

49:02

is only news to those that are not aware

49:05

with the science, which means most physicians were not

49:07

aware of the science. They're not taught this stuff,

49:10

but from the scientific perspective, the

49:12

immune system and the

49:14

hormonal apparatus and the

49:16

nervous system and the emotional system

49:19

in our brains and bodies are

49:21

not different systems. They're one system.

49:24

And the science that studies that is

49:26

called SACO, new immunology, not

49:29

even vaguely controversial. And

49:31

so that when you suppress

49:33

emotions, guess what? You're

49:36

also interfering with the immune system. And

49:38

when you look at all the people

49:41

with autoimmune disease, multiple

49:43

sclerosis, Crohn's, colitis, phagomyalgia,

49:47

chronic fatigue, what

49:52

else could I mention? Phagomyel, rheumatoid

49:54

arthritis, systemic lupus,

49:57

scleroderma. If you look at

49:59

their life patterns... and personalities, they're all

50:01

people who suppress themselves. Not

50:04

because they wanted to, but because

50:06

in childhood, there was that tension I

50:08

already talked about between authenticity and attachment

50:10

to stay attached. They had to suppress

50:12

their authenticity, and they'd been doing it

50:14

all their lives because that's what they're

50:16

programmed, and that emotional

50:19

self-suppression then plays

50:21

havoc with the nervous system because it's the

50:23

same system. It's really that simple. So

50:26

people that repress healthy anger have diminished

50:28

activity of their immune systems. And

50:31

there was a study that I

50:33

mentioned in the Myth of Normal, which

50:35

is, by the way, why women get more

50:37

autoimmune disease, much more, 7, 80% of autoimmune

50:39

disease happens to women because as

50:41

between the genders in this culture, which

50:44

is the one that's expected to suppress

50:46

themselves, suppress developing anger, serve the needs

50:48

of others, ignore their own, is

50:51

by a large women. And that's where they

50:53

get all this autoimmune disease. And

50:55

there was a study out of Massachusetts that

50:58

looked at 2,000 women over a 10-year

51:00

period. This is really

51:02

interesting to me. Those women

51:04

that were unhappy married and

51:07

didn't express their emotions in

51:09

that 10-year period were four times as

51:11

likely to die as those

51:13

women who were also unhappy married, but

51:16

they did express their emotions. So

51:19

self-suppression, we pay a heavy price

51:22

because the mind and the body can't be separated. So

51:27

that's the connection. Very clear. Thank

51:29

you. One last thing I want to talk

51:31

about, God bless you, which is this is

51:33

something that I feel you and

51:36

I have in common, to some degree at

51:38

least, which is this, I

51:43

would say a deep love of

51:45

the truth, of truth-telling. You already

51:48

shared with us about your

51:51

commitment to authenticity. Even when

51:53

it meant serious challenges

51:56

within your family related to

51:58

the Mideast conflict. from

52:00

many decades ago and you know in

52:03

my own life sounds true is called

52:05

Sounds True for a reason

52:07

and when I finally made

52:09

a little audio program to share my

52:11

heart with people I called

52:14

it being true and I

52:16

was like that's the one thing I can

52:18

stand by is that I want to be

52:20

true it's so important to me and

52:22

I will sacrifice for that

52:25

and I will speak

52:27

up even when I may

52:30

appear this that or the other

52:32

way that you know I'm concerned

52:34

about I'm still gonna do it because I have

52:36

to be true I have to I have to I have

52:38

to and I know that in you from

52:40

our interactions what do you think that

52:43

is why are some people so like this

52:46

is their their touchstone they're saying

52:48

like I just have to be a

52:51

true a true person that's my

52:53

thing I

52:59

can't rightly answer that question for you I think

53:02

that drive is in all of us let

53:05

me go back to quoting Peter Levine again

53:07

if I may he's talking with this capacity

53:09

for truth seeking and then he says sadly

53:12

this primal instinctual energy

53:14

is all too often

53:16

forced underground by oppressive

53:19

over socialization or overwhelmed

53:21

by toxic stress and trauma nevertheless

53:24

this powerful resource lives deep within all

53:26

of us and lies in wait ready

53:28

to be awakened at the right moment

53:30

and in spite of

53:32

this pervasive trauma he says I believe

53:35

this creative curiosity this creative curiosity

53:37

and inner sense of vitality and

53:39

exuberance was always present in my

53:41

life and what helped to take

53:43

me from there to here he's talking about

53:45

himself now I think that

53:50

if I were to try and wrap my head around

53:52

this question that you just posed we

53:56

both suffered but I don't think we suffered so deeply

53:58

that we had to completely give up ourselves There

54:01

was something in the environment that both made us

54:04

aware of our suffering, and I

54:06

think about the unfairness of the world, but

54:08

there was enough support

54:13

somewhere that allowed us

54:15

to retain some connection to ourselves, which

54:18

is where that search for truth emanates from.

54:21

So I think it's a

54:24

combination of both suffering and

54:27

some degree of support that allowed that suffering

54:30

not to overwhelm us. That

54:33

would be my answer. And

54:36

in your own life, though, just speaking for

54:38

yourself for a moment, how

54:40

would you answer why being

54:43

true, not my word, but however you

54:45

would describe that, is

54:47

such a priority for you? Why

54:50

is that your...I mean, I would say it's

54:52

one of your number one orienting principles, at

54:54

least in my conversations with you. I

54:58

don't like how it feels when I'm not that way. When

55:01

I lie to my wife or

55:03

manipulate or cry and hide

55:05

some truth or betray what I know to

55:11

be true, I don't like what it feels like. I

55:14

don't like it. I like it when

55:17

I can be true and open and free. It's

55:21

just a

55:25

preference that's

55:27

there for me. It's more than a preference. It's

55:33

imperative for me, which

55:36

is not to say that I'm always true to it, but

55:39

it is to say that it never disappears and

55:42

it keeps calling me back when

55:45

I stray from it. All right. I'm

55:48

going to sneak in a final question. I

55:50

heard that you took two weeks off from

55:53

digital engagement as

55:55

part of a personal

55:57

reset. What was that time?

56:00

What did it affect you? What did you do? Well,

56:02

it came at a time

56:04

of high stress. I'd just been through... It was

56:06

a difficult year for me, and I'm not going to

56:08

go into the details why. When I say difficult, I

56:10

mean emotionally challenging. And then

56:12

I had this long intensive, more intensive than

56:14

I would have chosen, speaking healing trip

56:22

in Europe, and I came back really bad. Then I

56:24

was talking to a friend of mine. You might know

56:26

her or of her, or the former Evensler V, the

56:28

playwright who wrote the vagina

56:32

monologues and a wonderful author and talk about activists. And

56:36

she said, you should turn everything off for two

56:38

weeks. And so I did. And

56:43

I turned off everything

56:45

digital, didn't check my emails

56:48

or messages or the ranking of

56:52

my books on Amazon or who

56:54

said what about who. And

56:58

I actually devoted time to meditation and yoga

57:00

every day and just taking care of my

57:02

body, being with my wife. And it

57:06

was quite an education

57:08

about how I sprinkle

57:11

myself all over the place unnecessarily, habitually.

57:16

And I was spending time with things that don't make any

57:18

difference at all. And so

57:20

it was a real healing time for me, and it

57:23

hasn't left me, and as long

57:25

as I keep the practice up to a certain degree. So

57:30

I found out what

57:32

any spiritual

57:35

teacher worth their salt says almost

57:37

right off the bat that

57:42

you're never going to find satisfaction and fulfillment

57:45

from the outside. And

57:47

as Alma says, that

57:49

drive for the outside to get satisfaction

57:51

from the outside is actually a

57:53

wound to the self. Like

57:56

if I have to check several times a day, how I feel

57:59

about it, my books to

58:01

do on Amazon, which is quite

58:03

irrelevant actually, because they're doing what

58:05

they're doing. Checking doesn't

58:08

make any difference. But if I

58:10

need that external validation, then it's

58:13

an assault to the self, as Almas points out, because

58:15

I'm saying to myself, I'm not

58:17

enough without that external buttress. Now that's a

58:19

wound to the self. And

58:23

we all wound ourselves that way in our society, and

58:27

vagals and seduces us into betraying ourselves that way

58:29

to think that we're going to get it from

58:31

the outside. Well, in those two weeks, I

58:34

found that just so much liberation there is in not

58:38

looking to the outside. And

58:41

that's what all

58:43

the spiritual pathways are, I think, here to teach

58:45

us anyway. Babur,

58:49

I want to take a moment to thank you

58:52

and to celebrate you.

58:54

So join me, if you will,

58:56

if it's authentic for you in this

58:58

moment. Celebrate

59:01

our connection. Sounds

59:03

true. Celebrates the work you're

59:05

doing with us, the program we made

59:07

with you and Dick and the other

59:10

contributions you make on our platform. And

59:13

I just want to say, you know, the

59:15

fact that you're alive doing what you're doing,

59:17

it inspires me and so many people. So

59:19

thank you. Thank you, Frank. Thank

59:22

you so much. And thank you, my friend. Thank

59:24

you so much. My pleasure. And

59:26

if you'd like to watch Insights at the

59:28

Edge on video and participate in

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1:00:00

true. Waking up the world.