Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: You said something very profound and very deep, and it
Speaker 2: was about it was stress related. You said, it wasn't
Speaker 2: the stress, it was the relationship. Can you can you
Speaker 2: say that again? Because because I thought that was really good,
Speaker 2: I don't want to miss that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely so. In the world of stress, what we
Speaker 3: know is that the events in our lives have nothing
Speaker 3: to do with our level of stress. It's our relationship
Speaker 3: or our perception, our perspective on the events in our
Speaker 3: life that determines whether or not we have a stress reaction.
Speaker 3: And so what I've discovered in my experience is and
Speaker 3: the experience of the thousands of people that I've worked with,
Speaker 3: is that when we get ourselves out of the fighter
Speaker 3: flight mode by reconnecting to the body, which is the
Speaker 3: gateway to the present moment experience, when we get out
Speaker 3: of that fear mode, we start interpreting the events in
Speaker 3: our lives very, very differently in a much more positive way.
Speaker 3: And so an event or an experience that might have
Speaker 3: caused stress before because we were stuck in the fear mode,
Speaker 3: would no longer cause us stress. And there have been
Speaker 3: a number of research studies out there that have proven
Speaker 3: this to be a fact, and it's something that we
Speaker 3: can also easily prove ourselves just by practicing that present
Speaker 3: moment experience and learning firsthand and experiencing firsthand that in fact,
Speaker 3: things that used to stress us out don't anymore because
Speaker 3: we're not carrying that fear around with us, and so
Speaker 3: that's the big deal. That's really the big deal is
Speaker 3: getting rid of the fear, and then we lose stress,
Speaker 3: and then the only time we have stress is when
Speaker 3: there is a real reason for it. I mean, if
Speaker 3: our survival is truly being threatened, we want to have
Speaker 3: that ability to go into fight or flight, to have
Speaker 3: the fear, to have all of that stuff to mobilize
Speaker 3: ourselves to allow us to survive as well as possible.
Speaker 3: But in fact, most of the time when people are
Speaker 3: in that fight or flight mode, there is no true survival.
Speaker 3: It's just a mystery as to as to why this
Speaker 3: is happening on such a mass scale across the entire planet.
Speaker 2: Is some of it though?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 2: Hmm? So when it's survival, it's not it's not like, oh,
Speaker 2: a bear's coming and it's going to kill me. It's
Speaker 2: not that kind of thing. It's it seems like, and
Speaker 2: tell me where I'm off the path of what you're saying.
Speaker 2: But and I should, you know, be really nice about it.
Speaker 2: But is it? Is it more of like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: in a situation and I just don't know what to
Speaker 2: do because I was never educated on so ah, I'm
Speaker 2: either going to run or I'm gonna step into it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, the term is fight, flight or freeze. That's
Speaker 3: that's the full term that we use. And what it
Speaker 3: is is people when when our nervous systems get stuck
Speaker 3: in that fight or flight mode, it doesn't take much
Speaker 3: to get us going into that full blown experience of fear,
Speaker 3: and we imagine that the saber tooth tiger is coming
Speaker 3: at us, but it really isn't, and it becomes it
Speaker 3: can become a very generalized kind of fear. There doesn't
Speaker 3: have to be a specific incident that puts us into that.
Speaker 3: If your nervous system is stuck in that fight or
Speaker 3: flight mode, then something as simple as somebody cutting you
Speaker 3: off on the road and it puts you right into
Speaker 3: road rage. And road rage is simply one of the many,
Speaker 3: many forms of expression of fight or flight, And so
Speaker 3: the key is to once again get that nervous system
Speaker 3: out of the fight fight or flight mode, get rid
Speaker 3: of the fear, and then start experiencing life in a
Speaker 3: whole new way, a way where you're not interpreting people
Speaker 3: and events and things as being a threat to you.
Speaker 3: And most of this is going on on the subconscious
Speaker 3: or unconscious level.
Speaker 2: Do you see some of that as learn though, because
Speaker 2: let's say when you're a little kid, your dad would
Speaker 2: always scream at everybody when you were driving a church
Speaker 2: in the morning.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, absolutely, it's you're correct, Uh, it is learned.
Speaker 3: They become negative patterns that get fed in stone over
Speaker 3: a long period of time. Any kind of trauma like that,
Speaker 3: if you're not taught how to deal with the trauma,
Speaker 3: which is to allow yourself to fully experience it by
Speaker 3: being in your body, allow yourself to fully experience. Otherwise
Speaker 3: it stays with you until you do allow yourself to
Speaker 3: experience and you allow yourself to process it, then it
Speaker 3: goes away. So that's the key there. And then what
Speaker 3: we've also learned is that kind of trauma can get
Speaker 3: passed along genetically, and so really genetically, Yeah, what we
Speaker 3: find is people are being born stuck in that fight
Speaker 3: or flight mode, and that's their parents or their grandparents
Speaker 3: or whatever have been traumatized and it actually affects the
Speaker 3: DNA the genes, and so those genes get passed along
Speaker 3: and then you become prone to having that kind of
Speaker 3: stress experience.
Speaker 2: How did they prove that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you know, the science of genetics has come away. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, genetics to me is so fascinating. If I
Speaker 3: were going to go back to school again, I would
Speaker 3: probably study genetics. We're going to have some of the
Speaker 3: greatest breakthroughs in health and wellness through the field of genetics.
Speaker 3: And the important thing to know about genes is that
Speaker 3: you can, even though you're born with a particular tendency
Speaker 3: to go in one direction or another, you can influence
Speaker 3: the way that genes express themselves. That's called the field
Speaker 3: of epigenetics. And so we do have the ability to
Speaker 3: influence things that we've been born with. And one of
Speaker 3: the ways, I believe it or not, I hope I'm
Speaker 3: not sounding like a broken record, but one of the
Speaker 3: ways to influence genes that way is through the practice
Speaker 3: of mindfulness. And there have been many studies that have
Speaker 3: shown that the ability to be in the present moment
Speaker 3: influences genes in a very positive way. And when you
Speaker 3: have tendencies, negative tendencies, it can actually change those negative
Speaker 3: tendencies and turn them into a positive experience for you. So,
Speaker 3: even though you've been born perhaps with that genetic predisposition predisposition,
Speaker 3: there is a definite, proven way to reverse that and
Speaker 3: mitigate the damage that kind that that kind of predisposition
Speaker 3: can cause for you.
Speaker 2: Wow. Well, one of the things I remember too that
Speaker 2: you did and I thought was just fantastic, is you
Speaker 2: were teaching this. Uh you know, there's always coaches and
Speaker 2: teachers and this and that in life, and but you
Speaker 2: are actually teaching this to students and getting getting this
Speaker 2: into school programs, right in hospitals.
Speaker 3: Yes, that is correct, that's cool. Yeah, I am. Back
Speaker 3: in the late nineties, I did really the first research
Speaker 3: program using mindfulness in schools, and it was a two
Speaker 3: year program. I partnered with Arizona State University to do
Speaker 3: this study and I taught first, second, and third grader's
Speaker 3: mindfulness for two years and the results of the experience
Speaker 3: of the study were very, very positive. It created a
Speaker 3: ripple right across the planet and The way I understand
Speaker 3: it from what people have told me is that study
Speaker 3: inspired people and motivated them to bring mindfulness into their schools.
Speaker 3: So now we're seeing mindfulness being taught in schools all
Speaker 3: over the world and it's a big deal. And I
Speaker 3: maybe ten twelve years ago I decided to partner with
Speaker 3: a nonprofit organization that brings mindfulness to the schools in
Speaker 3: a very scalable way. It's very affordable, and it's virtual
Speaker 3: because of all it is is it's audio, pre recorded
Speaker 3: audio practices, eight to ten minute practices, and so they
Speaker 3: kind of put me in charge of overseeing the curriculum,
Speaker 3: and I made sure that the curriculum was compliant with
Speaker 3: the practice of mindfulness and was simple and direct, and
Speaker 3: it's been getting great results for us. Right now, we're
Speaker 3: in front of over three million kids across the country.
Speaker 3: We recently signed up the entire Los Angeles school District
Speaker 3: and so that three those three million kids really equates
Speaker 3: to about four thousand schools and we're growing by leaps
Speaker 3: and bounds. And it's called inter Explorer, And if people
Speaker 3: are interested in that sort of thing, you can go
Speaker 3: to inter explorer dot org and see what the program is.
Speaker 3: All about, but it's really transformed in a very positive
Speaker 3: way the lives of millions of kids, and we'll continue
Speaker 3: to do that moving forward. And so, you know, influencing
Speaker 3: kids in this positive way has always been a passion
Speaker 3: of mine.
Speaker 2: I would love to know the long term studies of
Speaker 2: how they've turned out along the way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they're out there. We have studies behind our program.
Speaker 3: Our program isn't that old, so I don't know how
Speaker 3: you define long term, but we do have studies that
Speaker 3: have measured the kids' experiences over five to ten years.
Speaker 3: Mindfulness is relatively new, maybe thirty to forty years of
Speaker 3: popularity in our culture. It's been around in the Eastern
Speaker 3: culture for thousands of years. It just fairly recently made
Speaker 3: its way into our Western culture. And the Eastern culture
Speaker 3: frankly doesn't bother with research and science the way we
Speaker 3: do in the West, the way we do it in
Speaker 3: the West. Yeah, experience is Panama, but we also want
Speaker 3: to have the research and the science behind it so
Speaker 3: that we know that it's reproducible and that it's real.
Speaker 3: And so there's that there. And the longer we continue
Speaker 3: to bring mindfulness into the schools, the longer we will
Speaker 3: have our team of researchers continue to monitor and look
Speaker 3: at the longevity of the effects of the program, and
Speaker 3: as kids grow up and become adults, they will have
Speaker 3: the benefit of the ability to not get stuck in
Speaker 3: that fight or flight mode, to stay fully connected to
Speaker 3: the body and mitigate all of those stress situations that
Speaker 3: other people fall into because they haven't had the training
Speaker 3: that's being offered in this program where it's bringing kids
Speaker 3: to the experience of being present, not just during those
Speaker 3: eight to ten minute practices, but twenty four to seven.
Speaker 3: Their whole lives become transformed because of this very very
Speaker 3: simple practice.
Speaker 2: Are they liking to do it? Are they tacking it
Speaker 2: up quickly?
Speaker 3: Yeah? When I that's one of the things that really
Speaker 3: amazed me when I was teaching those first, second and
Speaker 3: third graders, they caught onto it almost immediately. I find
Speaker 3: and I found then that that kids don't have the
Speaker 3: all of those experiences that adults are carrying around with them.
Speaker 3: Kids are pretty much a blank slate at that age
Speaker 3: relative to adults. Yes they're genetics, and yes they're home
Speaker 3: situations and trauma opportunities and things like that, but generally speaking,
Speaker 3: kids are an open book, and they picked up on
Speaker 3: the practice quickly, and they learned to enjoy it, and
Speaker 3: it was just a joy to to bring that experience
Speaker 3: to them.
Speaker 2: Well, that's like recess, you know, it's not math, it's
Speaker 2: not Spanish, it's not English, all right, right, In.
Speaker 3: Fact I put it, I like that. I taught it
Speaker 3: under the umbrella of physical education because kids that age
Speaker 3: like to move around a lot, so I taught them
Speaker 3: how to be present, how to be mindful while moving around,
Speaker 3: and then that opened the door to be able to
Speaker 3: teach them the meditation component, where they're learning how to
Speaker 3: be present in stillness and silence. So the key is
Speaker 3: to learn how to be present in stillness and silence,
Speaker 3: but also in activity. So that's how you get the
Speaker 3: twenty four to seven experience going for you.
Speaker 2: Did all this start because of your near death experience?
Speaker 3: Yes? Did? And I know we talked about that a
Speaker 3: bit last time, and what happened was, well, yes, I
Speaker 3: did have a near death experience, but that was really
Speaker 3: the culmination of a lifelong fear of dying. I'm one
Speaker 3: of those people who were born stuck in that fight
Speaker 3: or flight mode. I didn't discover it till much later.
Speaker 3: But I learned later that my mother had a nervous
Speaker 3: breakdown when she was present when she was pregnant with me.
Speaker 2: Well, she was present with you too, right, yeah, right,
Speaker 2: A bit of a Freudian slip worked.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I didn't plan that.
Speaker 2: That was good. I was with you, I followed you. See,
Speaker 2: I'm with you. I am in the present with you.
Speaker 2: I see that we're doing good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so so yeah, I was born that way,
Speaker 3: fearful of everything, but particularly very very aware of afraid
Speaker 3: of dying, because that is what we're really afraid of
Speaker 3: when we go in that fight or flight survival mode.
Speaker 3: You know. I talk about fear generally, but the fear
Speaker 3: specifically is the fear of dying, because that's what helps
Speaker 3: us to survive as humans. So anyway, I was plagued
Speaker 3: with that growing up, and it wasn't until I was
Speaker 3: oh gosh, maybe twenty one years old and the process
Speaker 3: of graduating from college that it all came to a head.
Speaker 3: I just the fear turned into terror, and I knew
Speaker 3: that I had to somehow address what was going on
Speaker 3: because it was really taking me down the wrong road.
Speaker 3: And it was right at that time, right at that time,
Speaker 3: that I had that near death experience. I was in
Speaker 3: a terrible car accident where I flipped my car over
Speaker 3: ten or twelve times, and I knew I was dying,
Speaker 3: and I had one of those life review experiences where
Speaker 3: my life flashed in front of me. I could see
Speaker 3: everything that had happened, was happening and was going to
Speaker 3: happen in my life, and I let go of the
Speaker 3: steering wheel and I just said, this is it. I'm
Speaker 3: going to die. And of course I didn't to the
Speaker 3: best of my knowledge. Yeah, I think that you.
Speaker 2: I can't touch you there. I'm just listening, right, And
Speaker 2: so after that.
Speaker 3: Experience, after that near death experience, it was maybe a
Speaker 3: week later that I went to visit an old friend
Speaker 3: of mine and she was in the process of studying
Speaker 3: yoga and the Kabbala. This was in nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 3: when these Eastern traditions were just starting to make their
Speaker 3: way into the Western culture and particularly on the college campuses,
Speaker 3: which is where I was. I was taking the summer
Speaker 3: school class. I needed one more class in order to graduate,
Speaker 3: so I was up there at Syracuse University in college.
Speaker 3: I had just gotten back from Woodstock and all right, yeah,
Speaker 3: and I went to visit an old girlfriend, and I said,
Speaker 3: we got to talking about my fear of dying for
Speaker 3: some reason.
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