Speaker 1: You know that feeling of I'm trying to manifest but
Speaker 1: nothing's happening. Manifestation is not creating a fantasy and then
Speaker 1: waiting for it to come. Try with no action from yourself.
Speaker 2: Leading neuroscientists, best selling author doctor Tarriswipe.
Speaker 1: We cannot undo a negative thought pattern. We have to
Speaker 1: overwrite it with a new one. Your brain it's two
Speaker 1: and a half times more strongly wired to avoid risk
Speaker 1: than is to get a reward.
Speaker 2: Wow. The number one health and wellness podcast Ja Shedy
Speaker 2: j Sheddy only shed Hey Everyone, Welcome back to on Purpose,
Speaker 2: the place you choose to become a happier, healthier and
Speaker 2: more healed. Today's guest is someone that I've wanted to
Speaker 2: talk to for such a long time, and I'm so
Speaker 2: excited because we finally have a in the studio, actually
Speaker 2: all the way in London because we didn't know when
Speaker 2: she was coming to LA and I'm so glad we
Speaker 2: made it happen. I'm speaking about the one and only
Speaker 2: doctor Tara Swat. She's a PhD neuroscientist for I'm D,
Speaker 2: Executive Advisor, best selling author, and Senior Advisor for Neuroscience
Speaker 2: and Leadership at MIT Sloan. Her book is called The
Speaker 2: Source The Secrets of the Universe, The Science of the Brain.
Speaker 2: If you don't already have a copy, I want you
Speaker 2: to go and grab it now. I promise you you
Speaker 2: won't regret it. Please welcome to On Purpose, doctor Tara
Speaker 2: Swat Tara. It's such a joy to have you here.
Speaker 1: Honestly, thank you so much, and thank you for you know,
Speaker 1: squeezing me in when you're in London for such a
Speaker 1: short time.
Speaker 2: No, no, not, this is something I was looking forward
Speaker 2: to all week. I can promise you. It's a Thursday
Speaker 2: for anyone who's listening, and I've been recording all week
Speaker 2: and I was really excited to sit down with you.
Speaker 2: I think the work that you're doing is so similar
Speaker 2: in value to the work I'm trying to do in
Speaker 2: the world. I really believe that for so long ancient wisdom,
Speaker 2: and the wisdom of the East especially, has been seen
Speaker 2: through two lenses. I think there's been a lot of
Speaker 2: enthusiasm towards it and a lot of value and reverence,
Speaker 2: and at the same time, I think there's been, as
Speaker 2: you say, skepticism and cynicism around it. And so to
Speaker 2: have someone of your caliber your research, your insight and
Speaker 2: communicating in the way you do, I think is such
Speaker 2: a great blessing and benefit for the industry in and
Speaker 2: of itself. So thank you so much for the work
Speaker 2: you do. You really means the world. But let's dive
Speaker 2: straight in and if you hear me and Tara lock
Speaker 2: into some what would I call them inside jokes because
Speaker 2: we're both North Londoners, then just please roll with us.
Speaker 2: But Tara, I wanted to start off with, where did
Speaker 2: you and why did you get so passionate about this
Speaker 2: work and finding the parallels between ancient wisdom and modern
Speaker 2: science and why did that work call you?
Speaker 1: As you know, I grew up in North London and
Speaker 1: I was the oldest child of first generation immigrant parents.
Speaker 1: So I always felt like I was bridging two worlds.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I went to school, I didn't have any Indian friends,
Speaker 1: and I just wanted to fit in with my friends.
Speaker 1: And then I would come home and obviously we would
Speaker 1: have like the altars and the incense and the ceremonies
Speaker 1: and the rituals and everything, and so yeah, I would
Speaker 1: say for most of my childhood I was living in
Speaker 1: two worlds. And then at the age of eighteen, I
Speaker 1: went to medical school, and I think I moved very
Speaker 1: much away from our cultural heritage and just lived like
Speaker 1: a teenager and so on in their twenties at university.
Speaker 1: And I was at university for most of my twenties
Speaker 1: because I did medical school and a PhD, so nine
Speaker 1: years at university. Around the time that I became a doctor,
Speaker 1: yoga was becoming quite popular in society, so I sort
Speaker 1: of returned to that, and I would say that reignited
Speaker 1: my interest in our cultural heritage, but then still I
Speaker 1: would keep it very separate from my work. So I
Speaker 1: was working in the NHS, you know that really wasn't
Speaker 1: very holistic. But at home I was eating in an
Speaker 1: Aerovhadic way and doing yoga. And some time past and
Speaker 1: these things came more into our culture anyway. But still
Speaker 1: at the time that I wrote the Source, it was
Speaker 1: a risk for me, as an MIT professor to start
Speaker 1: speaking about manifestation and visualization and meditation and things like that.
Speaker 1: But writing it really for me, actually brought those two
Speaker 1: things together and made me think I don't have to
Speaker 1: keep my personal life separate from my professional life. And
Speaker 1: I have to say thank you to everyone that the
Speaker 1: response to it. Then you took that even further. As
Speaker 1: we were discussing, you know, we both had books out
Speaker 1: around that time. Couldn't really do world promo because of
Speaker 1: the pandemic. But very early on in the pandemic, I thought,
Speaker 1: oh no, there's going to be a huge mental health crisis.
Speaker 1: And it was so unprecedented. I thought, what can I
Speaker 1: offer that isn't already available to people? But I will
Speaker 1: caveat that by saying, I think all of the ancient
Speaker 1: wisdom knowledge that I tried to apply to modern mental
Speaker 1: health problems is it's just things that we've forgotten. It's
Speaker 1: not anything new, but it's about bringing you know, finding
Speaker 1: those things. It's like gold mining and bringing them to
Speaker 1: people and saying this could really help you.
Speaker 2: It's fascinating that all of these things have been practiced
Speaker 2: for thousands and thousands of years, and ironically, we've also
Speaker 2: had mental health and anxiety challenges for much longer than
Speaker 2: we believe we have. And I often think of the
Speaker 2: Bagadaghita and origin, which you know was spoken five thousand
Speaker 2: years ago. But that experience that he's having on the
Speaker 2: battlefield is anxiety stress. He's having a sense of a
Speaker 2: loss of identity. He's worried about the surroundings and the
Speaker 2: impending war that's about to take place. And so you
Speaker 2: see that in a text that's five thousand years old,
Speaker 2: and then you have all of this wisdom that surrounds it.
Speaker 2: But being able to translate that into what's happening now
Speaker 2: is so needed. And I guess that's why you had
Speaker 2: that positive response.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And what I found really interesting is that it
Speaker 1: would be one thing if you and I sat here
Speaker 1: and talked about our own cultural he But what I
Speaker 1: found is that if you look at the ancient Greeks,
Speaker 1: ancient Egyptians, Babylon, and you know, all sorts of other
Speaker 1: ancient cultures, the first Americans, that there are so many
Speaker 1: similar themes of the things keep us healthy and such
Speaker 1: new science as if it's just been discovered in the
Speaker 1: last year or two, like things like connection to nature.
Speaker 1: I mean, how will we not understanding that for so long?
Speaker 1: You know, I think because there are no planes in
Speaker 1: the sky and less traffic, and our time and nature
Speaker 1: in this country anyway was limited people who allowed like
Speaker 1: a one hour walk outside during the day. At some
Speaker 1: point the appreciation of nature grew, and then suddenly, as
Speaker 1: if from nowhere comes out the science that time and
Speaker 1: nature helps your mental health, your physical health, your longevity,
Speaker 1: it boosts your immunity, that there's just an impact of
Speaker 1: that awe inspiring sort of feeling of being in beautiful
Speaker 1: nature on the way that your brain works. So like
Speaker 1: so much modern science, that is actually not one of
Speaker 1: those things is near.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, it's not new at all. This idea then,
Speaker 2: that we have the power to change our destiny, this
Speaker 2: idea that we have the power to propel our lives,
Speaker 2: whether it's careers, whether it's relationships. We have the ability
Speaker 2: to shift and pivot. A lot of people will hear
Speaker 2: that and they think to themselves, well, that doesn't happen
Speaker 2: to me. It happens for those people. They hear that
Speaker 2: and think, yeah, you can't really think your way into anything.
Speaker 2: Or people hear it and say, no, I tried that
Speaker 2: once and it didn't work for me. How do you
Speaker 2: approach that conversation of helping people realize the power that
Speaker 2: they hold and the power of what's possible for any
Speaker 2: one of us.
Speaker 1: I love the way you've kind of segued that from
Speaker 1: nature into manifestation. Because a few things here, one thing
Speaker 1: is that if you just observe nature, you see manifestation
Speaker 1: or the time you know, you see a flower growing
Speaker 1: from a bard into a fully formed flower, and then
Speaker 1: it's petals starting to fall, you see trees growing, you know,
Speaker 1: all sorts of things. And the other connection there is
Speaker 1: that creating the environment within yourself and around yourself to
Speaker 1: allow things like manifestation to happen. And that basically means
Speaker 1: at the simplest level, that you set a goal, you say,
Speaker 1: this is what I want my life to be, like, well,
Speaker 1: this is a specific thing I want in my life,
Speaker 1: and then there's a process that leads that to potentially
Speaker 1: manifesting in the real world. But I do agree with
Speaker 1: one of those skepticism points, which is that you can't
Speaker 1: sit at home and think about it. So I've been
Speaker 1: really really clear about saying that it's manifestation, is not
Speaker 1: creating a fantasy and then waiting for it to come
Speaker 1: true with no action from yourself. So I actually renamed
Speaker 1: vision boards action boards as if to say that, yes,
Speaker 1: create imagery that represents what you want, but then you
Speaker 1: have to be doing something every day to move yourself
Speaker 1: closer to that, whether it's being healthier, just so that
Speaker 1: you're brain is in a better environment, or it's networking
Speaker 1: or dating or you know, saving money, whatever it is
Speaker 1: that's going to get you. Let's say the house that
Speaker 1: you want. You know, a great example is people might say,
Speaker 1: of course, I'd love a house in the Hampton's but
Speaker 1: if that's not realistic for you in the short term,
Speaker 1: then you'll only reinforce the fact that you're failing at manifesting.
Speaker 1: So it's better to say I'd like to be on
Speaker 1: the property ladder and start there and then obviously build bigger.
Speaker 2: Do you find a difference, And I want to get
Speaker 2: into the science and research part to show the validity
Speaker 2: of what you're saying, Did you find a difference in
Speaker 2: the science of measuring extrinsic and intrinsic motivators? Because I
Speaker 2: feel like manifestation is still always about what do you want?
Speaker 2: Where do you want to be? And as you know, honestly,
Speaker 2: I can only I can only really speak for myself.
Speaker 2: But when I think about it, for me, I've if
Speaker 2: someone asked me what that was, I've always wanted to
Speaker 2: just wake up and do what I love every day,
Speaker 2: like that's that's really all I care about. And so
Speaker 2: It's all I care, right, is I want to wake
Speaker 2: up and do what I love every day and hopefully
Speaker 2: improves the lives of other people. And if those two
Speaker 2: things can go together. And I find that a lot
Speaker 2: of manifestation stems around like what kind of house do
Speaker 2: you want? And what kind of car do you want?
Speaker 2: And what kind of life do you want? And it
Speaker 2: gets very extrinsic, and so I wonder whether I'm intrigued.
Speaker 2: I'm really curious to know what the science suggests about
Speaker 2: when you're having an action board towards an intrinsic motivator
Speaker 2: or an extrinsic motivator.
Speaker 1: There's a lot to unpack here.
Speaker 2: Please, I'm all leaders, I'm here as a student to
Speaker 2: just listen because I'm so fascinated.
Speaker 1: So in terms of the motivation, to make it really
Speaker 1: easy for people to understand, I called it magnetic desire,
Speaker 1: which is something that is so emotionally driven for you,
Speaker 1: personally underligned with you know what's logically doable in your
Speaker 1: life and what your intuition tells you, and you know
Speaker 1: what your creative brain can help you to achieve. That
Speaker 1: if you have magnetic desire for something, then you know
Speaker 1: I always say if you follow your passion, you will
Speaker 1: be successful. But I'm mindful that that statement and even
Speaker 1: your one if I just want to wake up and
Speaker 1: do what I love, are extremely privileged statements. So with manifestation,
Speaker 1: one of the criticisms is that you know, that's a
Speaker 1: luxury for people who already have, you know, more than
Speaker 1: what they need, and then they can say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I would love, you know, to do this or have this.
Speaker 1: And so I think what I've learned in where I
Speaker 1: have ever felt slightly defensive around that statement is that
Speaker 1: whoever you are, wherever you are, there is one tiny
Speaker 1: thing that you could do to make your life better,
Speaker 1: and it's the micro changes that build you up to
Speaker 1: getting to a point where maybe you can actually do
Speaker 1: something that you love rather than do what you have
Speaker 1: to do to put food on the table for your children.
Speaker 1: But having said that, if your ideas for what you
Speaker 1: want to manifest are things like, well, all my friends
Speaker 1: are getting married and having family, so I want to
Speaker 1: get married and have a family, rather than I've really
Speaker 1: thought about what I want to do, and my passion
Speaker 1: and purpose might mean that I have to delay having
Speaker 1: a family, and that's okay. It's more likely to work
Speaker 1: out with the second one than the one that's kind
Speaker 1: of too guided by parental expectations, societal expectation, career, you know, aspirations.
Speaker 1: So I do think people have to dig deeper for
Speaker 1: manifestation to you know, really work well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, walk me through some of the science that and
Speaker 2: the research that validates some of these claims, because I
Speaker 2: think that's your unique perspective, and that's been the unique
Speaker 2: angle that you brought to in I feel like it's
Speaker 2: great to understand that this stuff is actually being research tested, discovered.
Speaker 2: It's not just being said because it not just sounds good,
Speaker 2: but that maybe there's a couple of case studies, but
Speaker 2: there's more than that.
Speaker 1: So there's two main sort of areas around that. One
Speaker 1: is the sort of six themes that I narrowed down
Speaker 1: from the twelve laws of attraction that I could explain
Speaker 1: with cognitive science, which is neuroscience and psychology. So when
Speaker 1: I first started that research, I saw that there wasn't
Speaker 1: even agreement over what the laws of attraction were or
Speaker 1: how many there were. So I thought, okay, let me
Speaker 1: distill this down to like something that makes sense to me,
Speaker 1: and then like see what we can do with it.
Speaker 1: So the first one is abundance because one of the
Speaker 1: strongest gearings in the brain is loss avoidance. So to
Speaker 1: survive when we lived in the cave, we had to
Speaker 1: stay safe rather than take risk. Now for most of
Speaker 1: us who are lucky enough, you know, to live in
Speaker 1: the modern world and have basic safety around us, it's
Speaker 1: healthier for us to be willing to take risk. So
Speaker 1: you actually have to override that ancient wiring of the
Speaker 1: brain which says, no, don't go and like, you know,
Speaker 1: fly to London and try to have meetings with lots
Speaker 1: of different people who may not want to meet you.
Speaker 1: Stay in LA because that's safer, and you've got your
Speaker 1: community around you and you know, you know, you've got
Speaker 1: a big network. So for you to say, well, I'm
Speaker 1: going to go to a news I know it's not
Speaker 1: it was your home. But in terms of like recent work,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of take a bit of a risk,
Speaker 1: take a week out there. You know, see who I
Speaker 1: can interview. That is you overriding that part of your
Speaker 1: brain that might say it would just be easier for
Speaker 1: me to stay in LA. So it's as simple as that.
Speaker 1: It can obviously be a lot harder than that as well.
Speaker 1: But it's understanding that your brain will do quite a
Speaker 1: lot to stop you from taking risk. It's two and
Speaker 1: a half times as strongly wired to avoid risk as
Speaker 1: it is to gain reward.
Speaker 2: And do that part again, it's two.
Speaker 1: And a half times more strongly wired to avoid risk
Speaker 1: than is to get a reward.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: It's about believing that there are enough resources out there
Speaker 1: for everyone, and that by you know, perhaps entering a
Speaker 1: new career pool or a new community of people, that
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that you're likely to fail if you've
Speaker 1: managed to be in an abundant state, Because what that
Speaker 1: does in the brain is it moves the brain away
Speaker 1: from the fear and shame kind of states which correlate
Speaker 1: with the stress woman cortisol, to the love and trust
Speaker 1: and joy and excitement states which correlate with the bonding
Speaker 1: hormone oxytocin. Now, when your brain is in that state,
Speaker 1: it's much more likely to take a healthy risk. It's
Speaker 1: much more likely to ask someone for a favor. We
Speaker 1: were talking about, you know, asking each other for favors before.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't do that if you thought, well, don't ask ja,
Speaker 1: because you'll just shut you down, then you would never
Speaker 1: ask anyone. But if you start a conversation and someone
Speaker 1: looks like they want to be generous and help you,
Speaker 1: then you know you go into that oxytocin mode. But
Speaker 1: you need to be pushing yourself into that mode as
Speaker 1: much of the time as you can. So the second
Speaker 1: one is manifestation, which is believing that with your abundant
Speaker 1: resources you can do things in the real world that
Speaker 1: mean that whether it's that feeling if I do what
Speaker 1: I love, or it's an actual house, that you have
Speaker 1: it in your capability to make that happen. Because of course,
Speaker 1: if you believe it will never happen for me one
Speaker 1: of these common statements that's likely to become true, that's
Speaker 1: manifestation too, it's just negative manifestation. And it's important to
Speaker 1: say that both manifestation and the process of neuroplasticity, which
Speaker 1: I will describe in detail, which is how your brain
Speaker 1: changes to allow you to grow and grasp new opportunities,
Speaker 1: they both have a good side and a bad side.
Speaker 1: And the classic example of a bad side of neuroplasticity
Speaker 1: is obsessing over an X after a breakup, because what
Speaker 1: you're saying to your brain is this is what people do.
Speaker 1: You know, you trust them, and then they leave you,
Speaker 1: and you just remind yourself of all the times that
Speaker 1: you should have seen the signs, and then you know
Speaker 1: all the times that it went wrong. That's also inducing
Speaker 1: neuroplasticity and potentially manifestation in your brain, because if you
Speaker 1: don't make a change after that, your relationship pattern will
Speaker 1: stay the same and you'll reinforce it further with more
Speaker 1: breakups and more you know, sort of choices of partners
Speaker 1: aren't ideal for you. The third one is the magnetic
Speaker 1: desire that I already discussed, which means that it has
Speaker 1: to be really authentic to you but also aligned in
Speaker 1: simple terms in your head, your heart, and your gut.
Speaker 1: But in the source, I talk about six ways of thinking,
Speaker 1: which are logical, emotional, physical, intuitive, motivational, and creative. So
Speaker 1: if you think of something that you want and you
Speaker 1: ask yourself in six different questions, you know, why do
Speaker 1: I want this?
Speaker 2: Logically?
Speaker 1: Why do I want it? Intuitively? And you can get
Speaker 1: a really good answer to those, then it's likely that
Speaker 1: you know you will be able to manifest that. Then
Speaker 1: there's patience, which is to do with neuroplasticity. So until
Speaker 1: we had sophisticated scanning technologies, a lot of this work,
Speaker 1: cognitive science work was all thought to be psychological rather
Speaker 1: than neurological. So it would kind of be like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, Jay, you're not mentally strong enough. You gave
Speaker 1: up too quickly, and it would kind of infer an
Speaker 1: intangible psychological weakness that is kind of your fault. And
Speaker 1: I think that's another criticism of manifestation as well, that
Speaker 1: if it doesn't work, then there's something wrong with you.
Speaker 1: If you understand that it's actually physical work when you're
Speaker 1: changing something, when you're striving for something, connecting up neurons
Speaker 1: or nerve cells in your brain that weren't connected previously.
Speaker 1: You may even be growing new nerve cells from little
Speaker 1: embryonic you know, baby nerve cells that then connect up
Speaker 1: with ones that already exist. And you may also be
Speaker 1: adding an insulating coat around existing neural pathways to make
Speaker 1: them faster, to make them more efficient. So the patient's
Speaker 1: piece is because a lot of hard work goes on.
Speaker 1: You know, that feeling of I'm trying to manifest but
Speaker 1: nothing's happening. That's in the patient's piece, Because when you
Speaker 1: get to a critical mass, of neurons that have created
Speaker 1: a new pathway that is stronger than the pathway you
Speaker 1: had before. So let's say it's just the things like
Speaker 1: that never happened for me. Pathway changes to a well, actually,
Speaker 1: I've seen Jay do it, so maybe it could happen
Speaker 1: for me. Pathway that takes a lot of effort, But
Speaker 1: once you get to the critical mass of enough neurons,
Speaker 1: suddenly it feels like everything's easy and everything's manifesting. And
Speaker 1: I do feel like people have to get a taste
Speaker 1: of that before, you know, at least once with a
Speaker 1: quick win, to have the courage to take it to
Speaker 1: the next level. And the last two, which I didn't
Speaker 1: expand on too much in the source, are harmony and
Speaker 1: universal connection. And harmony is kind of also to do
Speaker 1: with the fact that you're aligned in yourself, but it
Speaker 1: also means that it should be aligned like with the world,
Speaker 1: like you're not doing some harm to get what you want.
Speaker 1: And universal connection is about the fact that you know
Speaker 1: we are all into related. If you believe that you
Speaker 1: can achieve something because there are enough resources in the
Speaker 1: world for everyone, then you should also be generous and
Speaker 1: pay it forward.
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Speaker 2: to I'm just thinking that so much of our psychology
Speaker 2: has been made so limited and scarce. When I think
Speaker 2: about the way we talk about our relationship with money.
Speaker 2: You may have grown up in a family that says
Speaker 2: we have just enough to survive, or we don't need more,
Speaker 2: we have all we need, and those things become so hardwired,
Speaker 2: and therefore as we get older, it becomes really hard
Speaker 2: to change them, right, and so that also applies to love.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, if someone says, oh, my parents had
Speaker 2: a bad marriage, like, I'm just scared I'm going to
Speaker 2: repeat it, and then that becomes their narrative when we're
Speaker 2: talking about changing those Does every thought count? Does every
Speaker 2: thought matter? Like, talk me through that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, every single thought matters. And that's why there's
Speaker 1: an old Buddhist saying that has replace every negative thought
Speaker 1: with a positive thought. And neuroplasticity completely back set up
Speaker 1: because the way we rewire our brains is not that
Speaker 1: we so basically we cannot undo a negative thought pattern
Speaker 1: or a negative relationship pattern. We have to overwrite it
Speaker 1: with a new one. So rather than focusing on the negatives,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, to do with that abundance piece,
Speaker 1: it's better to work out what do I need to
Speaker 1: do differently to not keep repeating this obstacle or challenge
Speaker 1: that keeps coming up in my life. So the way
Speaker 1: that it physically works, the process that underpins neuroplastic is
Speaker 1: underpinned by neuroplasticity is a four step process, and it
Speaker 1: starts with raised awareness, which is kind of what you've
Speaker 1: already said, which is really monitoring your thoughts, understanding what
Speaker 1: the beliefs are that are underneath driving those thoughts, and
Speaker 1: making you make the decisions that you make in the
Speaker 1: real world. And I would suggest that people spend at
Speaker 1: least a month monitoring that with journaling, maybe talking therapy,
Speaker 1: maybe talking to a friend, as long as you know
Speaker 1: you're very clear that they that their agenda for you
Speaker 1: kind of doesn't, you know, affect that. And then the
Speaker 1: second stage is focused attention. So that is then let's
Speaker 1: say you notice a particular pattern that you have. Let's
Speaker 1: say it's around money. Notice the next time again for
Speaker 1: a month, probably that you don't buy something because you
Speaker 1: don't feel you deserve it, because you think it's too expensive,
Speaker 1: or you wait for something to go into the sale
Speaker 1: and then you miss out on getting it, you know,
Speaker 1: So things like that, any money behaviors or love behaviors, whichever,
Speaker 1: And at first, don't try to change anything, but just
Speaker 1: notice it, like maybe straight after it happened. Then try
Speaker 1: to in time get yourself to notice when it's happening
Speaker 1: and see if you can reframe it. Maybe you can,
Speaker 1: maybe you can't, and then to try to get yourself
Speaker 1: to the stage where you think. Normally, I wouldn't buy
Speaker 1: this because I don't think I deserve it. But today
Speaker 1: I'm going to treat myself because I believe in abundance
Speaker 1: and I believe that I will achieve the career aims
Speaker 1: that I have that will make me able to afford that.
Speaker 1: The third stage is deliberate practice, which is that you
Speaker 1: regularly practice the new desired behavior until it becomes so
Speaker 1: ingrained in your brain that it's actually easier for you
Speaker 1: to do that than default to the old behavior. And
Speaker 1: the last part, it's not really one of the stages
Speaker 1: it takes you through the whole process, is accountability. So
Speaker 1: how do you hold yourself accountable? Some people have a
Speaker 1: coach or a therapist or a partner that might hold
Speaker 1: them accountable. If you don't, and you need to do
Speaker 1: it by yourself, then a vision board is a really
Speaker 1: good way of doing it. Because you've clearly stated what
Speaker 1: you want, you can see if you've got it or not.
Speaker 1: At the end of the year, you can say I
Speaker 1: manifested sixty percent of the things that I wanted. And
Speaker 1: I also use an app called Habit share where I
Speaker 1: record twelve micro habits each year and I can track them,
Speaker 1: I can share them if I want to. I found
Speaker 1: that was better for me than New Year's resolutions, because
Speaker 1: I could just take two or three of them and
Speaker 1: try to bring them into my talkit each quarter of
Speaker 1: the year, and then by the end of the year
Speaker 1: I would find like eight of ten or ten of
Speaker 1: those were habits already. So I kind of do that
Speaker 1: alongside my bigger goals.
Speaker 2: I find like when people think about this, one of
Speaker 2: the things that kind of keeps tripping them up is
Speaker 2: Jack can say it, and I can think it, but
Speaker 2: I don't believe it. Yeah, right, And I'm sure you've
Speaker 2: heard that a million times, that fear of like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't believe I can start living my
Speaker 2: passion and I don't believe that I can and do
Speaker 2: what I love for work, or I don't believe that
Speaker 2: I have it's possible for someone like me to achieve
Speaker 2: whatever else it may be. And then I can say
Speaker 2: it to myself before I go to bed, but I
Speaker 2: don't believe it because I don't believe it. I stopped
Speaker 2: doing it after two to three days. What's the difference
Speaker 2: between someone who's practicing this in a way that it
Speaker 2: works and we'll get onto action in a second, but
Speaker 2: at least practicing the belief change because I'm fully with you.
Speaker 2: By the way, I remember, I had a mentor that
Speaker 2: used to constantly say to me. You'd say, Jay, you're
Speaker 2: an entrepreneur. You're an entrepreneur, You're an entrepreneur. At this time,
Speaker 2: I was working a full time job nine to five
Speaker 2: and getting paid whatever it was, and he'd keep telling me,
Speaker 2: But like, Jay, you're an entrepreneur. I'd keep telling hm.
Speaker 2: I'd be like, no, I'm not. No, I'm not. No,
Speaker 2: I'm not I'm an artist, I'm a creative. I'm definitely
Speaker 2: not an entrepreneur. The last thing I want to do
Speaker 2: is run a business. Like that's just not who I am.
Speaker 2: And if you asked me, I would have said, I'm
Speaker 2: a very self aware person at this point in my life.
Speaker 2: It wasn't that I didn't reflect enough. I felt like
Speaker 2: I really knew who I was and I was like
Speaker 2: this is And then it was only when I was
Speaker 2: required to have to be an entrepreneur did I have
Speaker 2: to shift into that gear and become one. But if
Speaker 2: you still ask me today, I'm like, I'm an entrepreneur,
Speaker 2: but I much prefer being a creative and an artist
Speaker 2: and a thinker. That's that's where I thrive, if you
Speaker 2: ask me. Yeah, but I did something when I was
Speaker 2: required to do it. So I see you smiling, and
Speaker 2: so I want to hear your reaction to what I'm sharing.
Speaker 1: Four things there, so I hope I can remember them all.
Speaker 1: The first one is that there's a step before what
Speaker 1: you said, which is that some people aren't even aware
Speaker 1: that they don't think they deserve it. So well, I
Speaker 1: discovered something quite by accident, which was a theme of
Speaker 1: people selecting images for their vision board, placing them onto
Speaker 1: the board, even spending the time to like shuffle them
Speaker 1: around make sure it all like looks and feels right,
Speaker 1: and then telling me that they never stuck them down.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: And I just had a light bulb moment and I said,
Speaker 1: you haven't stuck them down, so you don't believe you
Speaker 1: deserve them, And the person, just like you know, had
Speaker 1: a bit of a meltdown. And so every time i've
Speaker 1: heard someone do you know a variation on that theme,
Speaker 1: I've talked about deserving this, So so like even that
Speaker 1: has to be known in the first place.
Speaker 2: Right well, we think it's too ridiculous or too out
Speaker 2: there or right.
Speaker 1: Next, I do think it's about who you surround yourself with.
Speaker 1: So I started smiling when you said I had a mentor,
Speaker 1: because that already means that you've sought out someone that's
Speaker 1: going to challenge your thinking, that's going to push you
Speaker 1: to be your best. And my version of that is that,
Speaker 1: like I said, I spent nine years at university to
Speaker 1: become a medical doctor in the NHS. I did not
Speaker 1: believe that I could do anything else. I didn't I
Speaker 1: had a vocational degree. I didn't have a more general
Speaker 1: degree where I could say I could go and you know,
Speaker 1: apply to do something else. My best friend, whose kids
Speaker 1: I was just babysitter, she had read biochemistry at Oxford,
Speaker 1: she'd worked in the dot com explosion, and then she
Speaker 1: just announced to our sort of closest circle one day
Speaker 1: at dinner, I'm going to give it all up and
Speaker 1: go and study a master's in sculpture. And I remember
Speaker 1: thinking that's incredible, But I could never do that. And
Speaker 1: it was only kind of like one and a half
Speaker 1: or two years later that I then said I'm leaving medicine,
Speaker 1: and I remember my brother said to me, I'm really
Speaker 1: proud of you, but I could never do that. So
Speaker 1: it's almost like there's a chain of totally yeah. And
Speaker 1: if you were around people who were only doing what
Speaker 1: you do, who also had self limiting beliefs, who you know,
Speaker 1: had maybe some things even against being entrepreneurial, you might
Speaker 1: have stayed stuck where you were. And then the next
Speaker 1: stage is a lot of people try and then give up. Right,
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying this is for everyone, but when
Speaker 1: I changed career, I went from having a you know,
Speaker 1: not very high but stable salary to having nothing. And
Speaker 1: that was the case for quite a while. And a
Speaker 1: few people said to me, please just go and like
Speaker 1: work in the hospital for one weekend, You'll be able
Speaker 1: to pay your rent and like not you know, kind
Speaker 1: of worry about money so much, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people hold down part time job when they're becoming an entrepreneur.
Speaker 1: But I said, if I do that, I will feel
Speaker 1: like I failed. So for me, I had to burn
Speaker 1: my boats like there was no way back. I had
Speaker 1: to succeed. And like I said, I'm not saying that's
Speaker 1: right for everyone, but everyone will have their version of
Speaker 1: the thing that will really make them say I cannot fail.
Speaker 2: That initial challenge of like you're saying that, even becoming
Speaker 2: aware that we don't believe we deserve something or something's
Speaker 2: meant for us, it can be such an uncomfortable discovery
Speaker 2: because it almost starts indicating towards the fact that there
Speaker 2: are past experiences, past traumas, past relationships that you now
Speaker 2: have to go back to and uncover and unlearn and
Speaker 2: understand because you've almost been living in a sense of
Speaker 2: darkness in that area of your life. And I think
Speaker 2: that can be really disconcerting because it requires so much
Speaker 2: time to actually and an energy to actually go back
Speaker 2: there and excavate and look at it and face it
Speaker 2: head on. What does signs have to say about how
Speaker 2: can we look at our past? How can we look
Speaker 2: at our wiring in a healthy way rather than a
Speaker 2: judgmental way, Because we could just turn around and say,
Speaker 2: I'm the worst that I've been thinking this way, you
Speaker 2: start criticizing yourself. I've wasted so much time. I always
Speaker 2: hear even sometimes I hear people and like, I wish
Speaker 2: I started when I was eighteen. I wish I started
Speaker 2: when I was twenty five, and there's this regret that's
Speaker 2: underlying that feeling. Even if they did change, how do
Speaker 2: we look at our past and look at change in
Speaker 2: a healthier way rather than a negative way.
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that you're talking about
Speaker 1: is this idea of having really in depth psychotherapy and
Speaker 1: having to uncover every trauma in your life to get
Speaker 1: to the point where you're healed enough to move forward.
Speaker 1: I am obviously a fan of therapy, you know, for
Speaker 1: many reasons, but I don't particularly think that you have
Speaker 1: to uncover every trauma in your life to be able
Speaker 1: to move forward. The career changed I made in factors
Speaker 1: to coaching, So coaching tends to be more forward looking
Speaker 1: or you know, sort of positive looking unless there's, you know,
Speaker 1: some kind of major trauma. I don't think it's necessary
Speaker 1: to dig everything up in like years of psychotherapy. But
Speaker 1: there are some sort of models in science that can
Speaker 1: be quite useful for people, whether you know, it could
Speaker 1: just be self discovery. So there's one called Ghosts in
Speaker 1: the Executive Suite, and that talks about the childhood systems
Speaker 1: that you grew up in and the fact that the
Speaker 1: wiring that was embedded in the first seven and then
Speaker 1: also the first fourteen years of your life are likely
Speaker 1: to be very non conscious now in adulthood, but still
Speaker 1: driving a lot of your behaviors. And so the business
Speaker 1: side of that is called in the executive suite. So
Speaker 1: it's looking at CEOs who are behaving in a certain
Speaker 1: way because of those but it can apply to anyone's life,
Speaker 1: and it looks at things like the boundaries and the
Speaker 1: values and the secrets and the sort of identities that
Speaker 1: you had as a child. So you know, you may
Speaker 1: have had a home where everyone was welcome to drop
Speaker 1: in and they would just be added into the family
Speaker 1: meal and they could stay the night. And I may
Speaker 1: have been, you know, grown up in a home where
Speaker 1: you had to plan everything in advance. If someone was
Speaker 1: coming over, then you know, the people would make sure
Speaker 1: there was enough food and make sure that a bed
Speaker 1: was made in advance, and all this kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And then values tends to be a lot around money,
Speaker 1: So you know, you may have grown up in a
Speaker 1: household where people say money is a bad thing. It's
Speaker 1: not good to have too much of it. You know,
Speaker 1: even in many religions they say that if you're excessively wealthy,
Speaker 1: that your chances of going to heaven are kind of lower.
Speaker 1: So you know, there's a lot of that rhetoric in
Speaker 1: our society. Identification is about things like, oh, you're just
Speaker 1: like your father, or you're just like you know, your
Speaker 1: uncle used to be. Secrets is we never talk about
Speaker 1: that alcoholic gun call kind of thing, and roles includes
Speaker 1: things like where you the peacemaker or the go between,
Speaker 1: and all of those sorts of things may influence you
Speaker 1: later in life without you realizing it. But there is
Speaker 1: self exploration and other work that you can do with
Speaker 1: people to help you uncover that. And also the really
Speaker 1: good news is that Freud talked about stages of child
Speaker 1: psychosocial development and things like trauma, neglect, abandonment, separation from parents' illness,
Speaker 1: and described in great detail what would go wrong with
Speaker 1: you for the rest of your life if you experienced
Speaker 1: any of those things. And then later a psychologist called
Speaker 1: Ericson came along and talked about the vice and the virtue.
Speaker 1: So he said, if you have a childhood trauma at
Speaker 1: a certain age, then this is what could go wrong,
Speaker 1: but this is also your opportunity for something to go
Speaker 1: really right. And what I find is that a lot
Speaker 1: of the CEOs or really successful entrepreneurs that I work
Speaker 1: with had their first childhood disruption between the ages of
Speaker 1: five and seven, where the vice and the virtue are
Speaker 1: inferiority or industry and industry meaning hard works of being industrious.
Speaker 1: So that means if you did have a trauma at
Speaker 1: that age, then you could either spend the rest of
Speaker 1: your life feeling inferior and undeserving, or you could say,
Speaker 1: I'm going to work so hard, I'm going to get
Speaker 1: myself out of this situation of poverty forever. I'm going
Speaker 1: to be self sufficient. I'm going to be financially independent,
Speaker 1: you know. And there's several other trust, mistrust, and you know,
Speaker 1: other kind of vices and virtues that people can look up.
Speaker 1: It's all on the internet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that kind of opening of the idea that you
Speaker 2: went through this, but it could also be an opportunity
Speaker 2: of this impediment could also be an invitation. Like that
Speaker 2: kind of understanding I find to be really powerful, and
Speaker 2: I would agree with you. I think the most purposeful
Speaker 2: people I've met are people who went through a pain
Speaker 2: point and now they don't want other people to go
Speaker 2: through that pain, or they want to help people through
Speaker 2: that pain, and that's what created their ability to do that,
Speaker 2: whereas someone else who may not have had that pain
Speaker 2: or may not have had that challenge almost can it
Speaker 2: sometimes feel less clear or a bit more lost because
Speaker 2: they don't know what the meaning of their life is
Speaker 2: or where they stand.
Speaker 1: Well, I think what often happens with those people is
Speaker 1: that you know, life's just okay, life's fine, you're married,
Speaker 1: you know, your kids are healthy, You're going to this,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of regular day job, and you've kind
Speaker 1: of forgotten what you dreamed of when you were a child,
Speaker 1: what you're you know, maybe you've just given up your
Speaker 1: real passion because it's fine to have this kind of
Speaker 1: quite easy life. And often it does take a later
Speaker 1: disruption like a divorce or a bereavement to really make
Speaker 1: people rethink that. And so, you know, a big example
Speaker 1: that affected a lot of people is a financial crisis.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people in financial services lost their jobs.
Speaker 1: And then said, actually, I always wanted to be a
Speaker 1: teacher or a journalist, but I also wanted a more
Speaker 1: expensive lifestyle, so I didn't make that choice, and now
Speaker 1: I have the opportunity to do what I really want
Speaker 1: to do. So I guess it depends on how you
Speaker 1: define wealth, because wealth can be having a lot of money,
Speaker 1: but it can also be waking up every day and
Speaker 1: doing what.
Speaker 2: You love, yeah, or having a lot of free time,
Speaker 2: or whatever it may be. When people are trying I
Speaker 2: feel like we live in a time right now where
Speaker 2: and you alluded to this earlier, and I'm kind of
Speaker 2: going back to it. We live at a time where
Speaker 2: there's a lot of projected goals and expectations, and a
Speaker 2: lot of people can feel like they're so far away
Speaker 2: from their own goals because there's goals from other people
Speaker 2: around them. Now. My mentor I'm still good friends with them,
Speaker 2: knew me very well, and so he wasn't projecting his
Speaker 2: entrepreneurial thing. He was seeing something that I couldn't. But
Speaker 2: a lot of the times, there's like society like, oh,
Speaker 2: let's live in hustle culture. Everyone needs to be an entrepreneur,
Speaker 2: everyone needs to be a CEO, everyone needs to like
Speaker 2: there's a lot of performance culture out there, in productivity culture,
Speaker 2: and I find that a lot of people either struggle
Speaker 2: with that weight of that expectation or they actually curl
Speaker 2: up into a ball and kind of don't want to
Speaker 2: go anywhere and do anything, and it makes them hide
Speaker 2: from that as well, because it's almost like everyone's just
Speaker 2: pushing them to be more ambitious and be more driven.
Speaker 2: At the same time, I would love to understand the
Speaker 2: psychology of being needing to open up to more challenges
Speaker 2: and more opportunities as just a healthy way of living.
Speaker 2: So if someone's stuck in that space of you know,
Speaker 2: Tara and Jay, I'm just you know, I'm kind of
Speaker 2: stuck because I do want more. I'm trying to get
Speaker 2: there that I believe I deserve it, but then I
Speaker 2: don't know if that's what I really want, or if
Speaker 2: it's what my parents want, or what social media wants
Speaker 2: me to want, or what my friends are doing.
Speaker 1: I just want to go back to something because I
Speaker 1: only actually twigged when you said, Tara and Jay that
Speaker 1: my brother's name is Jay. Oh no way, yeah, And
Speaker 1: I didn't put it together like that. And I wanted
Speaker 1: to say something that he said to me when I
Speaker 1: changed career and I was like in my mid thirties seven.
Speaker 1: He said the best time to plant an acorn was
Speaker 1: two hundred years ago, but the second best time is now.
Speaker 1: So for anyone that's saying it's too late, you know,
Speaker 1: I regret things. I think that's a really amazing saying.
Speaker 1: And then before you started really like posing your question
Speaker 1: and I understood like where you were going with it,
Speaker 1: I thought, oh, I wanted to tell you about at
Speaker 1: the start of the pandemic. When I said, I sort
Speaker 1: of like saw that, I thought there could be a
Speaker 1: really big mental health crisis. Quite quickly, I would say,
Speaker 1: within like a month or two. I thought this is
Speaker 1: also an opportunity for a spiritual revolution or evolution. And
Speaker 1: so in all the research I've done since kind of
Speaker 1: the end of the pandemic, at the official end, I
Speaker 1: guess which is more about ancient wisdom and neuroesthetics. I
Speaker 1: believe that returning to ancient practices like chanting, humming, drumming, singing,
Speaker 1: and neuroesthetics is neuro arts. It's the science of why
Speaker 1: beauty and art and creativity and nature are so healthy
Speaker 1: for us. So if you yourself in nature, if you
Speaker 1: spend time making or beholding creative things like either singing
Speaker 1: or going to listen to a concert, or sketching or
Speaker 1: going to an art gallery, etc. That actually opens up
Speaker 1: your mind in a way that the modern world and
Speaker 1: all that noise around you that you've just described doesn't
Speaker 1: let us. So that allows a level of introspection. And
Speaker 1: there's so many other things in that category that you
Speaker 1: know one can do, but that really helps you to
Speaker 1: separate your inner voice from all the words around you
Speaker 1: that are telling you what you should do. And I
Speaker 1: also always say there's a certain age, and it could
Speaker 1: be different for different people, whether there's no more should
Speaker 1: you know you've got to an age now where what
Speaker 1: your parents should said you should do, or you think
Speaker 1: you should do, what your friends are doing is not
Speaker 1: It cannot be applicable forever because that is probably the
Speaker 1: one thing you'll regret on your death bed, right.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: Taking that time. But it is so hard because you know,
Speaker 1: I still hear people saying, oh, I go for my
Speaker 1: nature walk, but I listen to podcast at the same time.
Speaker 1: That's not giving you time for introspection. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: you're one of the few people that will agree with
Speaker 1: me that we aren't doing it like enough or any being.
Speaker 1: We're just always doing I often say to people, when
Speaker 1: do you sit down and actually do nothing? And I
Speaker 1: think that people maybe not if they know me well,
Speaker 1: but if they look at my career, would say she
Speaker 1: probably never sits down and does nothing. I do a
Speaker 1: lot of sitting down and doing nothing. We do, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, to access yourself nature is a massive mirror
Speaker 1: for us, so time and nature, you know, and the
Speaker 1: science for that in the last few years has just
Speaker 1: rocketed interestingly. At the same time, the science around having
Speaker 1: a purpose that transcends yourself, so not one that earns
Speaker 1: the money that you need to just live your life,
Speaker 1: not even one that just makes you happy and satisfied
Speaker 1: in yourself, but one that is more altruistic is actually
Speaker 1: very expanding for our consciousness. And I think that's probably
Speaker 1: what we're really getting at a conversation that I don't
Speaker 1: have with many people, but I feel like I could
Speaker 1: have with you, which is that we need to sort
Speaker 1: of be able to access altered states of consciousness to
Speaker 1: really understand what our soul's purpose is in this life.
Speaker 1: And breath work is a great way of doing that too. Obviously,
Speaker 1: there's a popular sort of trend at the moment for
Speaker 1: plant medicine, and you know, I'm watching the research on
Speaker 1: that at Johns Hopkins really carefully, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of positive stuff around it, But what I'd really like
Speaker 1: to say to people is it's nothing that you can't
Speaker 1: achieve through time and nature, breath work, meditation, nourishing your
Speaker 1: body with really healthy food, sleeping really well, and crucially
Speaker 1: having that really like positive, meaningful community around you.
Speaker 2: What's your understanding so far about the soul's purpose of
Speaker 2: what you've been able to discover and cover on this journey.
Speaker 1: I did do some research into near death experiences and
Speaker 1: terminal lucidity and dark retreats. The original scientific intro that
Speaker 1: was to understand the nature of consciousness more in terms
Speaker 1: of how separate it can be from the body. So
Speaker 1: if we look at the research or near death experiences,
Speaker 1: then we see that people who had the physical signs,
Speaker 1: as a medical doctor, I would say they were dead.
Speaker 1: So whether it was the amount of time that your
Speaker 1: heart had stop beating or your brain waves had gone flat,
Speaker 1: have then somehow which we can't explain, been able to
Speaker 1: become conscious in that body again and describe an experience
Speaker 1: that they've had whilst seemingly not in their body. What's
Speaker 1: really interesting about that research is you don't have to
Speaker 1: have had that experience yourself, because people will say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, Okay, that's great for those people if it
Speaker 1: made them understand their soul's purpose. But we can't all
Speaker 1: have that, although you actually can if you go and
Speaker 1: do a dark retreat, which is why I then listen
Speaker 1: to those And you know, in the ancient cultures like
Speaker 1: the Greeks and Egyptians, they used to bury people for
Speaker 1: days to mimic death, and then when they uncovered them,
Speaker 1: they were the people that became like the mystics and
Speaker 1: the seers of those communities. So again, just things that
Speaker 1: we've forgotten. But if you you know, there's an amazing
Speaker 1: book called After by doctor Bruce Grayson, or if you
Speaker 1: just like look into the research around near death experiences.
Speaker 1: Most common themes that people say are I feel more compassionate,
Speaker 1: I feel more connected, I feel more grateful, I want
Speaker 1: to do things to help people, and I just see
Speaker 1: beauty like in everything that's around me. And that's supported
Speaker 1: by the modern science of neuro aesthetics. We can all
Speaker 1: choose to do that. You know, we don't have to
Speaker 1: have a near death experience to do that. If we're
Speaker 1: living more like that for them, I think we get
Speaker 1: a greater clarity around the reason that we were put
Speaker 1: on this earth. I mean, I think the biggest blessing
Speaker 1: any of us could have is to wake up one
Speaker 1: day and think, I know why I was put onto
Speaker 1: this earth. I know what I need to be doing.
Speaker 1: And it's not always going to be necessarily the thing
Speaker 1: that just gives you personal satisfaction. You know, it could
Speaker 1: be your calling, could be something quite different to that.
Speaker 1: Terminal loose is super super interesting as a I mean,
Speaker 1: I did my PhD in neuroscience because I thought I
Speaker 1: wanted to become a neurologist, but then I became a psychiatrist,
Speaker 1: which is also super fascinating in terms of things like
Speaker 1: you can hear voices that aren't there, and you know
Speaker 1: your mood can change like you know, not in your control.
Speaker 1: But interminal lucidity is when people who either have had
Speaker 1: dementia for a significant period of time or have had
Speaker 1: a stroke and so parts of their brain are physically
Speaker 1: altered or damaged chemically or physically, and they have lost
Speaker 1: the personality and level of consciousness that their closest friends
Speaker 1: and family knew in them can suddenly become completely lucid.
Speaker 1: So we've got stories of you know, parents who no
Speaker 1: longer recognize their children and their grandchildren just suddenly saying
Speaker 1: one day, oh, Jay darling, come here, I want to, like,
Speaker 1: you know, give you a motherly message. And it's usually
Speaker 1: a sign that they will pass away within one to
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. But there's no physical explanation how they
Speaker 1: could know the names and react in a completely maternal
Speaker 1: or paternal way towards an adult child that they didn't
Speaker 1: recognize for several years. So that starts to make you think,
Speaker 1: are we actually that connected to our body? And if
Speaker 1: we're not, what does that mean? And I don't have
Speaker 1: all the answers.
Speaker 2: But fascinating. Yeah, no, sorry, I could carry out.
Speaker 1: Well I I was just going to say. It makes
Speaker 1: you think that what happens in this life and in
Speaker 1: this physical world and on this material plane can't be
Speaker 1: the be all and end all of everything. And if
Speaker 1: it's not, what does that mean about how I want
Speaker 1: to live? And to me, that brings me back to
Speaker 1: I want to live a life that's guided by love.
Speaker 1: And you know, I don't mean romantic love by that necessarily,
Speaker 1: although that could be included. If I've got a dilemma,
Speaker 1: if I've got a difficult decision to make, if I'm
Speaker 1: feeling like I'm in a really challenging situation, then I
Speaker 1: always go back to love and gratitude, and I've now
Speaker 1: included observing beauty as part of that too, because what
Speaker 1: they're all doing is moving us into the oxytocin state,
Speaker 1: which is our highest state and really the only state
Speaker 1: from which we can live our best life. So it's
Speaker 1: really about doing everything that you can to move yourself
Speaker 1: away from stress and towards love, and overly listening to
Speaker 1: that chatter around you is pretty much going to do
Speaker 1: the opposite. So it is a little bit about liberating
Speaker 1: ourselves from that, I think, at least for moments.
Speaker 2: When you talked about spending time in nature, you talked
Speaker 2: about chanting, you talked about humming, you talked about the
Speaker 2: art class, the kind of more analogue tasks as well.
Speaker 2: What do those tasks have in common from what's happening
Speaker 2: scientifically inside of us, like biologically, like chemically, what's happening
Speaker 2: that's similar across those or is it different?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I have this thing about if I
Speaker 1: don't know the exact answer, I always take it back
Speaker 1: to evolution. Sure, So what we know about our ancestors
Speaker 1: was that they had scarce resources, and it was all
Speaker 1: about survival and reproduction. So in terms of like, what
Speaker 1: was our live's purpose then it was literally live long
Speaker 1: enough to have children and pass on your genes, and
Speaker 1: then it didn't matter if you get got eaten by
Speaker 1: a saber toothed tiger. But those same ancestors who naturally
Speaker 1: in their life to survive, walked barefoot in nature, sat
Speaker 1: around a fire at night, looked at the stars in
Speaker 1: the sky at night, also chose with those scarce resources
Speaker 1: to make cave paintings, to dance around that fire, to sing,
Speaker 1: to hum, to drum, to chant. And we don't know why,
Speaker 1: but the only conclusion that we can draw is that
Speaker 1: there was a benefit to a survival benefit. And what
Speaker 1: we know now is and again, some of these activities
Speaker 1: are luxuries. I completely get that. But when we make
Speaker 1: or behold any of those activities that we in the
Speaker 1: brain becomes more hyper connected. We get The benefit of
Speaker 1: novel experience is we open up more connections in the
Speaker 1: creative parts of our brain, which actually allow us to
Speaker 1: solve complex problems better, to think more flexibly, to override
Speaker 1: our biases, and regulate our emotions better, all of which
Speaker 1: obviously you know, survival advantages because if you think about
Speaker 1: just you know, on the very most basic level, the
Speaker 1: implication of that in a relationship. You know, if we
Speaker 1: were in a relationship and I was much more able
Speaker 1: to regulate my emotions to solve problems with you, to
Speaker 1: like overcome any biases that I might have about the
Speaker 1: way that you're behaving, it's obviously the relationship is going
Speaker 1: to survive better. And one of the pieces of research
Speaker 1: I've really looked into from the neuro esthetics is called
Speaker 1: shared trait vulnerability, and it's about the fact that people
Speaker 1: with psychopathologies like schizophrenia also tend to be more creative
Speaker 1: than the general population. So if you think about some
Speaker 1: of the symptoms of psychotic illnesses, it includes things like
Speaker 1: magical thinking or to states of consciousness, you know, perhaps
Speaker 1: access to I want to put this really carefully, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of data and signs that we are choosing to
Speaker 1: ignore in the real world because our brain is filtering
Speaker 1: out information to help us survive, you know, as people
Speaker 1: who don't have a mental health issue. So one hypothesis
Speaker 1: could be that you could use creativity and all of
Speaker 1: those things are creative things to open up more of
Speaker 1: your consciousness. And if you have a high IQ and
Speaker 1: you're mentally resilient, but you can also do that. I
Speaker 1: just think it's so exciting to think about what we
Speaker 1: could do with our minds that again, it is probably
Speaker 1: stuff that we knew that we've forgotten, but in our
Speaker 1: lifetimes or in the modern world, we haven't been practicing.
Speaker 1: And that is also one of the hypotheses that comes
Speaker 1: out of the research or near death experiences, which is
Speaker 1: that our brains are actually filtering down our minds rather
Speaker 1: than the other way.
Speaker 2: Around, filtering down our minds meanings.
Speaker 1: So our consciousness is capable of a lot more than
Speaker 1: what our brain allows us to do to survive in
Speaker 1: this material world.
Speaker 2: And would the brain ever allow for more or is
Speaker 2: it just so against survival that we couldn't experience it here?
Speaker 1: Well, the easiest way for me to demonstrate that to
Speaker 1: you is it it allows for more when you take
Speaker 1: psychedelic or plant medication right right, And we know that
Speaker 1: a lot of like create. Our breathwork, for example, allows
Speaker 1: some altered states of consciousness, and so does other breath work.
Speaker 1: Time and nature alone can allow some aughtered states of
Speaker 1: consciousness or expansion of our consciousness, so clearly it can,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if we're afraid of it, or
Speaker 1: you know, there's some kind of survival or societal mechanism
Speaker 1: that prevents it. I mean, if you think about the
Speaker 1: tides in interest in psychedelics and how it's been shut
Speaker 1: down every time, it does make you wonder about the
Speaker 1: reasons for that. It's so interesting to be in one
Speaker 1: of these rising tides at the moment and see what
Speaker 1: actually happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean I feel like, as
Speaker 2: you referred to earlier, meditation has been such a powerful
Speaker 2: form of reaching altered states of consciousness and breath work
Speaker 2: you referred to nature for sure. I mean I've had
Speaker 2: the fortune of spending some time in some special, special
Speaker 2: places both in India and just this year I got
Speaker 2: to go to Bhutan as well.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: And you know it was definitely went to places that
Speaker 2: I felt they were it almost felt like there were
Speaker 2: places in the material world that were already in different realms,
Speaker 2: Like it almost felt that way around. Does that make sense? Yeah,
Speaker 2: Like places I went to in South India, I definitely
Speaker 2: felt that because some of these temples are like thousands
Speaker 2: and thousands of years old, and they were built with that.
Speaker 2: I mean they're built with that kind of like Vedic
Speaker 2: mathematics and just the way they're the architecture and everything,
Speaker 2: kind of how we marvel at the Pyramids, the Mayan Ruine, Yeah,
Speaker 2: the Mayan Route, it's that kind of those those I
Speaker 2: saw those temples in South India, which I guess have
Speaker 2: less publicity in PR but when I went there, I
Speaker 2: was like, Wow, this is just you know, there's this
Speaker 2: I remember this one kind of hallway and it's almost
Speaker 2: I forget the exact name they've given it, but it
Speaker 2: almost feels like a portal. And it's just pillars and
Speaker 2: pillars and pillars for so long, but it almost is
Speaker 2: seen as this transitionary portal. And so you kind of
Speaker 2: find these places in the world that have other worldly,
Speaker 2: other realm aspects that you almost feel like an automatic
Speaker 2: sense of connection to a part of you that's beyond.
Speaker 2: And having had those experiences, it's amazing to me as
Speaker 2: well so many of my friends who've taken psychedelics or
Speaker 2: clients that have practiced, that no one ever comes back
Speaker 2: and believes that this four dimensional world is all we have,
Speaker 2: that that there is more. What's the benefit of that
Speaker 2: or what is what do you believe Do you believe
Speaker 2: that's the next stage of human evolution? Is that spiritual dimension?
Speaker 2: Or is that what we're leaning towards, hinting towards? Is
Speaker 2: that how you say it progressing?
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the feeling I got, you know, when
Speaker 1: I thought that things were just going to go downhill
Speaker 1: for humanity, I kind of quite quickly thought there's an
Speaker 1: opportunity for it to like evolve to another level. And personally,
Speaker 1: being a medical doctor and a scientist, I look at
Speaker 1: people like Deepak Chopra, Daniel Siegel, Bruce Lipton, and you know,
Speaker 1: because they're quite a lot older than me, I remember thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, when I was still a doctor that how
Speaker 1: could they be saying some of the things that they're saying,
Speaker 1: And like, I don't think I would ever be able
Speaker 1: to say that in my career. But I've just said
Speaker 1: some of the things that I've just said to you,
Speaker 1: and I just wanted to add that again in my research,
Speaker 1: I completely agree with what you said about certain places.
Speaker 1: But apparently there's three ways of seeing, like a thinning
Speaker 1: of the veil, if you like, you know, let's say
Speaker 1: we let's just hypothesize that we believe that there are
Speaker 1: spiritual planes or astral planes. Have you seen that Disney
Speaker 1: movie Cocoa, I've seen you haven't seen it.
Speaker 2: I thought you're going to say, Soul, I've seen that,
Speaker 2: but I've not seen Coco.
Speaker 1: Coco is about the Mexican Day of the Dead, so
Speaker 1: that's obviously an example of a time of year when
Speaker 1: the veil is thin. But a lot of people around
Speaker 1: the world believe that some of the places that you've described,
Speaker 1: and Ibitha and Hawaii are vortex is where the veale
Speaker 1: is thin and you can maybe like access a different
Speaker 1: spiritual plain in yourself or you know, perhaps even more tangibly.
Speaker 1: And then there are also certain people, so you know,
Speaker 1: obvious examples of the Delai Lama, and I know people
Speaker 1: who've been touched by him physically touched by him have
Speaker 1: said that they saw the interconnectedness of everything and it
Speaker 1: changed the way that they live their life. So I
Speaker 1: think what you and I I really like saying here
Speaker 1: is that there are certain things, activities that we can
Speaker 1: indulge in that can change the way that you look
Speaker 1: at life. And I mentioned dark retreats, which I don't
Speaker 1: think a lot of people have heard of, but obviously
Speaker 1: silent retreats are a way of doing that that more
Speaker 1: people I think you know, have heard of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no, and dark retreats too. I think it's
Speaker 2: interesting that all of it's trying to get us to
Speaker 2: just be, like it all starts with this sense of
Speaker 2: just being. But some of these activities I think for
Speaker 2: a lot of people they seem so foreign, right, Like
Speaker 2: I think dark retreats him foreign, silent retreats him far.
Speaker 2: And obviously they're quite big differences to the way people live.
Speaker 2: And even things like chanting and humming and being in
Speaker 2: nature like those, I think coming from an Indian background,
Speaker 2: like chanting is somewhat far more accessible or normal or
Speaker 2: a practice that you grew up with, whereas in the
Speaker 2: Western world that wouldn't necessarily have been in practice. What
Speaker 2: has been the neurological impact of chanting. I'm intrigued by
Speaker 2: that because that's always been something I've been fascinated by it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I will tell you that. But what I
Speaker 1: do now, which is just much more accessible to people,
Speaker 1: is I just listened to chanting on I found a
Speaker 1: YouTube channel. I just listened to it. I have it
Speaker 1: on in the background. I don't particularly chant myself now,
Speaker 1: to be honest, but if you've got it on in
Speaker 1: the background and it's creating a certain like vibration and
Speaker 1: resonance just in your home, which just literally you know,
Speaker 1: it's nothing magical. It's through sound waves is having an
Speaker 1: impact on We see that sound can have an impact
Speaker 1: on water, and we're mostly made up of water, so
Speaker 1: it's having an impact on you and what we actually
Speaker 1: what actually happens in your heart and your brain is
Speaker 1: something called entrainment. So particularly in the research shows that
Speaker 1: groups of people who are together, who are subjected to
Speaker 1: either chanting or certain pulsations of light, that their heart
Speaker 1: rates and their brain waves will synchronize, and this makes
Speaker 1: them much more likely to cooperate, to see themselves as
Speaker 1: not other, and basically to just be in that oxytocin
Speaker 1: state of love and trust more.
Speaker 2: Than well, I didn't know about the science behind that.
Speaker 2: It's so funny because one of my teachers would always
Speaker 2: tell us, so, if you have a conflict with anyone
Speaker 2: in the monastery, you should dance and chant together.
Speaker 1: Really that to where he would say, so your face
Speaker 1: when you went.
Speaker 2: He would always say that, and he would always tell
Speaker 2: everyone that it's like if you're having a conflict with
Speaker 2: another monk or someone in the monastery, or there's something
Speaker 2: you should dance and chant together. And we'd always thought
Speaker 2: it was like a nice cute thing, like we didn't,
Speaker 2: you know, you don't realize just how much you've recognized
Speaker 2: there's spiritual depth behind it. But to even hear the
Speaker 2: idea that it's actually creating trust on a chemical level
Speaker 2: is pretty far out, because well, it's.
Speaker 1: Clearly creating coherence in terms of you wouldn't chant out
Speaker 1: of tune with each other, which correct one of you
Speaker 1: will kind of fallen, you know, or you both do it.
Speaker 1: Same with the dancing, But once you're doing that, your
Speaker 1: heart rate and your brain waves will change accordingly.
Speaker 2: And that simple act of doing it, even subconsciously, is
Speaker 2: going to bleed into when you're trying to consciously operate. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, that's fascinating from a romantic perspective too, I guess,
Speaker 2: and from a relationship perspective of how often a couple
Speaker 2: spending time together in nature, or how often a couple
Speaker 2: spending time in the same frequency and vibration together. Is
Speaker 2: there any research around that that suggests the same for
Speaker 2: romantic love.
Speaker 1: So those things I think are kind of given the
Speaker 1: two examples that you've just stated, But we know that
Speaker 1: now most of this research is done in vols little
Speaker 1: they're quite cute, they're rodents, but they're quite cute. But
Speaker 1: it's also been done in humans, which is, for example,
Speaker 1: that if you see your partner in distress, your cortisol
Speaker 1: levels will go up, your heart rate will go up,
Speaker 1: you will start sweating curally. You will then seek to
Speaker 1: move towards your partner and soothe them with physical touch.
Speaker 1: We know that people who are in hospital in pain
Speaker 1: that when their partner physically touches them, that their heart
Speaker 1: rate decreases, their blood pressure decreases, and they are in
Speaker 1: less pain. If the couple are you know, a really
Speaker 1: well bonded couple. There's lots of bits of research around that.
Speaker 1: So it's definitely both the fact that if you do
Speaker 1: things together like time and nature or chanting or dancing,
Speaker 1: that that will make you more coherent. It's also the
Speaker 1: fact that when you see or experience lack of coherence
Speaker 1: with you know, and especially the partner who's seeing the
Speaker 1: other one kind of out of coherence, that there is
Speaker 1: a move to go towards them and soothe them, and
Speaker 1: it's and involves physical touch, which, like I said, can
Speaker 1: reduce pain in your partner.
Speaker 2: You kind of talked about these two ideas and even
Speaker 2: what we're talking about now is this kind of spectrum
Speaker 2: that exists between stress and love. And you were talking
Speaker 2: about how, like, you know, you're trying to move towards
Speaker 2: love in your life, and you said, not simply of
Speaker 2: romantic love, just love as a force and as an
Speaker 2: energy source. And you were saying that, you know, stress,
Speaker 2: of course sits at the polar opposite of that, and
Speaker 2: so much of our decisions today are based on stress naturally,
Speaker 2: whether it's stress to pay the bills, stress to survive,
Speaker 2: stress to take care of the people we love, stress
Speaker 2: because someone we love has been diagnosed with the disease.
Speaker 2: Like there's so much stress, and it's almost like, how
Speaker 2: could you ever infuse love with that? What have you seen?
Speaker 2: When is that even possible to measure what it's been
Speaker 2: like to infuse stressful situations with love?
Speaker 1: So I just want to go back and just like
Speaker 1: clarify something. So the stress hormone cortisol correlates with five emotions,
Speaker 1: which we will experience if we're under stress, so that's fear, anger, discust, shame,
Speaker 1: and sadness. And then the bonding hormone oxytocin correlates with love, trust, joy,
Speaker 1: and excitement. And in between those two is surprise, which
Speaker 1: correlates with nora adrenaline, and it can flip people from
Speaker 1: one side to the other quite quickly, so like you know,
Speaker 1: sort of you know, when like someone jumps out at
Speaker 1: you from behind the door. But the more positive side
Speaker 1: of that is that if you know, you asked me
Speaker 1: a really surprising question and it made me think really differently,
Speaker 1: then it could make me stop being nervous and think,
Speaker 1: oh wow, this is really interesting. I'm curious. That's you know,
Speaker 1: go down this road. So the thing about those those
Speaker 1: two ends of the spectrum is that they're like a
Speaker 1: seesaurce so they can't coexist at the same time. So
Speaker 1: the more you have trained your brain to go into
Speaker 1: the oxytocin mode, the less of the time it can
Speaker 1: possibly be in the stress mode. Physical exercise is something
Speaker 1: that we see if we use heart rate variability technology
Speaker 1: that after you've done physical exercise, there's a time period
Speaker 1: where that you're actually in a non phase, but you
Speaker 1: cannot be stressed, so there are things that we can do.
Speaker 1: I know you're talking about really difficult situations for people,
Speaker 1: you know, how do you infuse that with love? But
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's bringing us back almost full circle
Speaker 1: to manifestation and visualization, which is that with all the
Speaker 1: forms of loss that I see people going through, loss
Speaker 1: of sense of self, can't trust yourself, breakdown of relationships
Speaker 1: at home, at work, in community, and even loss through death.
Speaker 1: If we believe some of the things that you and
Speaker 1: I have just spoken about from near death experiences in
Speaker 1: terminal lucidity, then I think that's the reason that it's
Speaker 1: important to expand your consciousness and have more spiritual beliefs,
Speaker 1: because there is a choice there too, to make a
Speaker 1: gift out of a really bad situation. I can completely
Speaker 1: see why people's lives get ruined by a loss and
Speaker 1: they feel regretful and bitter for the rest of their life.
Speaker 1: But I also think that it's possible if you can
Speaker 1: find some kind of legacy or learning or gift to
Speaker 1: make something good come out of the bad thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, that reminds me of Edithigue's book The Gift
Speaker 2: and the Work of Victor Frankcorn, Yeah, and that idea
Speaker 2: of that future motion of how how does what I
Speaker 2: do now, how will that make me feel in the future,
Speaker 2: and who will I be able to help and serve
Speaker 2: in the future even if I can't help anyone now.
Speaker 1: And I think there's another point from both of them,
Speaker 1: and also Nelson Mandela, which is about the mental prison
Speaker 1: that we create. And you know, I know that Victor
Speaker 1: Frankel spoke about that a lot, but I really love
Speaker 1: the quote from Mandela where he says, I knew when
Speaker 1: I walked away from prison that if I didn't let
Speaker 1: go of my bitterness, I'd be in prison for the
Speaker 1: rest of my life. And I find all of those
Speaker 1: things really inspiring. And I've looked at a lot of
Speaker 1: the science that we've discussed today to help myself understand
Speaker 1: how you can possibly override that when there are so
Speaker 1: many difficult things in life, and to try to bring
Speaker 1: that information to people. And really, and I'm not just
Speaker 1: saying this, That's why I was so thrilled when you
Speaker 1: invited me to come onto a podcast, because I think,
Speaker 1: you know, you've just got such an amazing platform, and
Speaker 1: I'm just so grateful to you for letting me, like,
Speaker 1: you know, share some of my findings.
Speaker 2: I'm so tight that the feeling is very mutual. I
Speaker 2: was so excited to have a platform that I could
Speaker 2: have this conversation with you, and that you agreed to it.
Speaker 2: And I want to make sure, out of just my
Speaker 2: expect for your work, that you feel you're being able
Speaker 2: to touch on the things that you really deeply believe
Speaker 2: in and talk about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I'm talking about some things that I actually
Speaker 1: don't normally really talk about.
Speaker 2: That. That's that's brilliant. Okay, good, yeah, good, No, what
Speaker 2: is it I guess that you're most fascinated by right now,
Speaker 2: like something that you're personally obsessed with. I imagine that when
Speaker 2: you're in discovery mode, just as when someone's healing not healed,
Speaker 2: So in a scientist sense, it's like when you're just
Speaker 2: when you're learning, not teaching. Like, what is that for
Speaker 2: you right now? Well?
Speaker 1: I think it's broadly covered by a lot of the
Speaker 1: topics that we've mentioned, But I think the tension that
Speaker 1: I'm interested in is how far you take these things, because,
Speaker 1: as you well know, you could take these things so
Speaker 1: far that you just like run off into the wilderness.
Speaker 1: And become a monk and and just disengage from real life. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think what I'm really curious about is how far
Speaker 1: do you take these things until you get to a
Speaker 1: point where you have some level of understanding or potentially
Speaker 1: night where you can live this life to the fullest.
Speaker 1: That I'm obsessed with at the moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I am too. When I'm listening to you.
Speaker 2: I always think about how does something stop being a
Speaker 2: fad and a trend and the moment, and how does
Speaker 2: it become a real shift in lifestyle and a commitment
Speaker 2: to whatever practice it is that you feel is valuable
Speaker 2: because I find that as humans are always looking for
Speaker 2: the next thing to entertain us, and you can also
Speaker 2: have a lot of spiritual entertainment, and you can also
Speaker 2: have a lot of purposeful entertainment, and it just becomes
Speaker 2: another thing that you kind of use in order to escape,
Speaker 2: as opposed to, No, this is what I'm dedicating my
Speaker 2: life to, and this is what I'm committing my life to.
Speaker 2: If that makes sense exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's just another way of saying what I
Speaker 1: was trying to say.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, I just I was just trying to say
Speaker 2: to understand that, because Yeah, I think for me it's
Speaker 2: been really interesting having learned a very ancient philosophy and
Speaker 2: then grappling with trying to make it make sense in
Speaker 2: the real life that I live now has been such
Speaker 2: a difficult, beautiful, graceful, awkward path to walk. And I
Speaker 2: don't think I figured it out. I'm still walking that
Speaker 2: path and trying to make sense of it, but I
Speaker 2: know that underlying it, and you talked about that, you
Speaker 2: alluded to this this idea of having a purposeful life
Speaker 2: based on service being a place that we're all trying
Speaker 2: to get to. I think that's been the only guiding light,
Speaker 2: like that's that's been the only thing that is the
Speaker 2: light at the end of the tunnel that makes sense.
Speaker 2: And I find that when i'm deeply when I help
Speaker 2: people find theirs, and I find that what distracts us
Speaker 2: me included from that is past desires, future opportunities, and ultimately,
Speaker 2: I'd say the biggest one, which is what I want
Speaker 2: to talk about now, is this societal noise that keeps
Speaker 2: us bound. And that could be news cycles, it could
Speaker 2: be entertainment conversations, it could be like we talked about before,
Speaker 2: the expectations of work and life and people around us,
Speaker 2: and so like, you're so swept up in all of that,
Speaker 2: and naturally most of the people around us, including us,
Speaker 2: are skewed towards negativity bias, confirmation bias. We're stuck. And
Speaker 2: so to override, going back to where we started, to
Speaker 2: override that kind of primitive self to say no, I'm
Speaker 2: going to find the answer, I'm going to push is
Speaker 2: so rare, if not impossible, that how does someone kind
Speaker 2: of let go of those shackles and going back to
Speaker 2: your prison point, how do you get out the prison?
Speaker 2: Because the biggest I can't remember who said this, but
Speaker 2: there's this idea of like it's a vadic concept, but
Speaker 2: I think maybe it's been said in a movie or
Speaker 2: something more recently, the idea that the best prisons are
Speaker 2: the ones where you can't see the handcuffs. Right, This
Speaker 2: idea that you don't even know you're trapped.
Speaker 1: Wow, right again, so much there, Jayes.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I'm backing like I'm just downloading onto you because
Speaker 2: I'm like, you're super smart, Taris. I'm like downloading onto
Speaker 2: you and like figure it out for me. That's that's
Speaker 2: kind of where this how our relationship's working right now
Speaker 2: it works for me.
Speaker 1: Well, I think something I just picked up from you,
Speaker 1: This I think is really really inspiring for me and
Speaker 1: I'm sure for many others, is where you've talked about
Speaker 1: that beautiful but difficult journey. I think if you were
Speaker 1: sitting here saying I figured it out and now I
Speaker 1: want to help others, I don't think I would have
Speaker 1: had the same feeling towards you at all. And it
Speaker 1: just made me think, because I feel like I'm kind
Speaker 1: of interested in a lot of things at the moment
Speaker 1: in going down some rabbit holes and don't necessarily know,
Speaker 1: like you know, where it's going to end up, that
Speaker 1: maybe that's the beautiful thing. Maybe that's better than me
Speaker 1: coming here and saying, let me tell you everything I
Speaker 1: know about neuroscience, you know. So, yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: where I'm going with that, but I know I'm going
Speaker 1: to think about that overnight because I'm very reflective. That
Speaker 1: really touched me, actually to think that there isn't some
Speaker 1: golden nugget that you've got to come up with at
Speaker 1: the end. It's actually you know what you delve into
Speaker 1: and are curious about, and where you go and how
Speaker 1: easy or difficult it is. I think that's actually like
Speaker 1: what the thing is for people. So now if only
Speaker 1: I could remember any of the other things that.
Speaker 2: No, No, I'm glad you talked about that, and I
Speaker 2: want to touch on that too, Like I do feel
Speaker 2: like there was a point in my life where I
Speaker 2: believed I was teaching what I was learning, and then
Speaker 2: I had to live what I'd learned, and then it
Speaker 2: all changed, like its just completely changed. And even now,
Speaker 2: that's why I'm in that dance, because you don't know,
Speaker 2: and the situation is giving you. As we said earlier,
Speaker 2: each impediment is giving you a new invitation to learn,
Speaker 2: live and react and respond and figure it out again.
Speaker 2: And then that happens again and again and again.
Speaker 1: I think it's like you know that phrase, healer, heel thyself.
Speaker 1: I think that I've never understood that phrase in the
Speaker 1: way that I have until what you said, what you
Speaker 1: just said, which is that you kind of create like
Speaker 1: an elixir that you can share with others if you
Speaker 1: actually do that, if you keep just trying to impart
Speaker 1: what you think you know. I don't think that has
Speaker 1: I'm going to say it, I'm not sure it has
Speaker 1: like much effect at all, But I think if you
Speaker 1: can impart a feeling of what you went through, I
Speaker 1: think that has much more power. Wow, And I'm going
Speaker 1: to move on quite swiftly because I just remembered another
Speaker 1: thing I wanted to say. So you were talking about
Speaker 1: the noise around us, but also earlier we were talking
Speaker 1: about all these ancient practices, a lot of which come
Speaker 1: from our culture and maybe don't come from other people's cultures.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you the one thing I do that expands
Speaker 1: my consciousness to most That is the easiest thing that
Speaker 1: anyone can do from any culture. Do you want to
Speaker 1: guess what it is?
Speaker 2: Oh, go for it. I have no idea.
Speaker 1: Digital detos so I don't watch the news anyway, but
Speaker 1: obviously I am aware of the most important things that
Speaker 1: are going on in the world because I've got people
Speaker 1: around me that make sure I stay informed. And that
Speaker 1: does not mean I make other people watch the news.
Speaker 1: Just my family will tell me and if I need
Speaker 1: to look into something. But when I do digital detoxes,
Speaker 1: which I usually do, if I take two three four
Speaker 1: weeks off over like Christmas a new year, that is
Speaker 1: the biggest change for me in terms of my mental space,
Speaker 1: my perception of time, how creative I become at that time.
Speaker 1: I may also be probably spending a lot of time
Speaker 1: in nature and kind of you know, doing more of
Speaker 1: the kinds of exercise that I love to do, like
Speaker 1: swimming in the sea and stuff like that. But that
Speaker 1: one thing alone makes a noticeable difference for me, and
Speaker 1: it does take some time. You know, doing a weekend
Speaker 1: is great, like, please do that if you can't do
Speaker 1: anything else, but if you can give it some more time,
Speaker 1: I noticed towards the end, I just become like super creative.
Speaker 2: Is so true. I can relate to it completely. I
Speaker 2: think that's probably one of my favorite habits too. And
Speaker 2: it's funny because I was like, no, Jay, I just
Speaker 2: saw you post yesterday. I'm like, no, We've got to
Speaker 2: a point where we built the systems where we can
Speaker 2: be online and offline at the same time. And I
Speaker 2: couldn't agree with you more. I'm my best self creatively,
Speaker 2: even productively, if I'm not glued to doom scrolling or
Speaker 2: whatever else it may be. And I think it comes
Speaker 2: back down to that's what I meant by the noise,
Speaker 2: and that is the answer. That's a great answer, because
Speaker 2: I do think that you just have to switch the
Speaker 2: noise off. There isn't a way to operate in the
Speaker 2: noise and hope that you won't be affected by it.
Speaker 2: It's almost like you walk into a restaurant, you will
Speaker 2: walk out smelling like the food in that restaurant, Like
Speaker 2: you can't go in there, eat, enjoy it, and walk out.
Speaker 2: And I used to often think I could do that,
Speaker 2: Like I used to think you could engage with an
Speaker 2: energy and not be affected by it, and that's not true,
Speaker 2: Like no one's powerful enough to do that, and you
Speaker 2: will kind of absorb that energy. And I do find
Speaker 2: that we're just losing spaces of high frequency and vibration
Speaker 2: that people can go to to have that the other way.
Speaker 2: So there's lots of places you could go to and
Speaker 2: we all probably know what they are, where like I
Speaker 2: don't like going there's managing against train and I don't
Speaker 2: like going there because I don't feel my best. I
Speaker 2: think we're losing places in society that have the opposite effect,
Speaker 2: like where does someone go to? And you're saying nature
Speaker 2: is definitely one of them that.
Speaker 1: Was free opposite to people, and that one's.
Speaker 2: Free as well and accessible, and it's become harder. I
Speaker 2: read this article a few years ago, and it was
Speaker 2: talking about how what we value as a society has
Speaker 2: changed by the tallest building in the town. And so
Speaker 2: back in the day, the tallest building in the town
Speaker 2: would be the church, so you can see the cross
Speaker 2: from anywhere, and that would be the center point of community.
Speaker 2: And then that changed to the government building, the capitol building.
Speaker 2: You'd see that building, the State building became the tallest building.
Speaker 2: And today if you looked at any city center, it
Speaker 2: would be the commerce, it would be the business, it
Speaker 2: would be you know, the tallest building will be a banker.
Speaker 1: Very cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it was just this idea of how society
Speaker 2: shows what's important and what's powerful too. I'd add that
Speaker 2: as well that it's also what we deem as powerful.
Speaker 2: And I want to wanted to get your take on
Speaker 2: what is it your perspective on God and the source
Speaker 2: in that sense, like what have you discovered or seen
Speaker 2: from your research in that space.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a very difficult question to answer.
Speaker 2: I think you don't have to if you don't want to.
Speaker 1: No, it's not that I don't want to. I mean
Speaker 1: it's difficult for me because I have to put my
Speaker 1: scientist head on and I want to answer that question,
Speaker 1: which is that clearly God brings a lot of comfort
Speaker 1: to a lot of people. And probably you could argue
Speaker 1: that it can't be disproven that God exists, but with
Speaker 1: the science that we have at our fingertips at the moment,
Speaker 1: it can't be proven. So I have nothing against people,
Speaker 1: you know, having that as their primary source of comfort
Speaker 1: and guide in life. But I can't give you any
Speaker 1: evidence that such a thing exists.
Speaker 2: Even with the experiences that people have had under psychedelics
Speaker 2: or things like that. I've heard or met so many
Speaker 2: people who have had like God interactions or godlike interactions
Speaker 2: with it. Yeah, and things I'm sure you have too. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's why I was trying to get it from from
Speaker 2: the research point of view. But you're saying that that's
Speaker 2: still not you wouldn't count as proof in the scientific ecent.
Speaker 1: No, I wouldn't count it as proof. And I would
Speaker 1: say that the person who described that in the biggest
Speaker 1: detail to me, who someone that I really trust to
Speaker 1: is a positive psychologist, said I had what I can
Speaker 1: only describe as a godlike experience. I don't think anyone
Speaker 1: can really say more than that. The people with the
Speaker 1: near death experiences often talk about something similar as well,
Speaker 1: and there are some common themes like a tunnel of
Speaker 1: white light, you know, a being that's like more full
Speaker 1: of love than anything you've ever experienced. It does tend
Speaker 1: to hold archetypes depending on what religious or cultural background
Speaker 1: you come from. Not always, but so yeah, again, I'm curious,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm curious, but I'm always going to be
Speaker 1: that person that is very happy to go down a
Speaker 1: rabbit hole. But we'll also say that this is the
Speaker 1: end of what we know, like totally yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, no, And that's totally it's totally interesting
Speaker 2: and fair and it's yeah, it's just been something I've
Speaker 2: been fascinated by from a scientific point of view because
Speaker 2: it's it's yeah, trying to understand the as we've talked
Speaker 2: about today, the other worldly or other realm is something
Speaker 2: that's beyond us, like we don't we don't even have
Speaker 2: Like you said, the brain doesn't even allow us to
Speaker 2: go there.
Speaker 1: That's what we think. But I think if we even
Speaker 1: believe that hypothesis, there must be more that we can
Speaker 1: do to try to go there. Yes, yeah, and I
Speaker 1: will say that science does say that a sort of
Speaker 1: a healthy. Moderate amount of religiosity or belief in God
Speaker 1: is beneficial to our mental health, and non or fundamentalism
Speaker 1: is actually, you know, negative for our mental health.
Speaker 2: We've talked about so what's today. We've really gone there
Speaker 2: and it was more that I've thought too. I've I've
Speaker 2: avoided every bullet point my team sent me, and I
Speaker 2: love that because it's been so much more fun just
Speaker 2: diving into your amazing mind and research and just getting
Speaker 2: getting an inking. Is there anything that we haven't talked
Speaker 2: about that you really want to touch on it? I'm
Speaker 2: like just making sure that to sit with someone and
Speaker 2: really pick their brain, and someone who can speak about
Speaker 2: so many different things and such a broad range of
Speaker 2: topics is so rare. I'm so grateful to you for
Speaker 2: that because I love how much how curious you are.
Speaker 2: I love how much you're willing to push the envelope.
Speaker 2: I love how challenging you are of both sides of
Speaker 2: the idea, whether it's spirituality or science. And we end
Speaker 2: every On Purpose episode with a final five. So I'd
Speaker 2: love to ask you these five questions. Some of them
Speaker 2: are things we ask everyone, and some of them will
Speaker 2: be geared towards you. So doctor Torres sat These are
Speaker 2: your final five. The first question is what is the
Speaker 2: best advice you've ever heard or received?
Speaker 1: There's a few that you can say all of them, okay.
Speaker 1: So that one is particularly to do with writing, because
Speaker 1: the first time I had to write out my PhD,
Speaker 1: and then every time I've written a book since then,
Speaker 1: which I'm actually doing at the moment, I struggle. So
Speaker 1: somebody said to me, just write something, and I think
Speaker 1: that's quite an important metaphor for life, like you just
Speaker 1: have to start. You have to put one foot forward,
Speaker 1: you know, and then it's much easier than looking at
Speaker 1: a blank page. And then the other one, I think,
Speaker 1: which I didn't really understand at the time but is
Speaker 1: kind of where I am now, is follow your heart.
Speaker 2: What do you understand about it differently now?
Speaker 1: I think at the time, I was probably in my
Speaker 1: late twenties or early thirties, and I thought, you can't
Speaker 1: live life like that. You've got to do the right
Speaker 1: thing with your career, and you know that, I sort
Speaker 1: of worried about what my parents would think, and but
Speaker 1: now I just I believe that if you do that,
Speaker 1: you can't go wrong.
Speaker 2: I love that question. Number two, what is the worst
Speaker 2: advice you ever heard or received.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say it's the worst advice, but
Speaker 1: I'm to say that the concept around it is perhaps
Speaker 1: flawed in a way that again I understand differently now,
Speaker 1: which is that when I was at school, high school,
Speaker 1: my English teacher said to me, you're so good at
Speaker 1: drama that you should read English Oxford and go to
Speaker 1: Rada and you could become an actress. Now, in those days,
Speaker 1: there were no like Indian actors or actresses in like
Speaker 1: the western world, really, and so my father said, over
Speaker 1: my dead body, and you will go to medical school.
Speaker 1: I've obviously had a very privileged education. I'm very pleased
Speaker 1: to be where I am now. But I just wonder
Speaker 1: what could have happened if I'd actually been supported in that,
Speaker 1: because because I'm not doing medicine now and I'm way
Speaker 1: more successful now in something that you know, my parents
Speaker 1: couldn't have imagined. So I just think this clipping of
Speaker 1: the wings of children, I think is bad advice.
Speaker 2: Question number three, is it possible to manifest love?
Speaker 1: One hundred percent? I did how I did it with
Speaker 1: my vision board.
Speaker 2: It walk us through it.
Speaker 1: So I had been divorced for quite a few years,
Speaker 1: and I'd basically become a workaholic, and I'd had a
Speaker 1: lot of success with vision boards for my work. And
Speaker 1: then I remember just slightly thinking, I think I'm using
Speaker 1: my work to run away from love again, and then
Speaker 1: I just pushed that thought aside. Then the following year,
Speaker 1: I thought, Okay, I'm going to put this tiny little
Speaker 1: heart on my vision board, but it's all going to
Speaker 1: be about business and travel, and so nothing changed. And
Speaker 1: then I really thought to myself, Okay, Tara, if you
Speaker 1: believe in this manifestation, if you really really believe in it,
Speaker 1: you've got to prove it to yourself that you can
Speaker 1: manifest love. So I put this like huge engagement ring
Speaker 1: on the top left corner of my vision board. I
Speaker 1: never usually put phrases on it, but I was looking
Speaker 1: through magazines and I saw this phrase that said joy
Speaker 1: comes out of the blue. It's actually Tiffany advert. I
Speaker 1: just loved it, so I put it like on the
Speaker 1: top of my board and the various other things. So
Speaker 1: I did that for twenty for twenty fifteen, and actually
Speaker 1: nothing had happened by the end of twenty fifteen. But
Speaker 1: February twenty sixteen, I met the person who was to
Speaker 1: become my husband on a plane, so that's out of
Speaker 1: the blue in the sky, and we got engaged year
Speaker 1: and then married the finding.
Speaker 2: You Wow, I love that. That's a great story. That's beautiful.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that'll give people a lot of hope. What
Speaker 2: are people doing wrong with manifesting love? Where are people
Speaker 2: going wrong?
Speaker 1: I think it's a lot to do with this noise
Speaker 1: around us that you talked about, So I think a
Speaker 1: lot of it is at a certain stage of life
Speaker 1: where you just think that's what you should be doing.
Speaker 1: And personally, I will go with a theme that you
Speaker 1: sort of alluded to as well, which is that I
Speaker 1: think people are going for a lot of external characteristics
Speaker 1: when they actually should be going for like values and
Speaker 1: you know, what the human being is actually like and
Speaker 1: what that relationship would be like, rather than the material
Speaker 1: things that's around it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely a question number five fifty final question. We asked
Speaker 2: this to everyone who's ever been on the show. If
Speaker 2: you could create one law that everyone in the world
Speaker 2: had to follow, what would it be? Love?
Speaker 1: Everyone just give out so much love.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so needed, yeah, so needed. Especially now well
Speaker 2: doctor Tarris, Well, thank you so much for coming on
Speaker 2: on purpose. The book is called The Source, The Secrets
Speaker 2: of the Universe, The Signs of the Brain. Please if
Speaker 2: you don't have a copy already, go and grab one.
Speaker 2: And of course, if you don't follow doctor Tara on
Speaker 2: social media, please go and subscribe and follow on all channels.
Speaker 2: I can't wait to share this. I want to hear
Speaker 2: what resonated with you, what connected with you? Please tag
Speaker 2: us both sharing insights, your favorite clips, things you're practicing,
Speaker 2: your action boards. I want to see it all. And
Speaker 2: doctor Tyreswat, thank you so much for your time and energy. Again,
Speaker 2: it was truly a joy, So thank you.
Speaker 1: It was amazing for me too. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Hey everyone. If you love that conversation, go
Speaker 2: and check out my episode with the world's leading therapist
Speaker 2: Lourie Gottlieb, where she answers the biggest questions that people
Speaker 2: ask in therapy when it comes to love, relationships, heartbreak,
Speaker 2: and dating. If you're trying to figure out that space
Speaker 2: right now, you won't want to miss this conversation.
Speaker 3: If it's a romantic relationship, hold hands. It's really hard
Speaker 3: to argue. It actually calms your nervous systems. Just hold
Speaker 3: on and as you're having the conversation, it's so lovely.