← New Thinking Allowed Audio Podcast
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Every single molecule in the human body is scaled exactly through the entire universe in terms of what we know right now. Cosmologically, every single molecule has to go through a still point before it can transform into its next evolution.
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Keep watching. To learn more.
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You can now download all nine copies of the New Thinking Allowed magazine for free or or order beautiful printed copies. Go to newthinkingallowed.org for early access to our videos and livestream events. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter@newthinkingallowed.org New Thinking Allowed is presented by the California Institute for Human Science, a fully accredited university offering distant learning graduate degrees that on mind, body and spirit, the topics that we cover here. We are particularly excited to announce new degrees emphasizing parapsychology and the paranormal. Visit their website at cihs.edu. Thinking Allowed Conversations on the Leading Edge of Knowledge and Discovery with Psychologist Jeffrey Mishlove.
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Hello and welcome. I'm Emmy Vadnais, co host with Jeffrey Mishlove. Today we'll be exploring a strong heart with compassion with my guest Michael Shea, who holds a doctorate in Somatic Psychology from the Union Institute and a master's degree in Buddhist Psychology from Naropa University. He has taught at the Upledger Institute, the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute, and the International University for Professional Studies. He is a craniosacral therapist, licensed massage therapist and educator with the Shea Educational Group that is a center for the study of the human Heart. He is author of Somatic Psychology and Biodynamic Cranial sacral therapy, volumes 1 through 5 myofascial release therapy a visual guide to clinical application myofascial release therapy and Biodynamic Cranial Sacral Therapy the Heart of the Practice the Biodynamics of the Immune System Balancing the Energies of the Body with the Cosmos and the Biodynamic Heart Somatic Compassion Practices for a Clear and Vital Heart if you enjoy this program, please like subscribe. Subscribe Press the bell icon and share. Michael is joining us from Juno Beach, Florida. Now I'll switch over to the Internet video. Welcome Michael. It is a true joy to have you with me on New Thinking Allowed today.
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Thank you. It's good to be here. Thank you Emmy.
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In your new book the Biodynamic Heart, you share many ways how people can have a physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually healthy, strong and compassionate heart with various practices. You've really seemed to have devoted your life to this and came to this from my understanding from an experience with a terrorist bomb that subsequently caused PTSD for you.
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That's A good starting point because that really, you know, ultimately is the starting point for my own personal journey on, on the road of compassion and ending up here writing a book about, basically about compassion. And so it's an unusual way to start, you know, a life journey with compassion of being in a terrorist bombing attack in the military. But really that's what it, it was for me. And of course I've had many years of therapy and I've done a lot of work with the different aspects of getting a 100% service related PTSD disability rating with the VA and I get a lot of help with the VA and I'm really happy that our government does take care of our veterans, they've taken care of me and they take care of so many other people. And I have to say that as a result of that experience, I kind of made a U turn into my future. I come from a family of attorneys and I was supposed to go back to law school when I got out. And I ended up going to massage school basically when I got out. And it was because in the event I realized that my future was not my future that I had to reinvent who I was, I had to reinvent the direction in my life. And of course it was not easy at the time because of all the expectations from family and so forth. And I got a lot of pushback when I went to massage school instead of law school, if you could imagine. But the process being that I knew I needed help and I knew that I had a passion for learning about myself and that I could help others. And it just came natural at the time. So the path of compassion for me really started with knowing I needed help. So I had to get some self care and self compassion and really take care of myself, take care of my body, take care of my mind. And I was fortunate that I had a group of family, one family member who directed me towards the alternative, towards yoga, towards meditation and towards massage therapy. So it was kind of like a package deal at the time. And I'm really grateful in this era that we live in, I'm grateful for that experience because it led me to being able to write a book like this 40 or 50 years later and offer it to the public. It's been a beautiful journey for me.
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B
As a result from that terrorist bomb experience, you actually had a near death experience. Could you share what that was like for you? Also, you helped many people out of the building, if I recall correctly.
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That's correct. That's correct. And you know, it's interesting having A lifetime of study of compassion and to realize that compassion is really innate. I actually parked my car next to the bomb, and I was very fortunate that I was able to, you know, get out of the car and turn into the building, which was basically an old World War II reinforced concrete bunker type of a building, which really saved me in a way, but not the person in back of me that died. But what I realized in being knocked to the ground and being knocked unconscious and in having that experience that we hear about so frequently, you know, that I saw the light and I started moving towards the light. And I can't tell you how many clients I've had and actually working with people with death and dying now for the last 10 years that how important that light is, and that within that light there's almost a sentient being or message. And my message was, now is not your time. You've got to go back. And it was at that moment where my eyes opened and I saw that the level of destruction and fear and panic that had come across all the people in the building, and I just innately stayed. I just innately knew that people needed help. I had no training in triage or medical or anything like that. I just began to help. And what I have found in my life is that is the most natural response that most human beings would have, that we innately have a compassionate heart for wanting to help the pain and suffering of other people. Very much so.
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I imagine it's been a journey for you that has informed you with ways to help others. How is your PTSD now?
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Well, it kind of waxes and wanes. First of all, let's just look at what PTSD is. When I got out of the service in 1973, PTSD was not even on the map. It was not on the radar. It was only 10 years later, around the mid-80s, that PTSD was recognized, that our government began to have meetings about what was happening with soldiers. And the whole education around PTSD changed. And at the same time, I got involved with trauma resolution therapies. But the point being, for the first 10 to 15 years post experience, there was nothing. And I was just literally flying by the seat of my pants. But it was interesting because as I mentioned, my sister got me involved in massage therapy. She got me involved in yoga and also in meditation. And I really, you know, I really threw myself at it because I knew this would be of a help. And from there, I got involved with the human potential movement. I got involved with gestalt therapy. I got involved with other Human potential type of therapies just out of the clear blue. I mean, the guy that owned the house in back of me was having a workshop in gestalt therapy. And he invites me. I'm like, okay. And here I am learning about my emotions and having my first, you know, deep crying experience of letting go emotionally for the first time in my life. So all of this was happening before PTSD was even recognized. And it was very, very interesting. And that led me to, you know, the path of what is compassion? And studying what is compassion and how do I follow that path?
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So you started as a massage therapist, as a profession, and then you moved into Rolfing and then cranial sacral therapy, is that right?
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Right. You've got the bridge, the links there. Yeah. What's interesting, and I have to say, because I've been involved in the alternative therapy community since the beginning, basically since the early 70s when alternative therapy was mentioned within the medical community. So, so I started because massage therapy. You only had 13 massage schools in the United States of America in the mid-70s. And one of them was in Miami, an hour and a half from where my mom and dad live. So when I got out of the service, I went and I stayed with my mom and dad and I went to massage school with a few side trips here and there. So the thing with massage therapy is interesting. There was no continuing education at all in the United States for the manual therapeutic arts, that's what they're called now. And they derive a lot from the field of osteopathy in the United States and in other professions coming in from Europe and so forth. And that's actually where massage therapy came in from, from Swedish massage. I was trained as a Swedish masseur because massage therapy was not even on the map until several years after I got my license. But the point is, there was only three schools of continuing education in the United States in the late 70s, and one of them was the Rolf Institute. And I knew I needed, I wanted more training and to get specialized with the hands on work. So I went to the Rolf Institute and I got my Rolf training and I set up a practice there in Boulder, Colorado. And here's the interesting transition to craniosacral therapy, which is now my first love, and that is that I got a disability because I blew a disc in my neck when I was living in Colorado. There was a car accident and so forth, and I lost my ability to lift my left arm. And I ended up going back to graduate school and got a degree in Buddhist and Western psychology. At Naropa University in Colorado, because I thought since I couldn't do manual therapy anymore, that I could actually become a psychotherapist. But I regained function because I was getting a lot of therapy at Naropa. And I went back and I realized that craniosacral therapy is a light touch therapy. It had just come on the block, and I could certainly do light touch. And so I became a specialist in light touch. That's the kind of the transition you're getting. My life story, I mean, but thank you for that. Yeah.
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B
I think you are a vital example of how we can turn our own suffering into self compassion and compassion for others. And you've devoted your life to serving others at the same time. You describe in your book about how you loved your guns and that even part of your healing from post traumatic stress disorder was metaphorically or symbolically energetically removing a gun from your heart.
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Yeah, yeah, that's. You know, that's. Thank you for that because that's a beautiful story. I mean, you know, we. We hear, you know, in the United States, and it's the gun culture and all that, and it's something I grew up with. My father was a hunter, and, you know, he had all sorts of guns around. And as a child, I'm playing with guns and bullets and, you know, and. And then he finally took me out as a teenager, and I learned how to shoot and things like that. And I think that's very important. But, you know, the train. I was trained as a military officer. I mean, so, you know, when you get trained as a military officer, you know, the basic training is you have to learn how to take 44 people out into a war zone and kill other people. I mean, that's basically. And I'm a college kid, and, you know, it's like you're learning this, but it didn't really. It didn't compute. It's just like that's what I did when I was 18 and 19 years old. And I didn't realize that in the training because I had a lot of training in the military, especially in ordinance, which are bombs and plastic explosives. And as an officer, I had to learn every single weapon system. So that's a lot of learning. And basically, I was standing. We were learning how to use this machine gun called the M60, very popular killing machine. And I stood at the end of the line because if you stand at the end of the line, you got to shoot up all the remaining ammunition. And the reason I'm saying this is that I Went out to the. I had an opportunity in my doctoral work to study Native American shamanism and Native American healing and. And the way in which they do healing in that tradition. And it was very fortunate that I was able to apprentice. My wife and I were able to apprentice with a Navajo shaman out in the state of Arizona. And as a result of that, learning how to do ceremonies to heal the deeper wounds that a person carries in their body. And it turned out that the wound that I carried was in my heart. And I got to tell you this because it brings chills to my skin right now, where we're in a healing ceremony. And he goes into a trance, the shamanic trance. And he. Then his hand is shaking and it's going all over my body, and it's kind of centering around my heart. And then from there, spirit directs his hand to start doing a sand painting. And he drew a machine gun. And he said when it was done, he said, what is that? And I said, it looks like a gun. He said, it is a gun. And he said, there was a gun in your heart. And we had to remove that. So the gun culture, for. I don't know about women, but for a man in this culture, it got to that level of depth where I had to actually pull, have help shamanically getting the gun out of my heart. And it was then that I knew I had to get the guns out of my house and everything else. I was done with that culture and it wasn't necessary anyway anymore in my life. And that, that was a part of the self compassion and self healing with this whole process.
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B
Is that what led you to focus much more on the human physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual heart for helping others as well?
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Well, you know, that's. That's my path as. As a manual therapist and as a massage therapist, because, you know, I was seeing. I've seen, well, probably 10 or 15, 20,000 clients, let's say, in my lifetime. But starting a therapeutic practice where I'm working with people's bodies for an hour, an hour and a half, all day long. In the 1970s, it was stress reduction. In the 1980s, it was stress reduction. And a little bit of orthopedic problems were starting to float in. And then in the 90s, it was neurological problems. It's like, wow, a lot of people with neurological problems. And so what I saw in every decade of my practice is that the human body in our culture was undergoing a transformation into deeper levels of pathology. Now, when you get to the last 20 years, and especially the era Of COVID you see that there's a huge breakdown in the immune systems of the client. And at the same time, with that breakdown in the immune system, you see a breakdown in the cardiovascular system, where the prevalence of the. And the pandemic of inflammatory conditions in the body is actually carried by the cardiovascular system in the heart. So I began to switch, you know, with the help of his Holiness the Dalai Lama, and being a student of his, switching into understanding the heart at the physical level, at the metabolic level, and at the pathological level.
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Can you share a little bit about what you mean about the heart and the metabolic level? Because I think that's maybe new for me and for people who may be listening, we tend to maybe think of metabolism happening maybe in the digestion or other parts of the body.
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Metabolism basically means exchange of substances. Exchange of substances means that there's billions and billions of molecular interactions happening in our body every second. But if we could give a context for that in manual therapy and the therapeutic arts in general, and in a lot of the trauma resolution therapies, there's a focus on anatomy and physiology. So I became a specialist and learned a lot about physiology and, you know, how things move. What are the mechanisms that cause things to move or get blocked in the human body. But what was happening, I mean, in the last, let's say, two decades, because it really started two decades ago, is that there was a shift where my typical, let's say, techniques that I was using with a client, they weren't working so well. It's like, well, what's the problem here? Well, they. It was because they have metabolic problems. And so we have the beginning of what's called metabolic syndrome. And metabolic syndrome is the disruption that we have within our metabolism. That's known by cholesterol, you know, lipoproteins, ldl, waist circumference, these type of measurements that are telling us that we have metabolic problems. And so when you have a metabolic problem, you have a genetic problem because it's disrupting the gene transcription in the cells themselves. And this means it may take several lifetimes to work through that. And that's why you have a big rise in the pharmaceutical industry with drugs that are treating, let's say, just obesity, Ozempic and drugs like that. So we're trying now in our culture to reduce the metabolic problems. But the reality is, Emmy, that these metabolic problems are coming from the food we're eating. This is food trauma. This is well known and well documented right now. And the food trauma from processed food creates an inflammatory process. And that inflammatory process travels throughout the cardiovascular system. And depending on what, let's say I was obese when I got out of the military, because that's the family issue that I had was obesity. But if somebody has in a family of cancer or dementia, then that inflammation is going to weaken their immune system and their genetic structure to manifest that. And that's what's happening now, that we have a tremendous manifestation of metabolic problems and they're not easy to treat. I used to treat people with orthopedic problems. Now my clients are almost all cancer patients.
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Can you share a little bit about what are some of the common symptoms or diagnoses that people you are treating have? Now, I know you mentioned an evolution of the types of conditions people have throughout your practice, but just to get a little flavor of how somebody with your background can assist somebody and in what ways you actually help them heal or improve or have more of a sense of well being, whether they have the presence or absence of disease in their body, minds or spirits.
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Well, you know, it's interesting because as a massage therapist, I kind of have to, as they say, stay in my lane, you know, in terms of what I can recommend and scope of practice issues. But within a scope of practice issue, it's certainly okay to recommend people, you know, get some dietary input. And I don't have to make that level of recommendation or suggestion, but my wife does, because we work as a team, and she does the nutritional counseling, you know, component within the clinic that we work. And we also work through a medical clinic in Switzerland, a very high level, sophisticated medical clinic that uses alternative methods and so forth. So in terms of that, it's very important that you have a general sense that it's not just your body, but it's also your mind. So we are working with a unit of function here where the mind and the body and the spirit are one single unit of function. So I like to teach meditation because that's just one of my heart, you know, desires, is to teach meditation and to teach people how to turn inward. When you get a terminal diagnosis, Emmy, and you see clients come in and they are terrified, they're incredibly fearful. And so the first thing we have to do is I might be able to work on their body, but I also have to help them with their fear. And because I've had a background in psychotherapy, in what's called contemplative psychotherapy, I'm able to talk to people. I don't have a license as a psychotherapist, But I'm allowed to talk to people about what I think and what I feel and make recommendations based on meditation and yoga in what are called, and as you know, lifestyle changes, because it's the lifestyle changes that really need to happen. And they're so difficult, you know, so hard to give a client and just ask them to go to a yoga class and they can't do it. They, they can't find the time. So people are really suffering. And I think it's important then not only to be concerned about the body and as well as their psychotherapy, their, their mind, so to speak, but also their spiritual development. And so I have a big focus on that right now because I believe even when you have a terminal diagnosis, that all of this, we can, we can work through this, through a spiritual component, through a spiritual focus in our life. And that means something different to everyone. And that makes it a little bit complicated at working.
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B
What is the relationship between the physical, emotional, some would say mental, energetic, and spiritual heart?
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Well, back on the theme of metabolism, we have to ask the question, how is our metabolism organized? And basically, if our physiology is related to our anatomy, then our metabolism is going to be related to our instincts. Now, we have three basic instincts. If we look in the literature, we have three basic instincts. And we all know the instinct for self preservation and survival. We're claiming that our culture is on fire because it's in survival mode, part of which is true and part of which is not true. But we also have the instinct for self healing. So in any therapeutic art, whether it's giving a medicine or laying on of hands, we're trying to wake up the basic capacity for the body to heal itself because it can heal itself. But here we have a situation where if the metabolism has gone too far and it can't reverse itself per se, at the level of metabolism, then we have to rely on the instinct for self transcendence. Now, the instinct for self transcendence is the spiritual component, but it's, it's the way in which our instinct for prayer, our instinct for meditation, our instinct for the internal resolution of our suffering, the instinct for compassion, all of which is innate, has to wake up and that, that waking up has the capacity to take any cancer into remission. I've seen it over and over again. So these skills of meditation, of prayer, of laying on of hands and, and seeing light, because I work with light now periodically. The clients that I had yesterday, I had an emergency client yesterday and, and I was just doing the, a typical cranial session, but I was adding in visualization to, to wake up that capacity for self transcendence and actually got a wonderful text from the client in the evening about how helpful that was. But that's the connection, Emmy, is those three instincts, especially we are in the domain right now, the spiritual domain, of waking up. The instinct for self transcendence. Because ultimately it's about helping to heal right now, but it's also preparing to dot. We have to realize that at every moment in our life, we've got trillions of cells dying and they're being recycled. And ultimately that's going to be what happens to us. We're going to lose our body. And so the instinct for self transcendence and the spiritual component of our lives really needs to be a big focus right now to balance this imbalance metabolically and survival wise.
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B
Before we go any further, could you just share a little bit about how craniosacral therapy can help people? Because I imagine those listening might understand that a massage therapist can help loosen up tension in the body, help with relaxation. It's more than a spa treatment, although those can be lovely too. There's also sports, deep tissue massage, and so forth. But I imagine that people might not be as familiar as how cranial sacral therapy can assist people.
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A
Within craniosacral therapy, one of the big focuses is that it's the perceptual process of how I'm organizing my internal thoughts, feelings, emotions and so forth, and then how I can connect with the client at that level. So the value system here within craniosacral therapy is the perception of slowness and the perception of stillness. So when I can perceive that within myself, then it's also. There's a lot of literature on this. It's been shown that, that through what is called interpersonal neurobiology, that the client will actually feel my stillness in silence. Now, it also turns out, and I find this to be fascinating, there's six or seven levels of biological stillness. Let's take the example of the inflammation that I talked about that's going through the cardiovascular system. And not to be too technical, but we have an inner lining in our blood vessels and the whole vascular tree called the endothelium. And it's kind of the gatekeeper. It's what allows the good molecules and the nutrition and everything to get through from the blood through the endothelium. Those endothelial cells are called quiescent cells. That's a form of biological stillness. They function best when they're dynamically still and that allows the right size molecules to move through. When there's inflammation, they get hyper. One of the points I'm making here is that the craniosacral therapist goes into a self induced state of stillness and slowness because it is that dynamic that helps them function best metabolically and restore metabolic function at that level, along with other lifestyle changes. So stillness and silence at the biological level are exceedingly important. Every single molecule in. I'm going to say this, and it's, it's, it's important. Every single molecule in the human body is scaled exactly through the entire universe in terms of what we know right now. Cosmologically, every single molecule has to go through a still point before it can transform into its next evolution. So that's why in craniosacral therapy, the still point became almost a mystical component in why so many people get really good results from craniosacral therapy. Because we can induce a still point. We know how to relate to that in ourselves and become still with our mind and our body through our breath and so forth. But also what that feels like in the client and how to bring the client into a relationship with that level of stillness, metabolically and physiologically. And it works beautifully. It's an international phenomenon and I'm happy to be in this profession.
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B
From the beginning, I've experienced that still point and continue to cultivate ways to induce it, if you will. And I think some common ways to maybe describe that might be a sense of inner peace or calm, not only for the mind, but also for the body. Is that right?
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Right. And I think that's why, I mean, meditation becomes important because we really need to learn how to calm the mind. You can't stop the mind from all the thoughts that we think. I find it interesting that somebody said in the research we think 186,000 thoughts a day. It's like that's staggering. 180. But then the science went on to say that 66% of those thoughts are negative, which means that most people are spending a lot of time thinking about the past that leads to depression, or they're thinking about the future that can lead to anxiety. So it's very important then that we have this ability to turn inward and just recognize that and that we have a skill that we can relate so that we can be more in the present moment of stillness and silence. And so primarily that's a focus on becoming still with your posture, if you're a meditator or if you're doing hafa yoga and Holding a posture. But it also means that we want to be able to focus on our breathing. It turns out that the breath, and breathing in general is going to be the major. That's the game changer in terms of how we're going to calm ourselves down. And I would have to say that's probably the first thing I teach a lot of my clients is basically they're not breathing correctly in terms of normal anatomical, biological breathing. So first we have to get to that, and then we have to learn how to place our attention on our breath away from the mind that's going a little wacky. So this is very important in terms of being able to shift our inner attention away from an upset towards a stabilizing point or force in the body. And if you can't find it in the body, then you need to find it outside with a walk in nature or sky gazing or any of the outside external meditation techniques that are available.
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B
Now. You have a PhD in somatic psychology. And can you share a little bit about what somatic means for those who may not be familiar with that term and how it relates to the mind body connection? Because what you're talking about is really demonstrating how we can cultivate an inner state of awareness that can not only strengthen our mind and emotions and spirituality, but also the physical body and the physical heart.
- [34:52]
A
Right, right, yeah. Somatic psychology. What a field. So soma, basically, in terms of when that, that terminology started, probably the late 50s or 60s, maybe, I think it was the 60s. But Soma just means the whole organism, the human organism in general. So kind of everything we've been talking about since the beginning of our chad here, I mean, it's been about the soma, you know, the totality of the organism itself, the psychology component of it. I don't want to get too, you know, intellectual about it, but the psychological component within that field, it started in the 1940s with the field of psychosomatic medicine. And then. But that field, you know, really went out the window in the late 50s and 60s. But there was a thing called constitutional psychology, and there was also a form of somatic psychology called Reichian therapy, started by Wilhelm Reich in the 1930s. So the grandfather of somatic psychology was, well, actually wasn't Freudian, but he was a colleague of Freud, but he changed the paradigm and he turned the chair around in the psychotherapeutic or psychiatric experience. And he watched the client and he noticed the client's breathing. And so he made an intervention, a physical intervention in the client's Breath. So the essence of somatic psychology is a lot of what we're chatting about here, which is. Which is great because it's known that by interfacing with the client's breathing, by interfacing with their posture, that you can change their psychology. That's. That's the essence of it. But then it became very codified and very. Lots of levels and in lots of ways of looking at the body and diagnosing the body through posture and through walking and through movement. And so those are some of the components of somatic psychology. I don't use those anymore because they come from a time in the 30s and 40s and 50s when human bodies were very different. And so there were descriptions of what the body is and what it looks like and then how to change that. So there were manual techniques that were used. I learned them because they were still around in the 1980s. You haven't seen them that much anymore. But. But it was to kind of break through that, what was called armoring and the way we were holding our body. But that's from World War II. And this, this therapy, these therapies were really about World War II and post World War II. And we are into a whole new human body right now. We are into an evolution of embodiment. And if we want to call it somatic psychology, but it would be somatic spirituality as well is very important because we need to look at the. The metabolism. We need to look at lifestyle factors and civilization and cultural factors as well, impacting our body.
- [38:09]
B
For somebody who may be listening, who maybe does have a heart condition, maybe they live with some type of cardiovascular disease, maybe they've even had a history of a heart attack, but they're functioning okay. Or maybe they even need to use oxygen. Or somebody who maybe knows that they have a genetic predisposition from their family lineage toward a heart condition. Physically, what sort of practices do you suggest to help people? Because my understanding of these practices, which I use personally and professionally, some of these as well, that they can not only help calm a person's mind and body, but they can also strengthen the physical heart and cardiovascular system as well. Of course, there's many ways to do that. But you're an expert on these topics we're talking about today.
- [39:05]
A
I want to be clear on the question. So I don't get out of my scope of practice and give people medical advice. But basically, in my world, and from what I. The. The medical doctors I study with, every patient is a vascular patient now. I mean, everybody has something going on with their heart. Let's take for example here. We'll just do for example, because when somebody is so locked into the medical system, you know, for good, but also there can be a lot of side effects and so forth. But when somebody has significant serious heart disease and they're really locked in the medical system and they're usually on three or four medications, beta blockers, statins, you know, all this kind of stuff, it's very difficult to move, you know, into an alternative possibility here. So. But one of the things I always recommend is you've got to get dietary advice. And so there's really good dietary advice out there. You know, you have to reduce the inflammatory foods because all heart conditions are going to have a couple of common denominators, but one of the most common denominators or biggest common denominator is going to be inflammatory foods. So I can make that recommendation and I think it would be very valuable. Unfortunately, most medical doctors don't know about an anti inflammatory diet. So you could get advice from a medical doctor saying no, don't pay attention to that, just keep taking your beta bowl blockers and your statins and so forth. But I think people, if there's one thing, because it's been a focus in my career, in my life, because I came out of the military with obesity and was headed towards beta blockers and statins, is you've got to get a handle and control of your diet, you know, so that's number one. And there are a lot of different ways in which that can be approached. And what I have found out is that the kitchen, I call that the new er and the bathroom is the new icu. Most people in our country don't know how to cook. I was, I'm blown away at the, at the percentage of people that actually go through a drive in a window at a junk food drive in and get. That's how they eat every day, through a drive through. So we have. Part of the problem is people aren't reading labels. People don't know how to cook. People are eating too much corporate food. It's destroying their microbiome. And I want to focus on this for this moment because this is really the key right here. The medical doctor, Dr. Thomas Rao, Biomedicine International, that's the clinic that my wife and I work at and that's where we get our medical treatment when we need it for our metabolic problems that we're dealing with. And he's very clear and the medical community he works with, which is large in Europe says that all of these disease processes, all metabolic disease starts in the small intestine. So that's what I, you know, I could say a lot of things about cardiovascular disease, but that's the main thing. You've got to start looking at what you're eating. My wife actually has classes where she teaches people how to read the labels. You need to know how to read the labels on the food you're buying. This is a huge education in order to repair our heart. So that's one of the main things that I want to say about that. The controversy around, I just got into that last week, this controversy around statins and I can't, it's, it would be unethical for me to sit here and say, oh, you have to make sure that you really need the statins because the research now is, is not so good on statins but, but nonetheless that is really a formal practice within the medical community. So people start doing your homework and start really looking at, at other options and alternatives because they are there. But clean up your diet. The processed food is killing us. And sugar.
- [43:30]
B
Sugar, yeah, definitely. My mind goes to Dr. Dean Ornish who has done a lot of research in this area as well and has written several books on this and is an advocate of diet and social connections and stress management. He has a whole program on that. And I believe the Mediterranean diet is a gold standard for helping people with anti inflammatory, although I'm sure it needs to be customized for each individual person. And I know we're not giving specific recommendations here, but giving people general ideas to consider and to look at the literature and the research and what's out there as well, which I know in the often or formerly known, in certain realms complementary alternative medicine field, it often precedes what comes out into the clinical journals about how it can help people. And of course now we know that many, what has formerly been known complementary alternative medicine approaches, many of them do have a lot of efficacy based research supporting it. And many of those are now known as complementary and integrative health. So there's more legitimacy or when they're used combined with western medicine, it's integrative health. I just want to offer that in my own practice helping people. I also refer people out to nutritionists and dietitian, people who are more holistic because that's not an area that I focus on. However I have noticed, have you noticed this as well, that when people are stressed having maybe not experienced the still point, for example, or the relaxation response or increased heart rate variability however you want to term it, that they have a more difficult time actually making those dietary changes and that by maybe moving toward some of these contemplative practices that maybe they can get their stress levels down to also make those changes.
- [45:32]
A
Yeah, I think you need to choose a fulcrum, a small point of order orientation for sure. You know, I, what I tell my patients and what I like to say is that when you're under stress, the last thing you want to eat is a green salad with olive oil and lemon juice on it. That's the, you want comfort food. So this is the problem with a.
- [45:53]
B
Fudge brownie or something.
- [45:57]
A
I want my chocolate chip cookie. And I really, I do keep those handy in case I need one in an emergency. But no, it's, it's, it's very true. I think since it's people's timelines are so compressed in their lives and it's so difficult to make changes for people that in systems theory, you know, you really want. What's the smallest change I could make right now? What's this? What, where could I just find my way into this situation right now? I'm a big person in advocating fasting and intermittent fasting, time restricted eating, I've become very, very good at that. I did a 40 day water fast, a 60 day water fast in my 20s, I've done extensive juice fasting and I've looked at the literature on intermittent fasting. And so I like to challenge my clients and just say, look, if you can go 12 hours between the last meal you ate and dinner and the first thing you put in your mouth in the morning, you're going to do yourself a great service. So I try to make it, make it like a contest for people. If you can do 12 hours and then maybe 14 and then maybe once a week 16. But 12 is kind of the research gold standard for intermittent fasting where you can reset your metabolism, you know, so if you have your chocolate chip cookie at 7 o' clock at night, wait till 9 o' clock in the morning, you know, and give your system a time to get through all of the sugar and the carbohydrate and all that in the cookie and so forth. So that's one of the fulcrums that I would use. And there are many such fulcrums like that that people can just enter into. Emmy it's about getting to know our body in the reality is here, you know, I'm the bus driver, I'm the driver of my body. I'm tired of Letting other people, other medical community, other psychologists and all that. I want sovereignty and control of my body. And that's what the essence of somatic psychology is. It's time to take control of our body and quit giving it away. And that's the central message I have for my clients. And then trying to help them find out what's the first step to taking back control of my body. Is it going to be a meditation class? Is it going to be yoga, Whatever that might be. Reading a label at the grocery store before we buy that item. So whatever that might be, take control. You are the driver. You are the host of your experience. And quit being a guest and being driven by other people telling you what your body needs.
- [48:47]
B
Yes. And once people do listen to certain professionals and their own intuition and listen to conversations like this, do their own research, they can make more informed decisions. And once people start making those small changes and notice that they're feeling better, I know from personal experience and witnessing this with other people that people are motivated to do more. Because, hey, this actually feels really good. And I'm starting to see results. I can walk further. I feel stronger. I have a calmer mind. I didn't snap at my spouse or friend or sibling when normally they would trigger me or what have you.
- [49:31]
A
Right, right. Yeah, exactly. And I think also I don't want to minimize that. Some people are struggling with some very, very big problems. Problems not only metabolically through a disease process like cancer, but they're dealing with huge emotional problems, addiction problems. Some. Many people. There's relational problems. There's really, you know, marriage and partner situations that are really unhealthy. So there are major, you know, problems. And I. I think that also we need to hold people within that domain as compassionately as possible. Because the reality is, I don't know what. What the other person needs per se. I don't know the depth of their. How they're relating to their own suffering internally. I can see some of it on the outside, but I really don't know. And so it's kind of guesswork. It's kind of like a puzzle. And I just try to help move the pieces around to have it be more stable and to offer a chance for transformation to occur so that maybe these small changes can then help the bigger change that might need to happen with the addiction process or whatever major piece is being held by that client. Very difficult situations out there right now, as you know.
- [50:53]
B
Can you share a little bit about the relationship between the heart and compassion and how contemplative practices can help a person have a stronger physical and mental, emotional, spiritual heart and body.
- [51:09]
A
Thank you for that. One of my favorite topics to feel in my own body and to talk about. But I'm also an academic embryologist, and so. And that's the next book that I'm writing on biodynamic embryology. And so as an embryologist and teaching embryology within this context, that I've also specialized in teaching the embryology of the heart. The heart is interesting because it grows upside down. It's the only organ that starts with the atria on the bottom and the ventricles on the top. And it has to go through a process of turning upside down. And I like to say that if you haven't gone through having your heart turned upside down emotionally in your life yet, then come see me, because it's. Almost everyone has their heart turned upside down emotionally, both in a positive way and also frequently in a negative way, through betrayal and so forth. But the thing to remember also about the heart is it's natural to turn upside down. And so we have to get into a sense of acceptance that it's natural. The heart knows how to handle being turned upside down. Upside down.
- [52:19]
B
And you're talking metaphorically turned upside down.
- [52:23]
A
Well, turned upside down, yeah. When we fall in love, our heart just turn. Gets turned upside down. But the field that is happening in is called a dilation field. The heart has the capacity to expand, so it has the capacity to turn upside down, which gives us the capacity to accept everything that life comes our way. But it also has the capacity. There's no ribs when the heart develops, so it keeps expanding. And what this means embryonically, is that the heart has an infinite capacity to expand. If it has that capacity at the beginning, it will retain that capacity psychologically and spiritually throughout life. This is what the European embryologists are saying. And this is. And I believe this because I have felt, felt this, and I know this to be true, and that's what I teach, is that we have this infinite capacity to expand and to hold all things that come our way. But man, oh, man, do we have a bunch of junk covering that capacity up. So in the east, the. The very central part of the heart, even though this might be, let's say, an empty space, there nonetheless is a space where the spiritual essence lives. And we can see this in embryology because you can actually see how a fifth chamber develops of an empty space within the context of this growth and development. So it's all right there as an embryo we have all this capacity, and we've got to work towards uncovering this capacity. Because the most innate capacity we have is for compassion. We have the capacity to take in the bad and to transform it within our heart. Because we have to do that with our own life. We all have negative experience. We've all gone through a process of transforming that. But we also have the capacity, if we have a family, if we have kids, that we can take in their negativity and we can transform that and we can grow with that and help them grow with that. Because that's the natural way in which our body takes on the. The pain and suffering of another person and can transform it. And there's a lot of ways in which we have learned to block that capacity. And so meditation and these internal arts that we're talking about are ways in which we start cleaning out, cleaning house, cleaning out the closets in the heart, heart in really setting up a space for that spiritual essence to live and for that spiritual essence, which is basically compassion, the essence of compassion to live and to manifest in its innate wisdom in our heart. I've experienced that. I see that. I know that I offer that to everyone.
- [55:20]
B
I like how you share that it's innate to who we are and that we have a light in our heart, that we have a sacred heart and that other things can cover it up. So it isn't necessarily sort of a misnomer sometimes by talking about developing compassion because you're suggesting it's there. We just need to uncover it. Is that right?
- [55:44]
A
Well, absolutely. But, I mean, if you're walking down the street and you see a child fall down or you see an accident, we're immediately drawn to wanting to help. I mean, these things are very innate within us, the capacity to help another person. So we know it's natural. I pulled the book out this morning just to make sure I had it on my bookshelf. But the Oxford Handbook of Compassion Science, there's an enormous amount of science on compassion out there in what's known. So that's kind of what we're seeing talking about here. And it's innate, but it has to be a value system. And you see, some people don't have a value system of helping other people. They've so buried it. And that's okay. That's where we cannot judge another person by saying, oh, they have no compassion. They don't have that value. So that's where we have to be careful with compassion. I believe it's innate. You believe it's innate. Many of our listeners likely believe, believe it's innate because I've seen it in action. And I know that to be true for me. I don't know it to be true for other people because I've seen it absent in other people. And I cannot judge them. And I will not judge them because that is their value. I have to stay in my value system.
- [57:04]
B
How would you define or suggest what compassion is?
- [57:10]
A
You know, I was laying in bed this morning, I'm going, what if she asked me to define compassion? You know what, what would I say? You know what I did, Emmy, I did a whole life review. You know, how did this start for me? And so it's really. What is the starting point for each of us? What is the starting point for. How do I learn to let go of my own projection and my own anger I have towards another person or towards a situation? And that's going to be different for people. Now. I was in a terrorist bombing attack, so that really left a big impression on me. There's a lot of help that needs to happen. And a bomb is a major wake up call, literally. And I got that wake up call. And it's also my own instinctive nature that when I got to Boulder and I realized I was living within a Buddhist community and I'd had just enough therapy and I was working just enough within the manual therapy community that I wasn't doing it just to pay the rent, that I was actually seeing that I was capable of helping other people, that didn't come immediately. I was doing it to pay the rent because I didn't know anything else at the time. Time. But I got exposed to the spiritual community, the Buddhist community. So that was. And within that community in Buddhism, you have what's called the Bodhisattva vow. In the minute I heard about the Bodhisattva vow, which is a vow of compassion. And not only that, that within that vow at that time. If you took the vow, which I did in 1981, that you receive the empowerment of what's called Tong Len T O N G L E N Tonglen meditation, which is compassion meditation. And it was given by Pema Chodron. And Pema Chodron has written so many books. And this is before Pema was Pema. And I just. And I'm reading a book by Pema right now, and I'm glad to be reading her again. It's what a beautiful soul. But I received the empowerment of Tonga. Well, what is that? I just heard about it and I wanted to learn how to work with compassion and how to wake up my heart. And I think this is a good starting point because I taught it for many years, and it's still valuable. You generate a feeling of sadness about an event that happened in your life. So compassion then gets linked almost immediately to sadness. You don't have to think of the big sad event, but some small sad event that, if you thought about it, you know, for me, it's the death of my mother. And so when I think about the death of my mother, I can bring up a felt sense of sadness. And then from there, I begin working through my loved ones, my family and so forth, and the world. And I actually connect with the breathing. So I visualize the suffering of the world individually, and then I inhale, I breathe in that suffering, and I visualize it in my heart, and I visualize my heart transforming it to a brilliant white light or a brilliant blue light. And then as I exhale, I exhale that blue light, and I cover that person or I cover that client or whoever it is or that situation in the world. I can take a whole situation. And then the way this meditation is finished, Emmy, is beautiful. And that is you breathe in all the suffering of the entire planet, all known suffering of all human beings, and you visualize it as a dark color coming into your heart. And this takes a couple of breaths. You can't do this like you're hyperventilating. But within a cycle of maybe four or five breaths, just bringing it in, bringing it in, transforming it into the color I like to use, which is the color of the medicine Buddha, which is a brilliant diamond blue light, and that diamond blue light. Then I start exhaling, and I fill the entire globe. I visualize the whole planet Earth covered with this brilliant blue light, transforming the pain and suffering, suffering of all people. That's the way I started in 1981. And I think it's a great way to start to waken up the human heart and to start expanding the heart. Because what I naturally ran into is fear. Oh, I can't do that. Oh, I can't take in that cancer. No, no, no, no. I'm not going to take in that. People think they're going to get infected by the cancer that they have that they're working with from another person. It's staggering when you rethink about the fear that we have of relating to others pain and suffering gradually. My understanding is that I then went through a phase of relating to my own pain and suffering. It's like, oh, my goodness, I Better do this for myself. I am really suffering. I went through two divorces, I went through a couple of accidents and got, you know, a disability from a car accident and so forth. Oh my goodness, I am really suffering here. So I then took time to self compassion because really that has to be an essence within the practice. But I didn't learn that at the beginning. Self compassion became a step in my own process. And it might be different when people take that level on with self compassion. And now I just instantaneously have the. The blue light and I just radiate the world whenever I feel it necessary. Whenever I see suffering, I don't look at TV anymore. But if I see it on the street or even if I read about it, or when I'm at the military hospital, I am radiating blue light everywhere I go in that hospital when I'm out there. So it's a developmental set of stages that each person goes through. And I do recommend starting with Tong Lin. In Pema Chodron's first book, the Wisdom.
- [63:29]
B
Of no Escape, it sounds like compassion may be a form of care, kindness, love, and a sincere intention to want to alleviate yourself or others suffering.
- [63:46]
A
That's the essence of it, is that it's the innate desire to. To. To really relieve pain and suffering. And in its essence, that is its essence and that becomes its ultimate essence in Tantric Buddhism and so forth. But I have to say for the audience that the other thing that I've learned is there's a spark. There's another way to ignite compassion that's exceedingly important, and that is the essence of empathy. Empathy is the starting point really, that nurtures compassion. Empathy in the science is developed by listening to one's heartbeat. So it as a meditation. I have times during my day where I periodically just stop and I just listen to my heartbeat. For instance, I mentioned earlier that I saw an emergency client yesterday. I spent 10 minutes meditating before he came in. Just listening to my heartbeat, feeling my heartbeat, building that capacity for empathy, which is feeling what the other person is feeling. That is the way in which we nurture and ignite compassion. And it's so simple. I mean, we just have to feel our heartbeat. And if you can't feel your heartbeat, take your pulse at your radial artery, you know, or your neck, and do it in the middle of the night. You know, when you get up to use the bathroom, you lay back down, you can usually feel your heartbeat because your body physiologically is calm, but your heartbeat can be felt. That's when I recommend feeling the heartbeat. And even reciting non verbally a poem or a prayer to the cadence of your heartbeat, that will really ignite empathy.
- [65:33]
B
Even more beautiful. Or even just placing your hand over your heart.
- [65:39]
A
Yes, yes.
- [65:42]
B
For somebody listening who may be thinking, oh, my heart has been broken, smashed, run over. It's just pain and sadness, suffering every day. Where would you suggest they begin? Because tonglen might be a step too far for them initially. And also on that note, you mentioned your book, how sorrow is different than sadness and can lead to compassion.
- [66:14]
A
Well, first of all, you know, we are the trauma species. You know, betrayal at some point in our lives is part of the deal. That doesn't make it okay, but that makes it that it is something that if it's natural, then we have mechanisms both spiritually and physiologically and metabolically to manage and to deal with it. But how do we support that and how do we nurture that? And I think that the hardest thing with someone that has gone through a very strong betrayal and so forth, again, if they get into addiction in these, these extreme states, then that's going to require a specific type of help. The Tomlin isn't going to work with. You know, you need professional help at that level to begin stabilizing. And that's really the key. And also that sometimes that betrayal is related to a physical trauma and to an emotional trauma. And again, that may require professional help. Now, I am an expert in trauma resolution. And really, for me, the key is with any of this, the first thing that I would recommend, find someone that knows how to listen to you. You can tell your story and know that it's being held. Doesn't have to be a psychotherapist. It could be a friend, but it has to be someone that knows how to sit and just listen and be reflective. Judith Lewis Herman's work at Harvard University was very clear. Someone has to listen to the story. And that's one of the ways I healed my own trauma is through prolonged exposure therapy at the va. I told my story a thousand times. So. So telling the story is going to be very important for that. And I also think that we all go through our day as a human being where we have upsets, we have irritation, we have anger. We have to also learn that that's natural, that part of what's happening to us is not unnatural, it's not inhuman. But we also have to learn how to forgive ourselves, and that's not easy. And I think there's a difference here between learning to forgive someone, but we're not Condoning what happened to us. We also, and I have to say this to everyone, we have done a lot to harm ourselves by ourselves. And so if that's in the mix of how your heart has hardened because of reactions that happened externally, then you need to go through a process of forgiving yourself. And I think basically self compassion here is the most important thing. I think it's important that we be able to feel our hurt, that we be able to feel our sorrow, that we be able to feel our sadness, because that is also what ignites compassion. And I'm perfectly fine feeling sad, I'm perfectly fine feeling sorrow. I think it's a very, very important component that keeps us igniting. It keeps the embers burning of compassion. And I'm completely fine with that. Unless it goes to depression, unless it goes to anxiety, then it's gone out of bounds and we need help.
- [69:32]
B
Yes, getting attention for our own hurts, sorrow, betrayals, as you say, emotions so that we can honor how we feel and then also engage in these compassion practices or contemplative practices as well.
- [69:51]
A
Right.
- [69:52]
B
How is the human heart the center of the universe?
- [69:56]
A
I'm a multi faith chaplain. So I mean my basic spiritual practice is Buddhism, but, but I have, you know, spiritual practices with, within Christianity and within the Muslim tradition and so forth, but within the highest levels of Buddhist, yoga, tantra and these are the practices that, the personal practices that I'm doing right now. Okay, so we mentioned earlier that, that the spiritual essence, you know, in the Eastern traditions, Buddhist, Taoist, Hindu traditions, so forth, that it actually lives within the heart and that we mentioned it has to be cleared out. So within that then there are many meditations and so there's a meditation in which the very essence of the beginning of the universe resides in our heart. So from an embryological perspective, we're now into taking what is called a cosmological perspective. How did the universe begin? Now we have different ways of explaining that. I'm not going to get into astrogeophysics right now. I'm just into astro geo spirituality right now, which is the way I work with my life at my age. And that is that the spiritual essence, the light. Well this is called the light. In Christianity it would be called the breath of life. In Buddhism it's called clear light or the clear light mind that clear light, the essence of beginning, of all beginning and beginninglessness actually takes residence in the human heart at conception. It's felt in Tibetan medicine that the heart chakra is what the zygote actually is. That the heart chakra is what gets conceived first. And that's what I'm teaching in my classes right now. So it means that if the spiritual essence that began the entire universe lives in my heart, what am I looking at out here? Okay. What I'm looking at in all appearance, in color and form, is that this spiritual essence in our subtle body is actually projecting the universe through our eyes out. And that the entire universe that we're looking at is a projection of what's actually living inside our human heart. That took 40 years of practice, meditation practice, to begin understanding and seeing that. And it's based on the visualizations that are done within Tantric Buddhism and Tantric Hinduism. And it's also based on the capacity to visualize light and to visualize the five primary colors as they are radiating from the heart with each of the atria and the ventricle and the fifth chamber where the spiritual essence lives as a different color. So we're actually radiating a rainbow from our heart chakra, but that which we see through our eyes is actually coming directly from the heart, through our eyes, and from the heart and the eyes. The entire radiance of the universe is what we're looking at. And it's being generated from right inside of our heart. I love that I. And I. That's what I live and that's. That's what I teach. But it also means that I've had 40 years of meditation practice and. And I also have to deal with my humanity and my craziness on a day to day basis. But I am able to drop into that space, Emmy. I am able to drop into that space several times a day. And I like to be able to drop into that space whenever I can in any moment. Because the spiritual essence is how do we live in the present moment in this reality that we inside, in this spiritual essence is creating who we are and what the universe is.
- [73:59]
B
That is so beautiful. Michael, is there anything else you want to share today about a strong heart with compassion?
- [74:09]
A
You gotta have fun. I mean, my wife is a Christian minister and she's amazing and she loves to give this sermon on that. The first miracle that Jesus performed was keeping the party going by changing the water into wine. And it reminds me, because I'm Irish in my heritage and I have a wicked sense of humor, as most of my family does, that humor and this light that we just talked about that's coming from our heart also means humor. We have to appreciate the paradox that we see and this incredible polarization that we see. In the world right now. And rather than taking it seriously, yes, we do need to take it seriously, depending on a number of factors in our own life, but that which we cannot control, but we also have to take it light heartedly. We have to become light hearted. We have to find ways of letting go of our judgment and our interpretation about the way the world operates, because it operates at the deepest level from the spiritual essence. And one of the ways to do that is through humor. And I wrote that book and every 30 minutes I would take a break while I was writing it. I would go on Instagram and I would start looking at comedy reels and I wouldn't stop looking until I was crying, laughing. That's the way I wrote that book. Because I had a lot of sorrow and sadness that I had to work through and with. But I also balanced that with humor and light heartedness. We have to learn how to let go. That's the main message. Let go now. Let go at death.
- [75:53]
B
Dr. Michael Shea, thank you so much for all that you've shared with us today. I've thoroughly enjoyed it and I really appreciate this deeply. I would say enlightening and heartful conversation. Thank you so much for being with me today.
- [76:09]
A
Thank you. Thank you so much, Emmy. It's a pleasure, absolute pleasure. Thank you.
- [76:14]
B
My pleasure as well. And for those of you watching or listening, thank you for being with us because you are the reason that we are here.
- [76:43]
A
You can now download all nine copies of the new Thinking Allowed magazine for free or order beautiful printed copies go to newthinking allowed.org book4 in the new.
- [76:58]
B
Thinking Allowed Dialogue series is Charles T. Tart, 70 years of exploring Consciousness and Parapsychology now available on Amazon.
- [77:11]
A
For early access to our videos and livestream events, sign up for our free weekly newsletter@newthinkingallowed.org New Thinking Allowed is presented by the California Institute for Human Science, a fully accredited university offering distant learning graduate degrees that focus on mind, body and spirit. The topics that we cover here. We are particularly excited to announce new degrees emphasizing parapsychology and the paranormal. Visit their website at cihs edu. Sa.