Conversations on Healing

Introduction Welcome to the Conversations on Healing podcast, where host Shay Beider speaks with renowned healthcare leaders, practitioners, and thought leaders to explore the world of wellness, the incredible powers of self-care, and what it truly means to heal today. Join us on this journey to become more whole healed and connected.

Shay Beider Hello and welcome back to another episode of The Conversations on Healing podcast. I’m your host, Shay Beider, and today we’re joined by professor, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author Dr. James Doty. Dr. Doty is an adjunct professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at Stanford University School of Medicine, and he’s the founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education called CCARE. CCARE has developed a variety of techniques, apps, and programs to address issues like mental health, stress, anxiety, and burnout. Dr. Doty is also the founder and CEO of HAPPI, which can be found at @happi.ai. It’s a healthcare company focused on creating a digital platform that uses artificial intelligence combined with a human avatar to treat mental health issues. Dr. Doty has given his support to charitable organizations supporting peace initiatives. He’s funded health clinics throughout the world, created programs for people with disabilities, and also provided support to adolescents affected by HIV and aids. He’s initiated research provided scholarships and endowed chairs at multiple universities. Presently, Dr. Doty is focusing on developing educational programs for children in kindergarten through 12th grade, focused on compassion, empathy, and social- emotional learning. In our conversation today, we discussed Dr. Doty’s recent work related to the neuroscience of manifestation. We delve into some of the topics he shares in his new book, Mind Magic, the Neuroscience of Manifestation, and How it Changes Everything. This is a truly fascinating conversation with a legendary New York Times bestselling author that takes us on a journey from ancient spiritual techniques to modern neuroscience. I look forward to hearing what you think and how you’re using Dr. Doty’s manifestation practices in your life. So feel free to reach out to us at podcast@integrativetouch.org or go to the integrative touch website, integrativetouch.org for more information. Without further ado, here is the interview with Dr. James Doty. Well, first off, I would love to welcome you to the Conversations on Healing podcast. I’m absolutely thrilled that you’re joining us for this special episode, so thank you so much for being on the show.

Dr. James Doty Well, it’s a pleasure to be with you, Shay, and I’m looking forward to our conversation.

Shay Great. I just want to tell you on a personal note, many, many years ago I had read your book Into The Magic Shop and was so deeply touched. I think one of the things that touched me so much, and I’m sure many, many, many other readers, which is why it’s now been translated into 40 different languages and is shared around the world, is that it’s a story of how as a young man your life was deeply changed by this one woman named Ruth and her capacity to teach you in a sense, yes about manifestation, which you’ve then later gone on to study the neuroscience of manifestation and how that actually works in the brain, but it’s also at core a book about the capacity that we each have to create transformation in our own lives by harnessing the power of our mind. And you credit your relationship with Ruth as something that deeply transformed your life and really so much of the work that you’re now sharing in the world. And the other part that I was deeply touched by is there’s something inherent in that book that says life itself is magical, right? And I think mystics have been telling us this for years, that every day is precious, every moment is precious, every experience we have, the gift of touching on is so precious, and I felt like embedded in the teachings and in the way you told the story was this sense of life itself is magical and precious. So I want to thank you for that gift and for choosing to utilize that experience to help frame and manifest your own life in a very incredibly powerful way.

James Well, thanks for those kind words. And I think one of the things that also emphasizes is how each and every one of us has within our own power to change the life of another. And sometimes it’s simply by saying hello, sometimes it’s a smile, sometimes it’s a hug, but each of us does have that power. The thing though is you have to believe and you have to understand how powerful your mind really is.

Shay But I also really appreciate how you took a lot of those core concepts that Ruth taught you early on, and then you developed what you now call the Alphabet of the Heart. I’d love for you to share a little bit with our listeners about the Alphabet of the Heart and the 10 things that you found help to open the heart.

James So as you know from my time spent with Ruth in the back of this magic shop, she did teach me a number of principles. And you have to remember, this was long before there was the word mindfulness or neuroplasticity in our lexicon. Certainly, there was this concept of manifestation, sort of took a left turn, if you will, in the sense that, and it was probably by the nature of western consumer society and what is widely accepted as the definition of success in Western society, which is money, power, position with the idea that this equates with happiness. And of course nothing could be further from the truth. The story in many ways is repeated over and over in the sense that there is a belief. And this is because there’s a tendency to want external affirmation that we’re okay. And this is because of the baggage many of us carry that make us insecure or shamed. And therefore we feel that if we can get external affirmation that we’ll be okay. And oftentimes this is truth displays of wealth, power, position and having people say, oh, wow, look at that person. They did this, they did that. And the problem of course is it never does. And then you keep striving and it still never does. And the reality is the only way you can be happy is if you accept yourself. And that’s accepting yourself not only the wonderful things about you which all of us have, but also understanding that every human being is frail and fragile and makes mistakes. And none of us are perfect no matter how it might appear to be. And this of course, is one of the problems with influencers who create a narrative that their lives are perfect, or oftentimes individuals who are seeking the self-affirmation. And the reason they do that is because of their own insecurity or fear that they’re not good enough. So in many ways what we’re going to be talking about is a fear versus a love narrative. And what I mean by that is a love narrative isn’t about me and what I have, it’s about you and what can I do for you? And the difference is that when you’re in a fear or insecure state, this often activates your sympathetic nervous system, which as you know is part of our autonomic nervous system. And this is associated with the flight, fight or freeze response, which so many of us are aware and actually are very familiar with from how it affects us. And in modern society, this is frequently activated because frankly, we were never meant to live in this society in ancient times. And actually maybe even a few hundred years ago, we lived in villages. Most of our time was spent actually just relaxing and living. And if there was a threat which was not that common, such as the grass moving on the savanna in Africa, and you knew it was a predator, then your sympathetic nervous system was activated, responded, and immediately to baseline if you survive. And that’s not the case in the modern world. We don’t grow up in a village where everyone knows us or a tribe and supports us. We don’t live in intergenerational families. And the nature of modern society is that many of us are afraid of being judged or criticized, and we don’t have those relationships to support us. So we have this frequent narrative, we’re not good enough. I’m not worthy, I don’t deserve love. It’s not possible. And as a result of that, once you make a statement like that, it’s not possible that becomes fact. Now, you compare this to how we’re supposed to live, which I would suggest to you is the love narrative. And that’s where your parasympathetic nervous system or your rest and digest system is what’s activated almost all the time. And the occurrence of engagement of your sympathetic nervous system is actually quite rare. But again, that’s not the way it is in modern society. And if you are able to engage the parasympathetic nervous system, several things happen. One is your motivations are outwardly focused because as we evolved as a species, we cannot survive unlike other species who may run off into the forest or the jungle. Our species has to be cared for well over a decade, if not a decade and a half. And why would we spend the time and energy to care if we were not rewarded? And thus we have a genetic imperative to care when we care. This of course, activates our parasympathetic nervous system, but it results in the release of different neurotransmitters such as oxytocin or the love or bonding hormone. And when that’s activated, our reward and pleasure centers are engaged, which makes us of course feel good. But just as importantly, our peripheral physiology is affected. There’s something called heart rate variability. An increase means your actual cardiac function is improved. That’s where it should be. If you’re stressed and anxious, the heart rate variability decreases, but other things are affected, your blood pressure’s affected. The release of inflammatory proteins is affected, your immune system is affected, stress hormones are affected. Now, of course, in a positive way, all of these are affected when you care for another. And the interesting thing about that, when you’re engaged in the fear narrative, you think you need certain things. When you’re engaged in the caring narrative, you realized actually you don’t need hardly anything. And it is within that narrative that you understand that you are the only one who can accept yourself, give yourself love, and also understand how, who you are. What you want to do actually is within your control.

Shay And really so much of your career and work centers around the love narrative, right? So you are the founder and the director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education or CCARE at Stanford, of which His Holiness the Dalai Lama is a founding benefactor, which is pretty amazing. And you’ve done so many initiatives that look at how we bring compassion into education and through K-12 education as an example, and this idea of operating from a love narrative that helps our system to shift into a parasympathetic state that releases oxytocin when we’re caring for one another. In those intimate exchanges, obviously, we see that with parent and child, you can see the oxytocin release. A lot of that’s well documented. How do you feel you landed so firmly in your life on this desire to provide education, research, and understanding around compassion?

James Well, it’s interesting if you look at children who grow up in what we would call adverse childhood experiences, and of course these are children who often are in poverty within the family is drug and alcohol or alcohol abuse or mental illness or other types of abuse. And it could be neglect, it could be sexual abuse. And this frequently results in such severe trauma that either individual doesn’t feel as though they can get out of it or does not have the tools. And sadly, many people give up. And as I said earlier, when you say, “I’m not good enough” or “it’s not possible”, that becomes truth. But also, as I said earlier, one individual can change another’s life. And this is what Ruth did for me. And that’s really I think the key here is how do you get over these types of situations? A child from those circumstances has been traumatized and frequently lives in a state of trauma, which is like a war zone. It’s unpredictable, it’s chaotic, it can be violent. And as result your sympathetic nervous system is chronically engaged, and of course your muscles are tense. The other problem is, of course, you cannot focus. You cannot attend because you’re so distracted thinking about the unknown or what might happen. So the first thing she taught me was a traditional mindfulness practice, which is a body survey, relaxing the body, attending, focusing in my instance using a candle. And then once that occurred, she also taught me that the negative narrative that was going on in my head was not truth. And there was the ability that I had to change that narrative because it is that narrative that creates our limited beliefs. And once I was able to understand that and be kind to myself and give myself positive self- affirmation, how I saw the world really changed. And what I tell people is when I changed how I responded to myself, it allowed me to change how I responded to the world. And when I changed how I responded or interacted with the world, that changed everything. Because when you beat yourself up all the time, you’re being hypercritical and you have a tendency to look at the world through that lens. And as a species, we are finally attuned to the emotional states of others. You could say we feel another’s vibes, if you will, which on some level is true. I’m sure. As you know, if you look at bioenergetics or vibrational energy, our hearts actually emanate a vibration, if you will, that can be intuited by others. So if you carry anger, if you carry hostility, people sense this. Now, it could be your body habitus, it could be that vibration, it could be your facial expressions. But regardless, people respond to that. So when I changed how I felt about myself, when I changed how I looked at the world differently, the world responded to me differently. And it allowed me actually to have the success that I’ve had. But more importantly, it made me understand that everyone is suffering. I used to have a lot of anger and hostility towards my parents, and I realized that it wasn’t that they didn’t love me, they did not have the tools to help themselves. And so if you can’t help yourself and you’re drowning, it’s very hard to help others. That softened everything. I no longer had anger or hostility. I accepted myself and I accepted even with my flaws that I’m worthy of love. And once you’re able to do that, then that creates a different sense about yourself. So in terms of the alphabet of the heart, the way that actually was developed was that at the medical school I attended, I was asked to give a talk to the new incoming medical students, and that’s called the white coat ceremony. And as a result, I try to think of what was it that I could give to these students that would center them not only as physicians, but as human beings? What were the lessons I had learned? And I spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I came up with 10 letters of the alphabet, and it was the letter C through L. And the first letter C, represented for me, compassion for self and others, D, represented recognizing the dignity of every person. So often, especially when you come from these challenging backgrounds, many people are dismissed as being not important or their opinion’s not important or they’re not worthy. And so it’s really important that you make people feel okay. And that’s what Ruth did in the Magic Shop. She gave me a sense of psychological safety, the ability to understand that I could say anything and it was okay. Of course, the other is forgiveness. So many of us get angered by different things or individuals in our life who we feel have wronged us. The problem is though, that with those experiences or with that individual, we connect that with an emotional state, and then that emotional state gets embedded within us. And every time we think of the event or that person, oftentimes we will get angry. And so by letting go of that anger and hostility, it actually you’re actually helping yourself because holding it does nothing to affect the other person whatsoever. And it’s not to forget it, it’s just not to let it influence you anymore, to liberate yourself from that feeling. One of the most powerful things we can have is a sense of gratitude. Gee, you have to realize that for almost everyone, we don’t appreciate that 50% of the world lives on less than $2 and 50 cents a day. And for us to think about that, almost all of us are actually in a wonderful position. And I’m not trying to minimize that they’re suffering. I’m not trying to minimize that they’re poor people who are listening, but many, many people have it much, much worse. And the interesting thing is oftentimes we’ll compare this to individual’s wealth situations or their wealth class, but I can assure you they suffer as much or more than many of the poorest people. And so that is not going to result in your being liberated from pain and suffering. And in fact, for many people, it actually makes it worse. So, money, power, influence are certainly not the answer. H is humility. You can imagine as many people grow up and become more prominent in whatever area they have expertise, many of them become influenced by their ego and think they have some importance. And that’s one of the saddest thing is you see people who’ve accomplished things and they look down on others. Humility is the ability to not diminish your accomplishments. But as an example, for me as a physician, I recognize that I cannot be successful unless everybody on the team is successful. And what that means is that includes the person who sweeps the floor. It includes the people who make the food. It includes the person who changes the bed pants or the sheets. It includes the nurses. I cannot do my job and be successful without these individuals. They are critically important. Now, in my position, I may if you will be the captain of the ship, but if the captain is not kind, thoughtful, caring, that ship’s not going to go as fast or as far, and it may even sink. And so recognizing the dignity and the importance of every person on the team I think is really critical. I, is for having integrity and values that bound your behavior defines who you are and what is important, J, is justice in the context of our responsibility, in our positions to care for those who are vulnerable and recognize the importance of that so many people become successful. And then ignore people who are suffering or vulnerable as if somehow they don’t matter. Everyone matters. And of course, kindness one does not have to be suffering to be kind to another person. Actually, that’s our responsibility as human beings in this world. But all of this, every one of those actions is contained by love. And that’s certainly the most important.

Shay And I deeply appreciate in that Alphabet of the Heart, it’s really value-centric, right? That’s the way that you’ve outlined those 10 things. They’re essentially values, right? And core values of the heart that then we can manifest in our lives. And since you are a master of the neuroscience of manifestation, I want to talk a little bit about your newest book, mind Magic, and some of just the core principles of manifestation. And you talk about something that I think is really key, which is the importance of the larger desire to make a positive contribution to the world. So that’s embedded in many of the things you’ve already talked about in our conversation today, that this idea of manifestation, it’s not rooted in the I, because as you indicated if we place that centrally in an eye of I want power, wealth, fame, etcetera when you get those things, you’re not actually that happy. Anyway. I just recently interviewed Dr. Al Ben Shahar, who taught the most popular classes at Harvard on happiness. And when I talked to him, it’s like, yeah, boy, that fallacy is real. And I’ve also had the opportunity to meet a ton of people who were in those positions and then realize they were miserable actually with all the wealth. And you talk about in your own story how you were about to buy an island. You were at the pinnacle of sort of financial success, and your life crumbled because internally you were moving and operating, and I don’t want to put words in your mouth so you can better define it, but with a sense of achieving things with an outer manifestation. But then it took you some time after things sort of fell apart because of the tech bubble that occurred. And so many people’s financial portfolios fell apart in that moment. But you used that experience of a fairly devastating loss to reframe what you actually wanted to manifest on a much deeper level, which had a greater richness internally and was even more clearly rooted to making a positive contribution in the world. So I think it’s really important as we talk about the idea of manifestation, that it stays anchored in the alphabet of the heart and it stays anchored in this idea of manifesting things that are creating a positive contribution in the world. So I’d love to hear what you’ve learned about that. It’s obviously been quite a journey in your own life story.

James I think the narrative of a rags-to-riches story is always inspiring to a lot of people. And it should be. I mean, seeing someone who overcomes adversity always is inspiring. The challenge for my situation was when this experience happened to me with Ruth in the Magic Shop, I was 12 years old and I had no self-awareness and no knowledge, no life experience, but what I did know I was poor and unhappy. And when you come from that lens, if you’re young, you believe that the typical scenario that we promote in our society is that if I just get wealthy enough or powerful enough or make enough money, all of my problems are going to be solved. And when Ruth first taught me this manifestation technique, she explained things. I wasn’t in a position to listen to everything. And what I mean by that is I was already focused on what I wanted. And in some ways, it’s actually an experience similar to what happens when physicians counsel people for surgery. And I know this because I’ve looked at this literature for other reasons, but if somebody comes to a surgeon and they need surgery, typically the surgeon will spend time with them going over the potential risks and the complications as well as the indications for surgery. But the person that’s so distracted by the anxiety associated with the surgery, they don’t hear hardly anything. And in fact, surveys have been done, and the person will even deny that anyone said anything about the procedure, even though they were videotaped. And I think in my situation, I suddenly saw, oh, I’m not going to be poor anymore. I’m going to have this. I’m going to have that. And they were all material things. I wanted to be a millionaire. Now, that was in the late sixties, so that has far changed. Maybe I want to be a billionaire, but regardless, I wanted to be wealthy. I wanted to live in a mansion. I wanted to drive a Porsche, I wanted a Rolex. I wanted to be a doctor. Listen, I was always a very kind person and being a doctor, I did want to help people, but it was more about I am a doctor, and those are a different framing of that. So I was able to accomplish all of these things from this fear narrative actually. But while it allowed me to accomplish them, it didn’t actually make me happy. And in fact, it made me very unhappy. And also in some ways, physiologically or mentally, it affected me in a negative way. Once I changed that narrative, once I lost everything, if you will, here, I went to rags-to-riches, to sort of that inspiring story. I went back to rags again because during the .com, as you mentioned, when that collapsed, I lost almost $80 million. I was $3 million in the hole. When that happens is I tell people, you end up getting two very close friends. One was my banker because I had borrowed $15 million based on that stock, you could get a loan of up to 25% of stock you had even though you couldn’t get access. And then my lawyer and I had set up some trusts and charitable trusts. And so during that period of reflection trying to understand what happened to me, I realized ultimately that I was focused on me. And it wasn’t about the other per se. It was all about me. And I then got insight into what actually Ruth was trying to teach me. And it put me through this period of actually completely reflecting in a different way on who I was, what I wanted, and how I could be of service. And during that period, I spoke to my lawyers and they had indicated to me that the charitable trust I had created with stock from a company that had yet to go public, it turned out their junior partner had not filed that documentation. So I could have kept all of that stock, but at the end of the day, I decided to give it all away to honor what I had put into that trust. Even though initially it was for tax avoidance. And when that happened and that company went public, I ended up giving away almost $30 million, and I was still $3 million in the hole. And it makes a great narrative, of course haha.

Shay Sure does.

James But in some ways, I went from rags to riches to rags, but not in a monetary sense, but in a purpose and meaning sense. I became rich again. I was able to set up this center at Stanford, as you mentioned, the Dalai Lama was a founding benefactor. This led me to developing a close relationship with him. It resulted in me becoming chairman of the Dalai Lama Foundation. Further, it allowed her to become friends with meet, become an advisor to work with a number of the major spiritual and religious leaders in the world, including Thich Nhat Hanh, Desmond Tutu Amma, the hugging Saint, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Satguru, Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie, The Pope. That also gave me incredible insights into how to see the world. If you talk to these evolve spiritual leaders, they live above their dogma. They see the world through the lens of we are all one, we are all connected, we are all interdependent. And while the dogma has its purposes within their cultures perhaps, or to give a moral guiding framework to many of the followers, at the end of the day, the ultimate narrative is this one of oneness and connection.

Shay I feel like in hearing your story, it was one where your outer wealth fell away for a period of time, but then your inner wealth really elevated. And in that time there was a values shift that occurred. It’s such a beautiful thing that you then used that to continue to grow that inner wealth and that idea of service in the work that you wanted to create. And I really loved in Mind Magic. You talk about the process of visualization, and you have shared this into the Magic Shop, and also in your most recent book about visualization, about clearly aligning with what you want to manifest, but obviously rooting that into a positive contribution in the world about scanning for opportunities, being patient. And the part that I really love is not attaching too much to the outcome because as you discuss, so much of the narrative that’s been out there is like you’re trying to get something right and it’s outcomes-oriented, and you didn’t achieve what you wanted to manifest if you didn’t get the exact outcome that you want to achieve. And in my own life, I’ve basically done everything the opposite of that. I completely, I surrender to the outcome a hundred percent. I’m much more focused on what wants to manifest out of those underlying values, right? And I may not even know exactly what that is. Often, and you talk about this in the book often that surprises you, right? You think you want to create something, but then actually as you put in the energy and the seed and the foundation for the creation of that, something else comes forward that you couldn’t have planned or plotted or predicted, but that’s kind of that universal sense. You talk about this, I’m actually going to read a quote that you share in the book. I think it’s an important one because there is such an easy tendency to focus on outcome. And you say, “When everything is riding on a single result, we can’t help but put tremendous pressure to make it happen. It’s hard not to become tightly attached to the desired outcome. It’s important to remember that attachment to result is just another form of fear. Fear is the emotion that most inner interferes with our agency”. And so just like you were talking about earlier in our discussion, that love narrative or that fear narrative, how do you actually want to do it? How do you actually want to live your life? And what do you truly want to manifest out of that love narrative? So I’d love to hear more about how you see that idea that fear can interfere and when we attach to outcome, but how we can make a different choice and manifest more from a place of love.

James Sure. Well, I think one important aspect is that, one, you have to understand what you’re already manifesting. And while every one of us every day is manifesting on some level the differences between a amateur and an elite athlete, most of us are amateurs and no one has trained us or given us the insights that are necessary to improve. And also habit formation is a critical part of this, as well as certain other aspects which we’ll talk about. But what I mean by habit formation is, and also this idea of what do we already manifesting throughout our lives, especially during critical bonding or developmental periods. There are interactions we have with our caregivers or others that can actually very positively affect us or very negatively affect us. And I’m sure you have run into people who they may say to you, “I don’t understand how this keeps happening”. “Every relationship I have at the end of the day, it always seems to be the same person, and the same story keeps repeating itself”.- And of course, the problem is that they have not sat down and tried to understand why that is because for many people, every decision you make, the profession you choose, the partners you pick, relate to the baggage that you carry, and you don’t understand how that is influencing your decisions. So I think that’s one of the most important parts. And this idea of habit of who you are as a person has been a very much a result of repeating these patterns over and over. And these are embedding habits into your unconscious, and these create who we are. But to truly manifest, you have to develop different habits or sustained habits, and you don’t become a marathon runner by waking up one morning saying, I’m going to run the marathon. You do it by picking a time which you’re consistent with. And initially starting with a simple activity such as simply walking around the block over time, you increase that, what do you do? You do it through repetition over and over again. So if you will, you create a muscle memory. And in some ways, this is exactly what we do, and we try to enhance our ability to manifest. As you said, there’s no guarantee, but if you want to maximize that ability, then you have to use the knowledge that we have gained through neuroscience or experientially to do that. And so that is a critical part, and again, as we talked about with engagement of the parasympathetic nervous system, you have to be in the right mental state to maximize that ability also. But getting back to your early question or statement, this idea of attachment actually is where people often get confused because it’s the same fear narrative as you just mentioned earlier. If you believe that the occurrence of that event is so important that you then sacrifice everything to achieve that, well one, nothing’s a hundred percent. And if you don’t achieve it, you may be devastated, or this may reinforce this sense of inadequacy. But the other side of the coin is if you’re so focused on that now you’re standing at the mountain on top of the mountain having conquered every obstacle, yet you’re there by yourself and you have no support. If you’ve sacrificed relationships with partners or with your children or every other aspect of what it means to live alive, what is it your goal really was in the first place? So I think you have to reflect on these different aspects. There’s nothing wrong with having a goal. There’s nothing wrong with focusing on it, but you always have to keep in mind what cost. And I would suggest to you that many people would say, oftentimes, what’s just as important or perhaps more important, then the goal is the journey and who you’re on the journey with, because that’s fundamentally related to relationships. And we thrive as human beings when we connect with others. That is how we evolve to live. That is how we were designed, and that’s why there’s the importance of the parasympathetic nervous system or these bonds we have with people, because that’s how we survived in the nuclear family, if you will. That’s how we’ve survived within tribes and in general, although the modern world has changed that somewhat, that is the best way if we can, to survive in the modern world. All your physiology works best when you care,

Shay Right? Yeah, it’s so true. I also just want to share with our listeners that the last part of Mind Magic offers a six-week program to support mastering manifestation and literally has step-by- step instructions. I think the price of the book alone is worth it for that last section because it’s really like an inner analysis that’s very practical. And what I like is in this first part, you are literally doing what you just shared previously, which is a self- analysis of, wait, what have I already manifested? What am I manifesting currently in my life? What have I created? And to really look very honestly at that and try to understand that more deeply. So that’s kind of the step one, and I think that’s a really important part. There’s another piece that you mentioned in the book that I thought was really intriguing where you said that what Ruth was trying to teach you was that only when we believe we are enough in ourselves, inside of ourselves, do we find the ability to contribute to life, but that only in contributing to our world do we discover we’re inherently enough. So that relational idea that you were just talking about, and then you go on after that to say that the universe isn’t separate from you, you are the universe, and it is only you that can harness the power within yourself, that that’s the real magic, that idea that the universe isn’t separate from you. I’d like to understand more what you mean by that and how you see these ideas of being enough and that the universe is not separate from you.

James Well, as you know, because profanity in the first sense of the book, which says, the universe doesn’t X or F, give whatever about you.

Shay Give an F. Yeah

James Yes. And then it ends actually coming full circle. And I think point is that we have a wrong view of how we sit in this world, and it’s not as if there’s something external to ourselves that is either watching us or judging us. It is actually us. People don’t understand one, the immense amount of power we have within ourselves. It is not the universe that is limiting us. It is we who are limiting us through our belief systems or our limited belief systems. And also, as I mentioned, the honor I’ve had of meeting so many spiritual and religious leaders who are quite, if you will evolved, or you could say at least approximate self-actualization or whatever other term we want to use, is that they recognize that we’re all connected, all leaving beans are connected, all sentient beans. Pretty much all of us want the same thing. And that the power that all of us have is when we recognize this and when we look at the other as ourselves. Now, that is true self-actualization. When you were truly able to look through your eyes and see that you’re looking at yourself, because if you look through that lens, you never make a wrong decision. Don’t hurt people. You don’t take advantage of people. One of the things that I found, and we were talking about how with these ACEs or adverse childhood experiences, a lot of children’s lives are destroyed through drugs, alcohol, mental illness, etcetera, because they give up. They don’t get the tools or the resources to help themselves. But then you can also go on a different track. If you do survive, then you bifurcate again, there’s a subset of people who look through the lens of, I did this all myself. No one helped me. It’s all about me. I have no obligation to help anybody, and the world’s a tough place. And so every man has to take what they can get because it’s a cold, harsh world. Now, I can potentially understand why someone might believe that, but frankly, that is one of the worst paths you can go down, because one, you’ll always be suspicious, you’ll never have love, and you’ll always be unhappy. And it’s very sad to see people who have overcome adversity and then it’s all about them again, and they’re no better than they were before. Versus a person who understands what suffering is, what pain is, what hardship is. It’s interesting. If you reflect on your life, you look at the situations where you’ve accomplished things and they’re wonderful, you feel elevated, you feel good about yourself, you feel that you’ve overcome something, all of that is fantastic. But if you look at the deepest lessons about who you are as a human being, your resilience, what you’ve learned the insights, they’re not so much from those experiences. They’re from the negative experiences, the downtime where you’ve had to overcome hardship. And in the process, you learn many things, not only your own strength, but you realize that everything you’ve overcome generally has involved with somebody helping you. And that is the gift. When you recognize that who you are not only is through your own efforts, but because people saw you and they care. So you have to reframe it. But the other aspect of this is also this concept of equanimity, which I did not use in my alphabet haha, right?

Shay Well, we will throw in an E today, haha.

James Yes, but equanimity, this idea of evenness, of temperament, you can’t get lost on saying, God, I feel so good I did this, but because it’s transitory, and in that case, oftentimes it’s very shallow. But the other aspect is of it is when you go through challenging times, even though unfortunately some people believe these things last forever, the reality is that in almost every instance, during the worst of times, they are also transitory. Yet that’s where you learn life’s greatest lessons. So by not getting lost in a belief that either of these extremes is going to last forever, but also keeping this idea of this evenness of temperament during the good times as well as the bad times.

Shay Yeah. I’m so glad you added that extra E for equanimity because it’s.

James Very important.

Shay It’s very important, and you talk about it a fair amount. In the book, you talk about how it’s a quality of the mind that recognizes transient or impermanence, and that it’s essentially creating that evenness of temperament. And you mentioned a specific study with long-term meditators, and there’s a lot of interesting qualities with long-term meditators. When I interviewed Daniel Goldman, he talked about a study where they can see that people who’ve 10,000 plus hour meditators, how they’re in a gamma state just more often than the average person. And so there’s a lot of changes in the brain that occur in these brain states just by having that discipline of so much rigorous meditation. And one of the studies that you talk abo,ut was how these long-term meditators had this kind of equanimity. And what you discuss is a particular research study where there was increased activation in sensory areas, but decreased activation in areas associated with executive control. And so kind of the result was that experienced meditators weren’t resisting the pain, but they actually did feel it more deeply. The inherent seeming contradiction between those two things I find really interesting that the sensory part is actually experiencing it more fully, but because it’s not resisting the pain, it’s actually reducing the experience of pain. That part to me, I’m very fascinated by, I’d like to understand that more deeply from your perspective.

James I’ll give you an example of my wife actually. So sometimes we don’t heat our pool and she likes to do a cold water thing, but what she’ll do is she’ll wade into the water. Well, of course, and she’s anticipating how cold the water is going to be. And so it is much more painful, and it takes much longer because of this anticipation. You’re believing what a future event instead of being present for the event. And what I do is I don’t even think about it. I just walk in. You see? And if you just walk in, it’s a completely different experience because you’re not anticipating all the pain you’re going to get from the cold that you’re going to be experiencing. You don’t even think about it. And those are, in many ways, the two differences. You have a different type of reaction because even before you step in the water, you’re already freezing cold in your mind,

Shay Right? Yeah, exactly. We’ve talked a bit in the conversation today about brokenness, right? You could in a sense, see the legacies of the ACEs score, what that represents as a kind of a brokenness. But obviously, there’s a resilience that can be built around all of those things that happen in the traumas that people experience in childhood. And you share in Mind Magic, the Art of Kintsugi, which is a Japanese technique. I love these pieces. People, if they haven’t seen ’em, they need to look them up, like bowls, plates, all sorts of different kinds of ceramics that are broken. It’s an ancient tradition, and you talk about it in more detail, but then they’re put back together using gold. And so the breaks in the piece actually make it more beautiful, not less that when you see the gold and all of the breaks and the ceramics, it actually adds value. It enhances the beauty of the piece. And you talk about how the nature of life at times involves brokenness, and that it’s the nature of this brokenness and the repair that defines us. And I’m interested in how you see in your own life that the brokenness and then the nature of the repair process, just like we were talking about, how you used a lot of what occurred when you went through a financial crisis to then reaffirm your inner values, develop more your inner wealth, determine more fully what you actually wanted to manifest, and allow that to guide and lead the next chapter of your life. And so how do you see that you’ve made yourself more beautiful in a way? I’m not saying it in the eye context of make yourself special, but how have you learned to live with your own brokenness?

James It has to do with something that you had alluded to, which is, and you mentioned Kintsugi, and this is part of the challenges of living in the modern world, because we’re so judgmental, not only of ourselves, but of other people. And in some ways, this relates to what young described as our shadow self. None of us are perfect. We’re all imperfect. We’ve all failed at different things. We’ve not lived up to our, if you will, our highest aspirations of who we could be. And again, this contributes to not feeling worthy. Every one of us carries a shadow about things that we have failed at, things we’ve done or hurt other people about, things that we don’t want anyone to find out about ourselves, about who we are and the people, and this is important, you mentioned resistance, the people who resist acceptance of this truth, then they push away the shadow believing that if they push it and resist it, that it’s going to keep it buried. And the reality is that when that happens, when you become tired, exhausted, overwhelmed, hungry, these situations allow for the shadow to bite you, if you will. And this is why oftentimes many people become addicted because they keep pushing it away. It comes out, they do an action or some behavior that makes them feel worthless, and then they start over again, and it goes on and on in this cycle. And you have to be able to accept your shadow because everyone has that. And it gets back to the uniqueness of our life’s experiences. When you take a broken piece of pottery and if you will, we are all cracked in different parts of our lives, and we’ve had to overcome hardship. We’ve had to become repaired. That is reality. And when you accept that and you’re not afraid of showing that imperfection or the cracks, and again, you mentioned they would repair these with golden glue. So being out there and showing yourself who you are and not being afraid of that and showing, yes, I am imperfect. Yes, I am cracked, I have been repaired, I have overcome it, but I am still a vessel that is worthwhile. And I think that’s really, really important. It’s interesting. I get up in front of groups of people and I’ll speak, and you know -the-my voice may crack from telling a very personal story, or I may shed a tear, and I’m not afraid to do that. And this is what’s so sad is though so many people are terrified of showing themselves, they try to have a projection about that they’re somehow perfect, or more sadly, is if you especially ask high school kids nowadays, what do you want to be? Most of them don’t say, I want to help the world. I want to change the world. I want to be a doctor. Sadly, they’ll say things like, I want to be an influencer or a celebrity or a millionaire or a professional athlete. But an influencer, unfortunately, is a complete falsity. These are individuals who feel compelled to live a lie. Oftentimes, they’ll use filters, they’ll use makeup. They’ll use false scenarios to present a picture that their life is perfect and no one’s life is perfect. And I’m sure many people have seen sort of the behind-the- scenes look. They clearly demonstrate that. You’ll see people who go, oh my God, they look like this. And they’re really like this. Well, and they’re just like you and I. And that’s the sad thing, because you have an audience that watches these, and unfortunately, they can never be that aspirational entity that’s being displayed. It’s just not truth. And as a result, it causes both parties great pain and suffering. The influencer knows they’re living a lie, and they’re promoting a lie, which causes a lot of pain. And unfortunately, the person watching ultimately feels that they can never live up to that. And so it’s a very sad thing. And again, it’s like these kids who say, I want to be a millionaire, or a celebrity or professional athlete,

Shay A professional athlete.

James I mean, the likelihood of those happening for almost anyone is extraordinarily low. And that is what is so sad, it’s something that almost will never be achieved. But unfortunately, we’ve also created an educational system that for decades promoted this narrative that we’re all equal. And what I mean by that is, oh, well, we all sign up to run a race, but everybody gets an award. There’s no winner because we all tried. Well, of course, this creates a situation we don’t try at all because you know, just show up. Well, life doesn’t work that way. Life is competitive. You were rewarded, typically, not always. And in fact, the system can sometimes be horrible. But in general, you are rewarded for your efforts, which takes time, which takes a patience, which takes repetition oftentimes. So you have to do the work. And unfortunately, many people, young people have grown up with the idea that they’re somehow entitled to win. They’re somehow entitled to get the reward without paying the price for that. And life is not that way at all. So you also have to recognize, I think, that reality.

Shay Yeah, I think for whatever reason in your sharing this, the idea of that idea of outer achievement, like being an influencer, being a professional athlete, etcetera, like being of greatest value, I think I’ve seen so many times in hospital work where that falls apart when an actual crisis surfaces that is completely out of your control. Because that idea of creating a false narrative or image that’s highly controlled is so contrary to what often actually occurs in life when a devastating event happens. So as an example, I remember a father who accidentally killed his own daughter. It was completely accidental, and it was with a motor vehicle. And I remember sitting next to him, she was at that point in a coma, but she died within a couple of days. And the shame and the thickness of what he was holding in his whole system was so tremendous, right?. It was so beyond what most of us have had to navigate in our own story. And it’s moments like those that have taught me more about what it actually does mean to heal, right? Because also talking on the show a lot about healing and how we heal and what it means to heal. And in that moment I saw it was the values of authenticity and integrity, and being in the present moment with mindfulness and open- heartedness, that was what mattered in accompaniment of the heart, essentially. So as we wrap up our conversation, we always ask each guest a little bit, just because everyone’s perspective is so informed by their own life experience, how you would define or describe what healing is.

James Healing is creating the framework or environment that allows you to return to the place where you should be, whether that’s physical or mental, they’re both extraordinarily important.

Shay Well, is there anything else that we didn’t get a chance to touch on that in our last few moments together you’d like to share?

James Well, actually, we did not actually go into the deep neuroscience of manifestation.

Shay That’s true.

James But I will assure the listeners though, that when you can put yourself in the mode of engaging your parasympathetic nervous system, that all of your cognitive brain networks that are associated with embedding your intention into your subconscious and having them manifest into actions are in the greatest likelihood or have the greatest likelihood of occurring when you’re in that state. And I’d also like to say, never forget the power each of you has, not only to change your own life and control your own destiny through your brain, but also the ability each and every one of us has to positively influence another person who is suffering or in need.

Shay Well, thank you for that. And I would also just let our listeners know that in mind magic, particularly in the first portion of the book, you really do spend a great deal of time talking about the specific neuroscience. And so if they want to really understand it on a deeper level, there’s a ton of great information in there.

James Well, it’s funny because some people said, I bought the book, but it talks a lot about neuroscience. Well, the title is the Neuroscience.

Shay Exactly. It’s in the title. I mean, come on.

James Yes. But the other thing I’ll also like to tell your listeners is two things. One is actually we’re planning a Mind Magic retreat. So if you want to look at my website, which is jamesrdotymd.com, or MindMagicbook.com or IntotheMagicShop.com, all of those are connected. There’ll be information about those retreats, which probably won’t happen until next year. And also, I’m working on an online program that individuals can use, and there’s going to be actually a handbook we’re working on. So all of those things are in progress. So please stay tuned, check things out. If you’re interested about the work I do at Stanford, you can find that@ccarepcare.stanford.edu.

Shay Great. And we’ll put in the show notes, all those links so that people can easily access them as well.

James Perfect. Well listen, you take care. What a joy and a delight. I appreciate it. And to all the listeners, thank you for listening, and I hope this has offered you some words of wisdom that can help you live in this modern world of ours.

Shay Thank you so much. I really truly appreciate having you on the show.

James Thank you.

Conclusion We hope you enjoyed this episode of The Conversations on Healing Podcast. If you haven’t yet, please go to Apple Podcast, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform and subscribe, rate, and review this podcast so you won’t miss an episode. See you next time.