How to Find Your True Purpose & Create Your Best Life | Dr. James Hollis

welcome to the huberman Lab podcast

where we discuss science and

science-based tools for everyday

[Music]

life I'm Andrew huberman and I'm a

professor of neurobiology and

Opthalmology at Stanford School of

Medicine my guest today is Dr James

Hollis Dr James Hollis is a jungian

psychoanalyst and author of more than 17

books about the self relationships and

how to create the best possible life

some of the notable titles and topics of

those books include creating a life

finding your individual path as well as

the Eden project in search of the

magical other which as the name suggests

is about relationships he has also

written about how to access our most

resilient self in the book entitled

living Between Worlds finding personal

resilience in changing times during

today's discussion Dr Hollis teaches us

what questions we need to ask of

ourselves on a regular basis in order to

best understand who we really are and

what we most Des desire at the level of

vocation romantic relationships

friendship and family and indeed in

relationship to life's journey what

you'll quickly realized during today's

discussion with Dr Hollis is that while

yes he is trained as a yian

psychoanalyst he is also very firmly

grounded in Practical tools that is he

teaches us the simple and yet practical

tools that we can each and all apply on

a daily basis in order to make sure that

we are staying on our best path we

discuss how family dynamics that we grew

up in as well as trauma and attachment

Styles combined with our unique gifts

and indeed our shadow side as well in

order to drive us down particular

trajectories in life that sometimes lead

us where we want to go but other times

lead us astray and when they do how to

get back on track today's conversation

with Dr Hollis is truly a special one in

that he rarely does podcast appearances

in fact we travel to him to record this

podcast that's how motivated I was to be

able to sit down with him because I'm

familiar with his many books and his

incredible teachings but I really wanted

to get his knowledge collected in one

format in one place and what I can

promise you is that by the end of

today's podcast you will be thinking

differently about yourself about the

people in your life and indeed life

itself before we begin I'd like to

emphasize that this podcast is separate

from my teaching and research roles at

Stanford it is however part of my desire

and effort to bring zero cost to

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huberman and now for my discussion with

Dr James Hollis Dr James Hollis such a

honor and a pleasure to sit down with

you I'm a huge fan of your writing and

I'm excited to talk to you today thank

you Andrew it's a privilege to be with

you thank you let's talk about the self

this is something that I think people

occasionally wonder about you know who

who am I we wake up every day we have

some stable representation of who we are

in our name most of the time and we

develop a self a story MH based on what

we know about our parents our siblings

our life from the perspective of yion

psychology maybe psychology generally

how should we think about

ourselves well first of all the idea of

the self with a capital S to distinguish

it from the ego Consciousness that is to

say my conscious presence as you and I

are talking right now um is a

Transcendent other it's a mystery it's

um essentially governed by our instincts

you know it's nature seeking its own

expression and its own healing what I've

seen in terms of the activity of the

self through the years it has two

agendas one healing when injured and

secondly expressing itself in the same

way that the acorn becomes the oak tree

so to speak um now the ego of course is

that little cintilla of energy that we

begins to Cluster we're born without an

ego but then there's this sbl shards of

experience between the the me and the

not me that slowly accumulate almost in

Tidal pools so that I begin to

differentiate myself from the other my

mother let's say or my father or the

object that is there and you're right we

are an animal that seeks to understand

as part of our adaptation to the world

and so we are narrative animals we

create stories about it and our stories

rise out of what we're experiencing at

the moment so you can see why a person

bornn into a certain culture or a

certain family of origin with its style

of relating or disr as the case may be

uh becomes the ground for defining that

person's sense of self so it's important

to distinguish between the self and

one's sense of self the sense of self is

who I think I am in any given moment

that's very fluid of course now we have

all kinds of internal clusters of energy

that are called complexes a ter that

young

ized and complexes are uh Splinter

personalities he said so a person might

say why did I get so upset yesterday

what what came over me or I don't know

what I was thinking when I made this

important

decision and that's our recognition that

we were in an altered state at that

moment that it that something within us

had been triggered had sufficient energy

to come up usurp ego Consciousness and

take it over actually the term that y

used in in German meant possession it's

a state of psychic possession

temporarily you know we we joke that

lovers are fools or lovers are blind so

we know that people are in a certain

they're caught in a certain projection

onto the to the other and you know that

ultimately gets um you know resolved

into some sort of reality through time

and and experience with that

individual but in that state of being

one senses that one's making the right

decision and no one wakes in the morning

and says for example well today I think

I'm going to do the same stupid

counterproductive things I've done for

decades but there's a good chance we

will why because we have certain

clusters of energy in us that are

regularly triggered when triggered they

catalyze a response in the ego that

enacts that program so it affects our

body it affects our our script and of

course it affects our our percep I of

self and world so you know from the

standpoint of of therapy one of the

things we try to do is suggest to people

you're not what happened to you because

one of our Tendencies is to internalize

whatever is happening to us and thinking

of that defines us of course the younger

the more less formed we are uh the more

we're likely to be defined by poverty or

by disease or by alcoholism or or by

sexism or or whatever the social

constructs are into which we're born as

well as the psychodynamics of the family

of origin so in those

circumstances uh we all have a

provisional sense of

self and if you have a culture that says

this is who you are this is what you're

your your orders are your your marching

orders here's your script and the more

authoritarian the culture or or the more

traumatic one's environmental situation

and family of origin the more likely I'm

going to be reacting to that

so when I've had an experience I'm

either going to repeat it or I'm going

to try to run from it or maybe I'll be

spending my life trying to treat it in

some way that I'm not aware

of um this activates many people into

the healing professions by the way

whether it's clergy nursing therapy etc

etc that that's often a sensitive child

in the family who feels I have to try to

stabilize my environment in order to uh

so get things back to a a normal State

whatever that might be so that then it

can be there for me but of course that

never quite happens you know a child

can't fix a parent you see and so many

people in the helping

professions um are are driven there by a

powerful internalized message which

becomes their sense of self so it's a

long-winded way of saying there's

distinction between the self which is

the natural organic development of this

organism you know as we're speaking it's

growing our toenails digesting our

breakfast mentating emoting and so forth

most of that's autonomous activity it's

kind of like the centipede you know you

congratulate the centipede on how well

he coordinates all of his legs and then

he thinks well should I move this leg or

this leg or this and he's immobilized

these are not functions that we govern

consciously although we can interrupt

them consciously but something is there

taking care of us it's an organic Unity

and that's what you meant by the by the

self capital S our sense of self is a

different matter and so one of the

things that I've tried to emphasize in

therapy is you're not what happened to

you because we tend to be bound to our

story that says either that's who I am

that's what I'm defined by or I'm

spending my life trying to differentiate

myself from that get away from that

perhaps so um again our sense of self is

very provisional it evolves and and in

any given moment there may be something

in the unconscious that's um triggered

and of course the problem with the

unconscious it's unconscious so I don't

know that it's happened it's I I have

the unconscious uh triggered it has the

power to rise take over provisionally

spin out its program and then after a

while you know it recedes back into the

unconscious and as I said sometimes

people will stop and say well I wonder

what was behind that decision or why did

I choose that path or what in me is

blocking me from doing what I know is

right for me you know as uh Paul said in

the letter to the Romans though I know

the good I do not do the good well why

not well he saw it as in insufficiency

of will but we know it's more than that

we we know that there are unconscious

factors at work that have a certain

autonomy and the more unconscious they

are the greater their autonomy will

prove to be

if they are unconscious and they're

driving us sometimes into States other

times traits I mean and that's a perhaps

an interesting discussion in of itself

is you know when what's the difference

between a state of mind and body and a

trait but if it's

unconscious what chance do we stand to

overcome these things I mean what

where how does the awareness come about

can we do it on our own does it require

Reflection from a trained professional

and if so um you

know when we become conscious of

something does that immediately flip a

switch or does it require constant

returning to um you know seeing and uh

for you know forcing the the unconscious

to become conscious over and over again

sure well those are great questions um f

first of all again none of us rise us

saying we're going to be

counterproductive today but we will

because of the autonomy of those

clusters of energy within us now I've

said to many people who've asked that

question well start with your own life

look to the patterns that you have a

pattern is an

indication of some cluster of energy

whether it's outward or whether it's

inward that you're carrying with you um

and we don't do crazy things we always

do logical things if we understand that

what we're in service to iny Ally I give

you an example I was working in a closed

ward of a hospital many decades ago and

there was a fellow repeatedly trying to

break a window people were assuming he

was trying to escape or get a Shard of

glass for some nefarious purpose and no

one bothered to ask him why he was doing

this and he said he had the delusion

that he was first of all in a locked

Ward so he was caught in a you know

non-voluntary

situation and in his psychosis he felt

that um somebody was pumping air from

the room now if this door was locked and

the air is being pumped out of this room

the most logical thing we would do is

break through a window or break down the

door so his behavior was logical based

on the premise now the premise is often

inaccurate or tied to one place but gets

extrapolated to another one somewhere

else and and then we are responding

logically to that that premise so you

start with your own life particularly

the places where you you find these are

self-defeating behaviors or behaviors

that are hurtful to you and someone else

and then you say since that's not my

conscious intention and yet there it is

as part of my history then I have to say

all right what is it within me that you

know has the kind of power to take over

my ego Consciousness now just to back

off for a moment here I I think we're

only conscious in the ego dealing with

reality uh a few times during the course

of a day my favorite analogy is when you

get up in the morning and you step in

the shower it's too hot or too cold so

you change the water temperature well

that's the ego and its proper function

it's being adaptive to its reality it's

being protective at that moment it's

achieving the optimum situation for you

but from the rest of time on when that

same ego is flooded by other material

some of which just conscious who gets

the kids today after school how do I get

to the work on time Etc but underneath

that are other drivers that have to do

with fear-based responses or adaptive

responses that um were perhaps once

protective but later you know we weren't

born with them but we acquired them

along Life's Highway so what was once

protective often becomes constrictive

later and and creates those patterns so

the number one you start with your

patterns um secondly and everyone sort

of laughs at this but there's a certain

truth you might talk to those around you

such as your spouse or your closest

partner or or your children and ask them

about what they see in us if you can

bear to hear what they have to say and

to say where is it you see me being

hurtful to myself or others or where is

it that I get in your face in an

inappropriate way uh and they'll usually

have something to inform us with thirdly

we pay attention to our dreams because

we don't choose to dream but sleep

research tells us that we average about

six dreams per night that's a lot of

activity nature doesn't waste energy

it's processing something and it's not

just processing if we pay attention over

time um you begin to realize it has a

point of view another way of putting

this is the psyche which is the term I

would use here and that's the Greek word

for Soul by the way the the the psyche

you know has its own intentionality it's

omnipresent and it's commenting and it

comments in terms of our feeling

function you don't choose your feelings

feelings are autonomous responses to

what has happened you can repress them

suppress them anesthetize them project

them on others but you are in the end um

you know a creature that has an

autonomous feeling response secondly we

have energy systems if I'm doing what's

right for me the energy is there the

flow is there

we can mobilize our energy and we have

to in life to get up and feed the baby

at 2: in the morning or um you know put

in our 40-hour week or whatever the

requirements are uh but over time uh

forcing the Energy System leads as we

know to boredom and burnout and

ultimately depression often with

self-medication attached to that um

thirdly we have dreams which

comment um fourthly most importantly is

the question of meaning if what we're

doing is Meaningful as understood by the

psyche it will support us even in the

face of suffering and sacrifice and so

forth if what we're doing is wrong as

seen by the

psyche then over time it begins to

pathologize so you take that word

Psychopathology literally from the Greek

it means the expression of the suffering

of the

Soul which I think is

ratory the expression of the suffering

of the Soul now that seems to me

obligatory to take

seriously if my soul and again that's a

metaphor you know people look for the

soul throughout history and you can't

find it in the pineal gland for example

the Soul's a metaphor for the organic

wisdom of that natural being that we

are the soul is a metaphor for uh this

purposeful expression of the organism it

is

purposeful in other words question that

occupies all of us in childhood and

throughout the first half of Life at

least if not an entire lifetime is what

does the world want of me what do my

parents want from me what do my school

teacher want me what do The Playmates

expect of me what does the partner want

for me what does the employer want all

of these are reality-based encounters

with the demands of the environment and

and part of what we have to do is

develop enough ego strength to create a

provisional sense of self and a

provisional functional self to deal with

those expectations but then when you've

done that you know why are you still

here what's the purpose are you simply

here to be a creature of

adaptations now without those

adaptations we would be overwhelmed

typically by the circumstances of our

lives so we accommodate them in some

way but in the second half of life and

I'm using a ter very

Loosely um the real question is what

does the soul want of me you know what

does the psyche want of me that's a

different question then the issue comes

up what is it that is wishing expression

in the world through me that's a

different question then what does the

world ask of me the people that we would

most admire in history are people who in

some way found and lived out what the

soul was asking of them it didn't spare

them from suffering sometimes even

martyrdom it doesn't spare you from

conflict and pain maybe isolation maybe

Exile but you're fed by the

purposefulness of it take that away and

life is pretty

empty and of course we live in a culture

where there's this enormous barrage of

external stimuli well buy this purchase

that do this or that the latest thing in

this or that the newest shin

and the more I'm seeking to Define

myself through that environmental

summons the more likely I'm going to be

aranged from something inside all of us

know it but we don't know what to do

about that at some level and typically

it has to hurt enough inside to bring a

person into therapy people don't just

walk in and say well I was in the

neighborhood and I thought I'd pop in

and talk to a total stranger pay him

some money and then you know walk out as

a different person doesn't work that way

I I've often said to people this is not

about curing you because you're not a

disease this is

about uh making your life more

interesting where you realize every

morning you get up um you have something

profound to address

today why am I here and in service to

what because if you don't ask that

question you're going to be in service

to your adaptive postures from childhood

as many people prove to be until the

conflict within reaches that point where

the suffering of the Soul

Psychopathology is

sufficient um I myself was cruising

along in my 30s I'd achieved everything

that I wanted to achieve and was

enjoying my life and then suddenly

inexplicably had a very serious

depression and it took me a while to

realize that I was asking the wrong

question the first question that occurs

to a person under those circumstances is

is um how quickly do I get rid of this

you know give me five easy steps or a

pill for that or whatever I didn't

understand the real question is why has

your psyche autonomously withdrawn its

approval and support from the agenda

that you've been addressing it was a

good agenda nothing wrong with it but

there was something else that was

missing in this process and it took a

depression like something from below

reached up and pulled me down something

was being pressed down down that's

depression and at the bottom of that

well there's always a task there's

always an issue the identification of

which can lead one into a new place in

one's life a different journey in my

case it it led me

to uh leave a very fine tenure position

in

Academia travel to Switzerland and spend

several years there in retraining as as

a psycho analyst and uh I now look upon

that depression as beneficent but at the

time I certainly didn't as you can

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huberman so if our task is to get in

touch with this kind of Yearning of the

Soul MH um to perhaps do some reparative

work from our childhood or at least

understand our parent child

relationships and then in an ideal

circumstance

to express ourselves through some higher

calling if you will but higher meaning

for us or for the world hopefully both

that's that would be

ideal in terms of the day you know you

said you you can wake up in the morning

presumably some of the residual thought

processes and emotions from a dream or

dreams still live within us early in the

day and then we start going about our

day doing the Practical things making

the cup of coffee drinking the water

getting some sunshine uh these sorts of

things

how is it

that the typical person any of us can

think about segmenting our thinking and

our actions in a way that we're touching

into the deeper meaning of life while

also carrying out a life because as you

know and I know and everybody listening

and watching knows that there's stuff to

do we need we need to often get an

education make a living tend to people

around us tend to ourselves and and it

becomes a a a kind of a

Neuroscience problem in my mind right

you know different brain circuitries for

different types of thinking and if I may

it I think it also becomes a time

perception problem you know the brain

the human brain to me is so magnificent

at setting Milestones that are like get

in the shower finish the shower check

the text messages talk to somebody and

get about the day the Milestones become

very close in and then if we're lucky

enough to be able to take a walk and

reflect put the phone away Etc then our

mind can expand into you know gosh why

am I here you know uh what about my that

thing my grandfather said to me or my

grandmother said to me and you know that

the ability to to place our perception

in larger or smaller time bins seems

very closely linked to all of this um

and to the sense of mortality which

we'll certainly talk about in a little

bit but in in a kind of a practical way

in the absence of a daily therapy

session um how

how do you suggest people start to

segment um or um compartmentalize in a

way that's functional for instance um

should people set aside 15 minutes each

morning to just think about why they're

on this Earth uh and why they're doing

and what they're doing as opposed to

just doing sure well this is a central

problem of our time is is um everybody

is going to say I don't have time for

that

I had a colleague now deceased Maran

Woodman in Toronto who used to say to

her clients you have to guarantee me one

hour per day that you reflect on your

dreams or you you journal in terms of

what's going on in your life and she

said always people say I don't have time

for that then she said then you you

don't have time for

therapy you don't you're not making any

priority here for this and you're right

the claims of you know woodsworth wrote

and 1802 the world is too much with us

getting and spending we lay waste our

powers this is 1802 before the internet

right with all of its claims upon us

there's such a noisy Den around us we're

all distracted by that you see that's

why it usually takes a crisis in a

marriage or depression or whatever the

case may be to get people to pull out of

that and reflect upon that so I spend 15

minutes every morning before starting uh

just meditating particularly working on

a dream if I've had a dream and and

secondly I reflect on things in the

evening too because one of the things we

want to try to do is to say what are the

stories I'm living here you know one of

them I've got to earn a living one of

them I've got to do this other one I

have to do that you see but but what's

all of that frenzy about you see that's

why I think the first half of life and I

say this semih humorously is a huge and

unavoidable mistake because we're living

just reactively you see it's not

generative it's reacting to whatever is

going on around us is one's entire life

to be spent reacting to

things now when you're young there's

only so much ego strength to to reflect

upon this a number of years ago I was

asked to give a talk to an advanced

group of uh college students at a

university on the psychodynamics of love

well they were all interested about love

I can tell you right so it was a 3-hour

seminar so over the first 90 minutes we

talked about projection transference all

these they got it they were smart kids

and then we took a short break when we

came back and I said now let's apply

these ideas to your current or recent

relationships it was like the curtain

came down you know they were 1920 21 22

in that area they couldn't bear they

could get the idea but they couldn't

bear to look at themselves with that

kind of scrutiny Flash Forward 20 years

when they're 40 and their marriage just

dissolved or um you know the the

relationship has hardships of one kind

or another they're much more likely to

be able to a have enough ego strength to

bear looking at

oneself secondly um there's enough life

experience to reflect

upon because this kind of work takes

courage in the first place I have to be

able to Bear to look at myself and see

what's there which won't always be

pretty and and secondly it's

humbling because this is not about

feeling great it's about being called to

accountability which is a whole

different matter to be an adult is not

just to have a big body it's it's to

know that I'm accountable for what's

spilling into the world through me you

said once in one of those telling

statements that haunts me in a

constructive way he he said the greatest

burden the child must bear is the

unlived life of the parent so where I'm

stuck as a person my children will be

stuck or they'll be spending their life

trying to get unstuck you see so the

best thing I can do for them is to model

for them you know a life lived with as

much courage as I can mobilize and as

much Integrity as I can manage and in

doing that it not only models it gives

permission to them

um one of the things I found for many

people they don't really feel

permission to feel what they feel desire

what they desire go out and fight for

what matters to them because life we

learn early is conditional you will be

acceptable in this family you will

perhaps be loved you'll be rewarded or

you'll be punished if you meet these

conditions and if you don't meet the

conditions a lot of people put

conditions on their on their children

you know a lot of people are still

living through their

children um you know if you forgive the

joke here there there's an old joke

about Jewish Mothers the fetus is not

considered full term until it's

graduated from Medical School you see

and that's an it's a joke about a

cultural expectation and carrying

someone else's unfinished business in a

way in which you know is to make them

feel good rather than serve what is one

expression through you which is quite a

different matter so one of the things

one has to do is seize permission to

realize life is

short um we're we're here a very brief

time and the summons is to live your

journey as honestly as you can and when

you do it ultimately serves other people

it's not selfish it's actually serving

the self if you will it's not

narcissistic it's not self-absorption

it's it's actually humbling

I would never imagined as a child that I

would spend my adult life listening to

people's

suffering and yet that's my day job and

I'm humbled to be invited into the lives

of other people it's profoundly

meaningful I can't imagine living

without that at the same time um it's

not fun it's not pleasant but it's

profoundly meaningful that's the

distinction that's why of those very

various sources of insight that we can

have into our lives you have to ask

about what is most meaningful to me as

defined by the psychi not by the culture

around you because what the culture says

it's all about being successful it's all

about making money it's about living in

this neighborhood it's about buying that

object and if that worked we would know

it it obviously doesn't so that's what

brings us back to that humbling moment

that maybe I'm not living my life sir in

k guard the Danish Theologian in

Copenhagen the 19th century talked about

a man who was shocked to find his name

in the obituary column and he hadn't

realized he died because he hadn't

realized that he was here in the first

place now this is a carard talking in

the middle of the 19th century think

about the ramping up of the stimuli

around us the the steady drum among

young people you take away their cell

phone they experience enormous anxiety

because this is their link to the world

and yet it's constantly making demands

upon them so again underneath all of

this is we have an appointment with our

own souls and the question is are you

going to show up for the

appointment and I thought I had but my

psyche thought otherwise so it was in

the midst of a serious depression that I

began showing up and it was a a

difficult process but ultimately proved

to be I think

transformative like I certainly agree

that

hardship for better or worse is often

the way that these things stimulate the

self-reflection that's required for

change there seems to be a a tricky

situation whereby on the one hand I'm

hearing and I agree that it all starts

with being very honest with oneself

about what one really wants yeah and I

love and thank you for mentioning this

15 minutes in the early part of the day

perhaps ideally 15 minutes at the end of

the day where one takes time away from

input from others of any form electronic

or otherwise to just reflect on what's

inside and the messages coming up

through dreams and reflection Etc uh so

important um and and may I just add

another pie forgive the interruption but

I've often said to individuals it's not

so much what you believe feel or do it's

what it's in service to inside of you

that's an important distinction so I may

think I've done a good thing when it's

really an old

codependence or it's it's a way of

avoiding conflict or it's a fear-driven

response we have to always be asking but

what was that in service to inside of me

and you may not know at first but you

keep asking the question it'll it'll

it'll start you know rising to the

surface you begin to recognize that

that's how we begin to identify some of

those internal drivers that we call the

complexes because again they they're

they clusters of energy with the power

to create a provisional

personality and many times people are

identified with their complex that's who

I am you know I am what I do I am my

performance rather than beneath all of

this is a human being who is wandering

through life afraid of dying trying to

avoid pain as much as possible and um

hoping that someone's going to step in

and make it all

right I'm certainly familiar with the

feeling of

um recognizing what I want but

being afraid that if I were to express

that that it would not um would not be

accepted certainly and that certainly

can create problems um I'm also familiar

with recognizing what I want and stating

it very clearly and some people um

fortunately respond in well but I think

it's fair to say at least based on my

experience that when we are really

honest with ourselves and with others it

doesn't always land well right I mean um

I pay a lot of attention probably too

much to U messaging on social media in

the landscape of science and health it's

just kind of the world I live in um much

of the time these days uh and what i

notic is that there's a real

gravitational pull of people to um

what's called the one whatever they are

influencers public figures or that that

are just very clear about who they are

um at least in their own self-perception

but then here in lies the the twist it

seems is that what I'm hearing is that

often our self-perception is not

accurate that's correct and it's almost

futile to try and convince people that

we are who we believe we are right and I

have a theory that's emerging it's not a

formal theory that the internet and in

particular social Med media are is

borderline it weaves back and forth

between sane and psychotic yes as if a

borderline person would projecting

either adoration or total disgust and I

I warn anybody now including myself if

you're going on social media you're

interacting with a

borderline organism so you need to be

prepared to be told in various ways

sometimes subtle sometimes overt that

you're

terrible and you also need to be

prepared for

immense reward and being told that

you're spectacular simply by being there

that's what it is to interact with a

borderline person and there's no

controlling or predicting their um their

flips so um in any event that's a little

uh you know Theory that's emerging why

wouldn't it be that way right you're the

psychologist but why wouldn't it be that

way because ultimately social media is

the emerging property of all these

individuals um okay so You' made it

clear how one way to Anchor to the self

and get in touch with what's really

going on inside yes reflecting on dreams

reflecting on what guers to the surface

journaling perhaps

meditation ideally twice a day perhaps

therapy as well would be ideal yes but

then we move about our day and we do our

best to be the best version of ourselves

right and when we get positive feedback

we tend to I think as you know

neurobiological psychological organisms

do more of that do more of that um uh

and it's sort of a bank account of sorts

we're going for a net positive balance

um and we tend to do less of the things

that give us negative

feedback except perhaps or go to social

media where people seem to go on there

specifically for friction-based

interactions as well which is its own

thing so as we move through life first

half of Life second half of Life how is

it that

we can Orient in time as I kind of put

it before how can we

um Carry Out These daily or weekly or

maybe yearly Reflections in a way that

really serves us well I mean do you

recommend one day a week stepping away

from everything do you recommend um

doing Retreats of sort do you recommend

that um people keep a life journal is

the story and seeing how one's story EV

evolves is this useful what I'm trying

to do here is um kind of uh Orient

people to some practical tools because

um because I think at some

level we can get pulled down currents of

any kind that's right and ideally we we

you know stay out of deep

pathology but even if we hit the rumble

strips and go back over and over again

um this is this is important work right

this is this is about being the best

version of ourselves and Society

benefits from that so are there more

macroscopic things that we can do um or

is it just a daily chip away two

meditations ideally Therapy Journal and

just anchor down um like do we ever get

do we ever get to

relax well of course of course um f

first of all there's no formula it's

applicable to everybody in their life

circumstances you know the word

Psychotherapy literally means from the

Greek to listen to or pay attention to

the soul

however you go about doing that is right

for you it's up to you to figure that

out and for some people be working in

nature for others to be working with

their hands for others it'll be through

some creative Enterprise or working with

their dreams or meditating or or

whatever um I would say whatever helps

you step out of the stimulus response

stimulus response melee that we call our

daily life is likely to be helpful to

you either because you rest and you

restore the psyche and or you have some

reflection upon it you you recollect

yourself as it is right you remember the

self because we get unraveled I often

have the feeling of getting unraveled in

life where you know this calls you and

this calls you and this calls you and

that calls you and you're just it's just

pulling you away where from from some

Center here and again this is not about

self-absorption but if I'm not in

connection with something abiding here

my behaviors or choices there are not

going to be very helpful in the long run

you see they're going to be merely

responsive to the demands of the

environmental

circumstances one thing I enjoy doing

from time to time is drawing I like

doing anatomical drawings and things of

that sort and I find that if if I engage

in an activity that absorbs all of my

attention yes even though I have zero

minus one aspirations of becoming a

commercial artist or something of that

sort that um two things happen one I

exit the stimulus response

world and at the same time it's

inevitable that some insight comes later

that's right what is that well I see I

think that's a good example though as

you said of exiting the stimulus

response cycle because in that moment

something in your psyche Rises to

express itself through you and and you

know it's your drawing it we we could

perhaps read that drawing and and

perhaps interpret something of it you

know like the famous Roar shock for

example I mean what Roar shock's an ink

plot when's an ink plot not an inklot

well when I confabulate a response to it

you see and that response is indicative

of what is going on inside of me so

that's a good example I mean for some

people you know they they have those

moments when they're out jogging for

example or riding a bicycle or or

whatever whatever ever it does listening

to music there's no right path for

everyone it's like find the place where

you're able to be alone with yourself

and if you can tolerate being with

yourself and you pay attention something

will start coming up you see and and

ultimately ironically that's the cure to

the great disease of our time which is

loneliness it's interesting that the UK

and Japan

now have cabinet level posts for

ministers of loneliness so great is a

lonely we've never been more connected

in human history through our Electronic

media and yet people are now isolated in

their rooms talking to each other and I

I saw a cartoon I probably New York or

somewhere where a couple was getting

married and the the minister says to the

couple well text each other I do you

know it was ultimately a joke about how

we are so media dependent now that we're

disconnected from each other and so

whatever it is that helps you link to

something in here you asked this

question which I I'm also haunted by in

a constructive way he said we all need

to find what supports us when nothing

supports

us and that's ultimately the cure for

loneliness that there's something inside

of me that knows me better than

me is

is working hard to bring about a healthy

response to whatever life brings and it

has a purposefulness to it an

intentionality an

expression and when I'm in touch with

that I feel that sense of wholeness and

purposefulness when I'm out of it when I

start unraveling so to speak and un just

that's how how we get exhausted and

burned out and so forth so again this is

I use that word recollecting remembering

it's like pulling the pieces back

together again in some way so what

Shakespeare said the um knitting the

Ravel raveled sleeve of care you see he

he was using the same metaphor of being

unraveled in some

way I love this notion of um spending

time alone and accessing one's deepest

resource for self-care as a way to deal

with loneliness because ultimately I

also completely agree that stimulus

response is the Hallmark of of text

messaging there can be useful sure

aspects of text messaging of course

coordinating plans Etc and communicating

but but certainly social media it's a

you know we have a stimulus response

device some people think of it more like

a slot machine but it never actually

Returns the jackpot is the is the issue

um and I also think that social media

can be terrific for educating and

learning as well um certainly much of

what I do or strive to do I think time

alone is incredibly beneficial so thank

you for for highlighting that and and

also that it doesn't take much you know

maybe even a half hour that's right walk

or something of that sort if I may what

do you think happens when we exit that

stimulus response mode do you think the

unconscious mind is revealed a bit more

to us um and I think of the unconscious

mind um a a former guest on this podcast

um a psychiatrist described the

unconscious is kind of like the the the

iceberg that's beneath the surface

all the stuff going on that we're

entirely unaware of do you think that

the water recedes a little bit

absolutely because there's no room for

the expression of of of whatever is

wanting to be acknowledged within us

when we're constantly responding to our

environmental demands um one of the

things I try to do is walk a mile every

day I've gone through some health issues

in recent years and so I'm sort of in a

physical recovery stage of life and I

mock a mile day even though it's

physically difficult uh and I find that

revelatory because that's I I'm focused

on being present here rather than all of

the distractions there and that's one of

the things that I have found a form of

meditation if you will and what comes up

for me is often

surprising I've talked before in the

podcast about meditation clinical

hypnosis something called Yoga Nidra

which is a self-directed relaxation

sometimes call it non-sleep deep rest

Etc and without taking us on a tangent

um I I raise this because we keep

talking about meditation and um I think

to a lot of people meditation sounds

like something esoteric to me as a

neuroscientist meditation is a

perceptual exercise it can be done to

enhance focus by focusing on a specific

location behind the forehead or looking

at a a light it can be um an uh open

monitoring meditation where you're

intentionally not trying to focus on any

one thing but it at the end of the day

it's a perceptual ex it's it's a

deliberate perceptual

shift um much in the same way that if I

decide to you know listen to an opera

with my eyes closed that's a in some

sense it's a meditation it's a

deliberate perceptual shift

um so a deliberate perceptual shift that

we're calling a meditation which I think

is a great label for it that is directly

aimed at better understanding the UN

one's own unconscious processing so that

one can then lean

into the stimulus response parts of life

with more intentionality with less

opportunity to hit the rumble strips or

go into the gutter um with a more

authentic response to it you see because

it's more likely to be coming out of me

rather than simply being reactive I

think that's the important thing what's

so important about what you're saying is

that for years now we've heard about you

know meditation being important as a way

to uh intervene in the Ulus

response process yes um and people say

be responsive not reactive and it all

sounds so wonderful just as sounding

being gritty and resilient sounds

wonderful but one of the things that's

many really important here that you're

raising is that there are methods to do

this they almost always involve going

inward or someone who can see what we

can't see pointing out blind spots in us

that's right well I I think again the

issue is to still the traffic inside and

be present to the moment in whatever way

that is that's why I said a person can

meditate by work of the

hands or by walking or something that

pulls one out of the the cycles that are

running their their little script over

and over and over so there are many

forms of meditating and you know ancient

Traditions have revealed that too there

was walking meditation and so forth and

you mentioned music I think that's

another example to listen to music I

think takes one out of you know nature

said once without music Life's a

mistake and I think what he was getting

at was there is a sense in which music

has no purpose except being itself so

when we're really present to the music

we were in the midst of being if I'm

well we're at Spring right now as you

and I are talking and it's beautiful in

the neighborhood and so I've been

watching the flowers emerge and so forth

um and and simply being present to that

means some of that other traffic is

stilled and then I return and the

traffic resumes but maybe I have a

little more of a sense of who I am and

from whence I'm responding you see as a

result of that reentering process you

know the the Zen folks talk about being

no minded I think that it was their way

of talking about being present to this

moment but but not consumed by the

demands of this moment and that's that's

a difficult thing to manage but it's

essential I'd like to take a brief break

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like to try the waking up app you can go

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30-day trial again that's waking up.com

huberman perhaps we can talk about the

shadow this notion of the shadow um

sounds very ominous um what is the

Shadow and are people aware of their

shadows and if they're not how can they

become aware of them and how can they

work with them well a shadow was yung's

metaphor for those parts of our own

psyche and or our affiliation with

groups for example whether it's a

religious group educational group a

national identity that when brought to

Consciousness we find troubling perhaps

contradictory to our values or um you

know inimical to our sense of self-worth

or something like that for example

typical Shadow issues include our

capacity for jealousy and for Envy for

aggression for greed etc etc uh we don't

want to acknowledge those things but

since when are we exempt from The Human

Condition the wisest thing ever said

about the shadow came from the Latin

playright Terrance two Millennia ago who

said uh nothing human is alien to me now

I think that's important to recognize in

me I carry the entire capacity of human

nature to express itself some of those

forms of Expressions will be acceptable

to the society or to my psychological

culture and some will not be um and

that's the shadow material and you know

there's the personal Shadow and there

are group Shadows because Nations can be

possessed by Blood Lust For example or

or a fashion is a shadow issue where

everybody has to look the same way and

dress the same way and so forth you know

the more insecure I am as a person the

more likely I'm going to try to look

around me for what are the clues so I

can fit in be be like others therefore

I'll be acceptable you see that's not a

federal crime that's a very deep complex

that is left over from childhood I'm not

here to fit in I'm here to be who I am

which at times will fit in and other

times it won't but that's okay okay

because I'm at least in good

relationships to my myself at that point

so typically the shadow manifest as

being unconscious therefore it just

spills into the world through us a

perfect example of Shadow issues as I

mentioned before is parents expecting

their children to grow up and have you

know the same kind of values that I have

for example same religious views marry

somebody that I find acceptable etc etc

well that's not really loving the

otherness of the other is it it's not

really loving the child for their own

Journey that's them carrying some piece

of their of their own unfinished

business secondly uh we disown the

Shadow by projecting on some you know

those people across the border they're

you know they're the carrier of they're

they're what's wrong with this world you

see I disown the shadow in myself by

seeing it in everybody else around me

Yung actually said what often we find

troubling in another person is because

they're they're expressing something

within our own unconscious

um you know as a certain itinerate Rabbi

said two Millennia ago um I can see the

speck in your eye but miss the log in my

own that's a perfect illustration What

The Shadow

is thirdly one can get caught up in it

that's at times what rock concerts are

mass events people caught up in a mob

mentality where you lose your sense of

individual ego identity and become

subsumed into a collective mood

and you know that could be um a hanging

mob for example as has happened in

history too many times um and it could

be a force for good or a force for evil

but again the larger the group the lower

the level of consciousness of the

individuals in that group and then

fourthly we recognize it in

ourselves in a um speech at Yale

University in 1937 Yung said a person

who could look at their own shadow and

own it he said now has large problem

because they're no longer to blame

others for what goes wrong in their life

they they have to acknowledge that

within themselves and he said further

it's the single best thing you can do

for your Society this is not Naval

gazing this is how you lift your

unfinished business off of your partner

your children take it back yourself

which is a loving thing to do and a

civic-minded thing to do if you look at

collectively

here so how does one

learn what their Shadow or Shadows well

again if you're married ask your partner

sure you know who will tell you

immediately um what your unfinished

business may be um or your children or

your close friend perhaps um it shows up

in dreams um you know Freud talked about

a young man who's disowned what the

content of his dream he says well I I

don't you know fre said well whose dream

do you think that was it was your dream

you have to acknowledge that that was

embodying something within you so um

there are many ways to recognize the

shadow often consequences pile up and

then one begins to realize well the only

consistent person in all the uh scenes

of this drama I call my life is is mAh

so I have to acknowledge that that's my

stuff and that's a very humbling thing

that's why I say this work is humbling

not not uh inflating in some way it's

humbling so um again shadow work is

never going to be popular because it

means I'm taking

responsibility and yet what else would

being human being who's responsible and

adult like um do accept except

responsibility you see it's one of the

definitions I would say of an adult

person is I I know I'm accountable for

what spills in the world through me yes

I'm responding to various things that

happen around me but sooner or later I

I'm the one bringing my stories my

condition

responses and something of my shadow to

the mix and responding out of that now

that's a witch's brew at times as you

could imagine at the same time you

recognize all right but that's my

business to address because if I don't

it just

continues what I observe in the world

and what I've experienced before is that

um certainly we all have Shadow sides um

me everybody I mean I think that's like

I think anyone that doesn't believe that

is uh perhaps not of homo sapiens um you

know um maybe other animals have shadows

too who knows um but that when Shadows

Clash it becomes very confusing because

um given what you're saying very few

people address their shadows and these

days especially there's no need to make

this political this is just social sure

um we see mobs

forming as you said the larger the group

the lower the level of

Consciousness and then it

becomes even more challenging to address

one's Shadow when

a there's the perception of an attack

mhm B that attack often times is the

reflection of the other group Shadow and

C people find Refuge with people who

have similar Shadow yes processes so it

um not to be pessimistic here but

um perhaps the answer is what you

referred to before is to go inward to

the

self work with somebody or or um

somebody close to you that that has your

best interest in mind truly best

interest in mind and then um try to

resolve that well yes and very few

people are willing to do that that's

what polarizes societies polarizes

groups and and so forth it's it's

comforting to find like-minded people

but then they're both caught in the same

complex there's another way of putting

that so ultimately whatever reality is

it's going to wear through that and and

reveal something that's uh going to be

pretty disconcerting to individuals who

who are caught in a collective

identification that way you know the the

shadow comes because our human nature is

thrust into various social situations we

can't help but have a shadow you know I

we we have to socialize a child we learn

to use a knife and a fork and not take

our siblings food and that sort of thing

you learn to look both ways for you

cross the street there's socialization

that's important and yet the greater the

socialization the more likely there's

going to be an interruption I mean think

about those cultures where people are

forced to dress alike for some form of

unity or

Conformity um um think think about where

a person might have a special gift or

talent but it's not appreciated in

family X or Y well where does that

natural form of expression go it

pathologizes as depression or it comes

out in compensatory dreams or

projections onto someone else or or it

makes the person ill you know the

unlived life can make a person ill

there's a sickness under death as kard

talked about it you know it's it's uh

it's that sickness where where the human

spirit is being being repetitively

violated and much in our culture

violates our spirits and and spirit is

not something you will it's something

that that is the quickening of life's

energy and service to something and if

your family or your situation imposes

itself upon that uh to give a quick

example my my own family of origin was

one in which they were by the

circumstances of decades ago unable to

to attain an education my father worked

in a factory my mother was a

secretary and um for them life was a

series of shaming

events and um overwhelming events and

the message to me both over and covert

is don't go out there it's it's too too

big it's too much stay here and we'll

take care of each other so one of the

first things I did when I was 18 was

left I went to college and came back for

vacations but but I left psychologically

at that point I something in me knew

that I had to have a larger life than

that and I say that with love and

respect and compassion for my parents

the last conversation I had with my

mother before she died of

cancer um her ancestor her father she'd

never known was from

Sweden and I'd had a book translated

into Swedish and I told her I thought

that would be something that would be

nice for her and and she was horrified

it's like why have you written it what

are they saying and I thought she meant

reviewers at first and I realize that's

the voice I heard in childhood she was

saying you shouldn't be out there now

people are going to attack you this will

draw attention to you you see and her

intention was protective in her last

days actually before she died she was

more afraid of what people thought than

whether her son was living his journey

or not and I say this with grief for

her and and that was the message of

childhood you know it's too much out

there and yet something inside quickened

and said well you need to go where those

airplanes are going you need to go see

the ocean for yourself um you need to

try to live in a foreign country and see

what that's like um was I was that easy

no it was doubly hard because of the

messages I had but it was just necessary

sooner or later again the appointment

with your life do you keep it or you not

keep the appointment so that was the

first meeting of the appointment was to

to leave home and start the journey you

know in terms of the the archetype of

the of the journey first is the

departure and then you have the

initiatory experiences which can knock

you down and then the question is do you

get up and go to the next one

and sooner or later something begins to

change inside and you begin to feel that

this is this is the journey that's right

for me it's very moving to hear because

I you know we hear with that we become

our parents M and yet I've never

believed that um I believe that um for

whatever reasons inside us that we

either adopt their traits unconsciously

or consciously or we resist them 180° in

the other direction MH there doesn't

seem to be a 90° response that's as as

your example beautifully illustrates

that there's something in the brain and

in the human psyche that either says

yeah okay like that's just the way life

is um For Better or

Worse um or says

no and you know I feel I'm 48 years old

so I'm still learning to be a full adult

um um I like to think there's some

neuroplasticity left science tells us

there's neuroplasticity throughout the

lifespan so and I do believe that um but

I feel like so much of being an adult

perhaps just being a human being is

about learning to stand one's ground and

say no no no no that's me and this is

what's right for me and you're wrong

crazy or just different and we agree to

dis agree and then there's the other

half of being an adult which is saying

oh

goodness you might be right maybe you

are right okay you're right I screwed up

or

I need to think at least think about

this differently and and the hard work

of being a human I think is

knowing when you are dealing with

incoming messages that are real

they could be from a healthy Source or

an unhealthy Source it's complicated

this is why I mentioned this thing about

the internet and social media in

particular earlier I do believe it's

borderline I think if you were to remove

the names and the um faces and you would

just put that into a a a script you'd

say this is a dialogue coming from a

borderline person weaving back and forth

across the line literally of healthy and

psychotic and so as a human especially

nowadays it's complicated um we don't

just live in little Villages where we go

okay well that person tends to kind of

you know spin off and that person seems

very grounded but occasionally makes

mistakes too you know um and so I feel

like so much of the work of being a I

said an adult but I I'm going to replace

that with just a human is trying to know

thyself right as the Oracle said and own

thyself and and report that into the

world but also to be semi-permeable and

in a way that's functional is such hard

work because in both

cases the adoption of what we were told

and what was ingrained in us and is

unconscious so that we just live out the

script of our parents or where we say no

I'm I'm going to leave this little town

or I'm not going to live life or

relationships that way at all I'm going

to do it this other completely different

way maybe unconventional way both have

an element of reactivity in them and cly

both have an element of um kind of

uh um there's like a there's a Vigor

behind it sure no your your point is

very well taken and and appropriate

because it is a paradox first of

all in the Eden Project a book I wrote

on relationship and subtitled the search

for the magical leather there is inside

of us this infantile and understandable

desire to find the right person who's

going to make our life work for us who's

going to take care of us meet our needs

read our minds etc etc you see and the

other person has that going on in them

so they project that on to us you wonder

why relationships get so complexed you

see but the great gift of relationship

if you can tolerate it is the otherness

of the other produces the dialectic

produces the the enlargement that comes

from encountering the other I've learned

so much from my my wife and I believe

she's learned a few things from me uh

our ongoing dialogue because we're both

similar and very different at the same

time is one that has at times been

conflictual naturally but most the time

is a pattern of growth because we we are

allowed to bring in that other

perspective and see the same reality my

my my wife has taught me to see some

things that I wouldn't have seen before

because she's has an artist's eye on the

other hand there are places where you

have to come up as you said against what

is Central and critical to your own

well-being or your own integrity and

then you have to stand for that and the

wisdom to know which is which at any

given time is is not in bred it's it's

one of those times where we have to find

that balancing point between legitimate

dialogue and compromise and sacrifice in

a relationship there's a place for

sacrifice but at the same time there's a

place where you have to say all right

but I also so have to separate myself

here and and stand for this on the other

side of that and you know it takes a

solomonic wisdom to know always what's

right but over time I think one can get

a sense of of what that's about so you

know again that's why we we have to

individuate as individuals by definition

but also in

relationship because it's the otherness

of the others that pulls us out of that

self-referential system otherwise we get

caught you know in a circular dialogue

among our complexes for example as y

said it's important to go to the

Mountaintop to meditate but if you stay

up there too long you'll be talking to

ghosts you know your your complexes will

be caught in this this looping cycle and

you need the other to pull you out of

that into the presence of the other and

it's out of that that the third

comes um Joseph camel made an important

distinction once he said about committed

relationship he said if you're

constantly sacrificing to the

other um you'll grow

resentful but if you're sacrificing to

the project the two of you've launched

to together as a friendship or a

marriage or whatever form it takes you

can do that in a very constructive way

you're fed by that because you're you're

you're mutually committed to the project

that this relationship

represents and that's an important

distinction I

think yeah given that 50% or more of

marriages seem to end in divorce these

days I think that statistic still holds

um do you think that can be largely

attributed to uh people not arriving to

those relationships with the mindset you

just described people not arriving to

those relationships having um a deep

enough understanding of themselves prior

to that or um something else I think all

of the above um first of all young

people tend to marry and make babies

understandably um um and then 20 years

later in some way they're a different

person and it's very hard for the

premises that brought them together to

still obtain in a Developmental and

honest way you know many years

later when you reach that point then

there is a time for renegotiation or if

need be unfortunately the dissolution of

that

relationship um because I had a

colleague in New Jersey years ago who

worked exclusiv with the couples and she

she talked about starter marriages and

she said I would never say that publicly

because that sounded too pessimistic but

she said if you're lucky your starter

marriage will be a good one that will

evolve and so forth but for most people

that which brought them together was

running from their parents or

replicating their parents' relationships

or uh their their insecurity about

themselves therefore they bonded with

someone else who was going to take care

of that for them whatever it was

it's been outlived their their own

natural development their life

circumstances have changed and then it

brings about you know the necessity of

some very difficult decisions so you

know marriage marriage is an institution

with the best of

intentions that is sorely tested over

time and you know sometimes it'll

survive the test in I I would not

automatically applaud if someone's been

married 50 or 60 years I would ask what

has happened to the soul of that person

in that

relationship has it grown has it

developed did did they mutually support

each other's growth and development or

did something get stuck at that point

and um our our early family of origin

Dynamics still dominating that

relationship and from the outside we

usually don't know the answer to that

question but inside you'd have to say

what what has happened to this person

and the same is true with parenting you

know parenting is very very difficult

because we'd like to think we know

what's right for our own child but then

they have to spend a good part of their

life trying to get away from us in some

way as we did ourselves you see and then

you if you remember that then you're a

little more likely to say you know I

really don't know what's going on here

but I have to pay more attention to what

I think is wanting expression through my

child and and support that rather than

assuming that they're going to grow up

and replicate our lives and our values

as I've said

before given the number of people who do

deep introspective work either by

themselves or with a trained

professional it's perhaps should

surprise us that 50% of marriages do

survive yeah in a in a way yes and and

those that survive are not necessarily

good marriages in the sense in which the

person is growing and developing they

may be stuck they may be afraid of the

Alternatives they may be Bound by

economics for example or or cultural

forms so again from outside you don't

know what's happening inside the soulle

of that individual and it's very

important for us to not judge them for

that

reason earlier you you described the the

painful work sometimes painful work of

really addressing what one wants and

really getting in touch with one's Soul

psyche um and how Society or we think

Society might not approve of that and

yet when I think about popular

culture um often times it's the people

that seem to be living in their own

truth that are most celebrated that's

true like there's something about the

the crowd I've shifted from Mob to crowd

here to make it sound more benevolent

but but it's still a mob that cheers on

the person who really seems to be in

their we say full expression or living

in their truth but who just comes out

and says like yeah I don't I don't

really care what they're saying about me

or what people think I know me I know my

own goodness my own intention my own um

Mission and the people close to me do

hopefully they have people close to them

and we say yeah like go it's inspiring

yes that's why I said earlier many of

the people in history that we would

admire had difficult lives but we admire

them because they stuck to some value

that was Central to who they were and

they lived that maybe at Great cost but

they live that through whatever

suffering they had to to trans to

experience um again from outside we

don't know do we when we see some

cultural figure out there uh may maybe

they're manipulative may maybe they're

caught in a complex of some kind we

don't know from outside you you have to

say I mean one of the Shadow issues how

often people will live through a

celebrity or live through a pop figure

in some way maybe imitate that person uh

again for a child that's natural and

normal on the other hand uh sooner or

later you have to say but my journey is

a different

Journey maybe they're living there has

been in my living mind and I don't mean

this in any grandiose way I don't mean

that they have to go out and become

something that's noted in the society

but to live in accord with something

that is wishing its its U expression

through us that's why I said the final

question in life is is what is wanting

to live in this world through me rather

than what do I want or what do my

complexes want because they're noisy

chatterers in there you know I had a a

dear friend from another state right to

me just yesterday and um he's in

semi-retirement now and he's been

dealing with some health issues and uh

he said now that I'm not distracted I

have time to work on all the Goblins of

the past that I left behind and he's an

analyst so it's not like we get rid of

these things they're lifelong this is

why Yung said we can't solve these

things but we can outgrow them there's a

big difference you know you become

larger than what happened to you for

example you become larger than that

voice inside of you that says you can do

this but you can't do

that um and over time you know something

inside of you is wishing that growth and

pushing that and again pathologizes when

that's blocked so so people can be doing

all the right things is defined by their

values and their

environment and it violates something

inside that's why we can be quote

successful and Achieve things and it

still feels empty there's no there there

you know you get to the top of the

ladder and you realize there's no there

there and that happens so often in our

culture um I I remember one of the um

fiscal figures in the late 20th century

who had a personal Fortune of $400

million and he was asked what was his

philosophy of life and he said well at

the end of life the person with the

biggest pile wins and I remember

thinking how infantile is that this was

a smart

man and Elder Statesman in his field

ultimately went to prison because of

some things um

but that's the philosophy of the sandbox

I have the biggest pile of sand I've won

no you haven't won your

debt and it's a pile of sand what are

you talking about and yet this is what

drove the man's life and obviously drove

him across enough lines that it got him

into legal troubles sooner or later and

again I say that without judgment I'm

just saying here is an example of a very

achieved person who's been living an

infantile philosophy and as such

something else causes him to pay greatly

for that yeah I certainly can say that

um

despite having pursued work with a lot

of vigor and career that without

question

friendships and relationships are the

most important thing there's just no

question right the uh especially when

things get hard that's right you know I

I actually I actually have a list in

this very book I won't flip to it now of

the people that I'm just really blessed

to call close friends like real friends

that you can count on and to me it and

I've always in my sister I have an older

sister and she always said you've always

been a pack animal I've always had uh U

big groups of of biggish groups of

friends and it's something I've invested

in heavily sometimes to the expense of

other things um including work and other

relationships but um but the notion that

um yeah the material things or that the

uh opinions of strangers would somehow

fill us that to me is like the most

foreign concept sure like that's that's

the the most foreign concept but um but

clearly some people operate on those

metrics that's like of course and my

guess is that they have a a um a a

reward

Horizon that is you know tacked to

whatever it is the algorithms are that

get them that thing and so it must feed

some reward mechanism that hasn't

distracted enough like locked into this

one mode of time perception you know

just hit the mile Mark hit the mile Mark

hit the mile Mark so that they're not

aware but when you take somebody like

that who's been doing that for a

lifetime and you say wait

you know you're on this track going

around and around and AC crewing

trophies but actually that track doesn't

go anywhere doesn't lead you into the

world that's right my guess is that they

they just they've been doing it so long

that they're like an animal that's just

been you know digging a trench and in

its Zoo confined sure cage which is

something I'm finding with a lot of the

men that I see uh I happen to see right

now in my practice uh several men

between UH 60 and8 80 and uh one

82 um and of course they've been

conditioned to work and then suddenly

you know on Monday morning you have to

stop and think who you are you get up

and you go to work and you do what

you've done all these years and then

suddenly you don't do that what are you

going to do you say well I'm going to go

play golf every day well okay go do that

but typically within three or four

months the depression comes and they'll

think about well I need to get back into

doing this or get doing that you

see so often we find people defined by

exactly that kind of mentality I've

finished the first lap so what do I do

run another lap and run another lap and

you realize you keep coming back to the

same starting point that's why I say

it's not what you do it's what it's in

service to inside that makes a

difference so is that person being

successful by external standards yes

whatever that means does that mean that

their psyche is going to cooperate and

give them that genuine sense of s

atisfaction in something no it won't

it's autonomous it's not going to get

co-opted into that and soon or later you

know chickens come home to roast and

then you have a depression as I

experienced and and or you you find your

relationships are in tatters all around

you so sooner or later I mean no

Revelation on my part nature will

Express itself and if uh if we live long

enough and then everything that we've

pushed underground is be is going to be

coming

up you mentioned men in particular so

now it probably be a good time to um ask

about men in particular you wrote Under

Saturn Shadow which is how I initially

learned about your work and then I

listen to some of your lectures online

I'm still in the process of reading your

um other books but um let's talk

about archetypes

stereotypes of men and women um with the

intention of course of um better

understanding what's real as opposed to

what's

stereotype um so in the um let's call it

the 1930s 40s 50s 60s view of men in the

United States and elsewhere there was

this notion of kind of like the

stoic uh and work and um uh Duty and um

and to some extent a fair amount of

Mystique

right like it wasn't really because with

um fewer words uh we have less awareness

at least of what people are saying who

knows what they're thinking whether

don't they talk a lot or not um but

there was this idea of of the um the

male as somebody who did

stuff maybe thought about

it but didn't really talk about it much

um nowadays things have

changed um this is born out in the

statistics on College campuses about how

many people seek therapy um if they have

an issue it's gone from like 15% to 85

plus% at least roughly in the statistics

I've seen so um but in terms of males

and their sense of Duty and how they're

supposed to be in the world um I would

think just the way I just laid out the

little you know by all admittance like

just very Antiquated now view of

maleness um

that they would be thinking a lot about

what's going on it would meet some of

the daily practices that you talked

about earlier um that there would be

reflection that there would be um

Consciousness there would be um uh an

understanding of one's Shadow or if one

were to add in the the other stereotype

that went with it that they drink a lot

right that was very much I'll remember

my first I went to graduate school first

at Berkeley before I shifted to a

different place um and I was told when I

got there that it used to be that the

faculty and graduate students of which

at that time in the 1970s and 60s was

mostly male mostly now that's changed

fortunately right that they would meet

every day after work to drink and then

stagger home to their Partners every day

and I was shocked like are you kidding

me I was like no every single day so you

know the the idea here is that um that

was the old view now things are very

different but what about the work

of men men and boys to try and

understand their own psyche better what

what is the uh what are the things that

are specific to them that you've talked

about and then we'll turn to women and

then uh we'll we'll do our best to

bridge The Divide in a

conversation well um Ju Just to go back

to our our earlier conversation for a

moment you know why would those men have

to drink every day and the answer is

because there was some deep pain that

they had to

anesthetize of which they were by and

large unaware or presumably they would

have the opportunity to address whatever

that was um you know and I'll come back

to that in a moment I've been asked

often to speak about men by women's

groups and by the way men's groups have

never asked me to talk about women right

is that right that's right you know

individuals such as yourself but it's

it's mostly women's groups have asked me

talk about those strange creatures

called men and I say imagine these three

things first of all that you cut away

all your close friends the women that

you share your worries about your

marriage with about your children about

your body your love life or lack thereof

you know those people are gone forever

there's no one you can share that with

secondly um you have to sever your link

to whatever your guiding Source may be

you call it your instinct or your

intuition whatever it is that's that's

cut off it's not acceptable and thirdly

your value as a human being will be

defined by your meeting abstract

standards of productivity as defined by

total strangers in your culture and

sooner or later no matter how much you

win today you'll wind up a loser and the

thing is you hold that off as long as

you can so keep running all right and

women hear that and they think well

that's horrible that's horrible how

lonely that would be how isolating that

would be and of course it is it's self-

arranging you know my my poor father was

pulled out of the e8th grade sent to to

work in the factory worked all of his

life in that factory and and by the

standards of his day he was a good man

he supported his family he didn't run

away he he accept the

responsibility but I also know he didn't

live his own soul I know that and I had

Clues here and there and I even saw that

as a

child um and and so when I started to

reflect on

men I I realized I had my own

inhibitions about that and I was

fortunately enough as a therapist I

would say all right what would you say

to someone who expressed these

inhibitions I would say all right there

there's some some fears here that you're

defending yourself against what's that

about so I thought and then I had a

voice in me that said but these are

secret you don't talk about it then I

thought well that's my duty isn't it I

have to bring some of those things up

and so that's what led to the writing of

the book under s Shadow and um I

suggested a number of those Secrets One

is men's lives are much as much governed

by role expectations as women's lives

are less so today but in the past they

were Ironclad right um and they the net

effect of those roles was self-

arranging you know you are your function

you are your

duties um men's lives are governed by

fear-based responses

and there's a certain level of

competitiveness that is essential to to

men's culture women learn through the

years probably out of necessity to

cooperate and support each other um and

and they can get through difficult

things by doing that for for men it's

you're always having to

demonstrate your competency in one area

or another and the one thing you don't

want to do is be a loser you see it's a

zero sum game winners and losers and um

ultimately there's a deep deep uh

longing for well there's a fear of the

feminine socalled that can include the

feminine within hence men's estranging

themselves from themselves I had a

client many years ago who was sent into

therapy by his wife saying you know

either you go to therapy or I'm out of

here so he was there very reluctantly

and he walked in and he saw a box of uh

tissue there a Kleenex box and he he

just kind of sniffed at that without

saying anything and I knew exactly what

he was saying but I acted like I didn't

and he thought I'd missed the clue and

so he pointed the box and sniffed again

and I I said what what's this about and

he said well you had a woman in here

before don't you I'm not going to be

needing

that and I said you know every man has a

a lake of Tears inside of himself and a

mountain of anger in there and I said

sooner or later and he said no no we

have other better ways of dealing with

that and I thought well our prognosis is

not very good here

he he left after about five sessions

because it was just going to ask more

than he was capable of so there's a fear

of the feminist like I have to be so

much in my masculine mode of

combativeness or competitiveness or

expression of Competency I can't afford

anything that one would

undo my my shaky hold on that

wheresoever you see Macho Behavior you

see fear-based overcompensation is what

it amounts to right you know saber ring

rattling is is always a fear-based

response and and underneath there is a

very deep longing you know for the wise

father for for the the person you could

see some modeling from who would teach

you something who would share with you

wisdom he's learned along the way and so

you know the condition of modern men and

things have changed a great deal and I

think partly stirred by the um

revolution in in in the history of women

you know and and their courage in

addressing these stereotypes about what

a woman is and what she's supposed to do

with her life um required men to start

looking at themselves as well so women

have done us a great favor not always

recognized by men but um you know in

both cases you have to say all right the

message you have from family of origin

and culture may or may not work for you

but you're here to in a certain way

deconstruct you know those expectations

and and find your own path you

see uh the Spanish analist Irene Deo not

long decease now talked about the

difference between focused awareness and

defuse awareness and I think rather than

talk about gender which is a social

construct coming out of this culture or

this culture or this culture talk about

those are two different modes of

orientation to the world and we need

both we need focused awareness that's

gold directed behavior that is

historically associated with the

masculine and we also need this

awareness of context and of

relationship so this focused awareness

without relatedness leads to sterility

and isolation and on the other hand too

diffuse without a sense of directed and

purposeful Behavior you know means that

one is just sort of fumbling one's way

through life too I've always said to

women in therapy you know to be a man is

in a sense your requirement is to know

what you want and to do it but you have

to do that too in what y called the

Animus that is to say the so-called

inner masculine or the inner focused

awareness and that gold directed

behavior is what moves your life forward

in a purposeful way but for men it's

it's about becoming aware of again

context and

relatedness what happens if I have the

biggest pile of sand at at the end of my

life well you know obviously you can't

take it with you but in the end it's

only sand money is only money what was

your life about that's the

question women have to ask that men have

to ask that and sometimes the culture is

supportive in that process sometimes

it's opposed to that and and then that's

when you have to engage in a fight men

and women have a you know a common

summons here and they can be very

supportive of each other as well as you

know celebrate their

differences and recognize um you know as

men are beginning to recognize if you

don't address what's going on inside of

you you're you're going to be uh simply

a creature of adaptation and you're

going to lose your way sooner or later

um when I came back from my training in

Zurich in the

70s um I would say my practice was 90%

women and 10% men today it's the reverse

90% men I don't put out a shangle and

say I see men or women I I see both but

uh I think again it's the change is in

men now they they

recognize they're lost in some way the

old masculine definitions are no longer

applicable you know a lot of this

happened with the Industrial Revolution

where Fathers and Sons work together in

the same trait if you were a Tanner you

tanned you know if you were a carpenter

you you built houses if if you were a

Shepherd you you know worked with a

sheep and so forth um and you sort of

learn who you are from your rubbing

shoulders with the father well well

today men go away to the factory or go

away to the office and Sons are at home

with their mothers you know and they're

female School teachers and so forth and

so there's again this deep hunger for

the initiatory Father the the the the

supportive father in traditional

cultures where there were rights of

Passage they recognized the importance

of separating the boy at puberty in a

simpler culture yes but at puberty it

wasn't initiated by the personal father

or relatives it was by the elders in the

tribe often wearing masks or painted

faces because they were archetypal

forces they were not the neighbor down

the street it was like you're in the

hands of the Gods now and they require

you to leave home and we're going to

teach you things but we're also going to

bring about some forms of isolation and

suffering for you so begin to realize

that you have within you the resources

to undertake this journey what we have

now is is a whole culture of uninitiated

males who haven't left home

psychologically speaking you know in the

past they were simply governed by

masculine roles and now as those of

dissolved for many men um there there's

very little sense of well what does it

mean to be a man what am I supposed to

do as as a man and the answer basically

is go live your life find find your path

find the courage and resolve and

resources to to sustain that over time

but you know how to do that is there's

no model for that it's it's you have to

sort of find that your yourself you see

and that's what brings people into

therapy at times and it's interesting

that I have right now this collection

it's consonant with my own stage of Life

Journey too of of I only have one man

under 50 and all the others are

interested in how you deal with aging

and mortality for a good reason and

they're also dealing with how do I

Define myself other than my

work and and that's where the unlived

life often is coming back back in a very

useful way all right although there are

some things that have left and not

coming back in terms of the changes in

the body and that sort of thing but

basically

now is the time to address this

emotional developmental spiritual life

that is to say do you have any concept

of a story that's larger than the

stories of your complexes you see

doesn't mean one has to be part of a

religious group it means that you have

to question what quickens the spirit in

me what stirs me inside what touches me

where do I encounter the numinous and

the the word numinous means there's

something there that that causes this

reaction within me so if you and I walk

into an art museum let's say and you're

touched by a particular painting and and

frightened by it or moved to Tears by it

or whatever and the other person walks

by and is indifferent which is a right

well it's not right or wrong it's this

here it correlates with something in

here that's what caused that resonance

and that resonance is your engagement

with something numinous for you you

don't have to know it or explain or

whatever but you have to Value it and

ask what is it that was touched in me

and if it doesn't speak to me um Duty or

convention or expectations insufficient

to make it happen we can't will these

things to be

numinous numinosity is something that's

defined by one soul and not by the

collective that's for sure and women and

men in time I think will find that they

have very similar goals in their life

and that's how to balance my journey

with the legitimate commitments of

relationship on the other side and that

that's why we have that wonderful word

sacrifice you know not surrender

sacrifice is fer to Sacred sacrificer to

make sacred if you're sacrificing on

behalf of a value that is right for you

and for your project together then

you're both served by that on the other

hand and you don't sacrifice the Journey

of the individual Spirit too and again

it's about balancing that as best one

can and there's very little in our

culture that rewards that but then the

price is again the symptomatology that

comes from to the surface and from a

psychodynamic standpoint we don't say

well how quickly to get rid of the

symptoms we say why if they

come what are they asking of me that's

why as I I said my first question in

therapy was how quickly did I get rid of

this depression get back on the road you

know the careerism road right and and I

came in time to realize it was my psyche

saying you're on the wrong path fella

you don't know it's not so much that

it's wrong it's just not right for you

there's a big difference here and you're

going to have to find a different kind

of conversation in your life and so

forth and during my training I was

obliged to you know do my um clinical

experience I was working in a

psychiatric Hospital in uh New

Jersey and sometimes I was shuttling

back and forth the same day between the

psychiatric hospital a locked word in

the in the University campus and I came

to realize the conversation in the

hospital was more real somehow it was

more more about things that

mattered and that's what began to to you

know further my resolve to move from

Academia to being a a therapist you know

working therapist and and and so forth

so it it the point is I need to add this

my way of responding

to the family of origin and social

context stuff was to retreat into the

life of the mind I didn't realize that's

what I was doing at the

time that's why the psyche had to reach

up and Pull Me

Under And um then I came to realize that

the fears that I had in childhood were

the ones I had to face at midlife the

difference being I was bringing the

adults capacity to the table that was

not present to the child

so quick example in my first week

working in the psychiatric hospital I

was signed to a kind of grizzled old

ex-military guy who was the my mentor

and without asking me he took me into an

autopsy it was his you know let's

initiate the new kid kind of thing you

know well I realized it was a test so I

stayed cool and so forth all the while

I'm seeing this human body you know cut

up and so forth in a radical

way and and I realized all that I had

fled in childhood was right there on the

table before me and it continued to

perseverate in my dreams and so forth

and I I was back in Zurich in my own

analysis and I talked about this and my

analyst said quite rightly he said when

you've dealt with your fears the fears

of others will not be so threatening to

you cu the the closed W I was in was at

times violent and so forth and was not a

pleasant situation but I could feel my

own sense of purpose and gravitas in

that situation after that so it's like

you can run but you can't hide sooner or

later what you've avoided will show up

in your behaviors or your blockage in

your behaviors so it doesn't go away it

goes

somewhere I'd like to just hover a bit

on this idea that um you know on the one

hand our work is to understand ourselves

and what really feeds our

soul um and to try and live that forward

as much as possible in a benevolent way

one would hope and on the other hand

anytime we are in the relational aspects

of life in particular romantic

relationship as we sort of framed it

here yes um because I think with

friendships

and work relationships oftentimes it can

align with the self in a different way

um and it's our work to try and as you

said sacrifice to to sacrifice one for

the other one for the other in a way

that over time allows both to not just

persist but grow and I'm also thinking

about what you said earlier which was

you know we should be cautious about

immediately applauding the 50-year

marriage because often times there's a a

soul death in one or both people um and

that we don't want to celebrate that and

yet there's something pretty impressive

about a 50-year marriage as as a um if

for no other reason as an endurance

event but we have to be cautious about

rewarding endurance events like that

because in as much as they sound to be

about love I mean there's also the

endurance event of the person that was a

stock broker for 50 years and got to the

end and then walked out of the stock

exchange or stepped out from behind the

computer monitor and went

oh wow I missed a lot that's right so um

there's no handbook for this of you know

you spend 15 minutes here and 30 minutes

there ratio of 2 to one children absorb

energy and when there health or other

issues in a relationship

then then you know energy goes you know

as well um

so what's the you know what's how does

one guide the rudder I mean uh does it

require third- Party Support I mean I

mean I've often thought this that

because we evolved presumably in small

villages where there was support that at

closer proximity than perhaps we have

now um people that know both individuals

and have the best uh uh in mind for both

um and for the collective I mean is

there the idea that like every romantic

couple should have a third- party

trained counselor to guide them seems

like not a bad idea although I think

people are pretty resistant to that and

of course it takes resources which is

always an issue sure sure well there's

nothing wrong with having the third

party conversation from time to time

that's for sure we have to remember that

what we call therapy is a relatively

modern invention um how was that

addressed before you're right at the

Village level uh when people were living

in um vit vitalized mythological systems

they had a sense of relatedness to the

Cosmos first of all who are the gods

what whether do we go when we die what's

this life about in other words every

tribe had its

story secondly what is our relationship

to Nature and to live in harmony with

that nature as opposed to violating it

repeatingly for our own

purposes thirdly who to whom do I belong

who is my tribe who are my people and is

that a life serving or a life supressing

experience and fourthly is the mystery

of individual journey by what lights do

I conduct my journey and so forth and of

course those mythological systems were

not particularly interested in the

development of the individual but

they're certainly about the individual

being subsumed into the the tribal

experience at least you have a sense of

belonging erode that and people fall out

of that into the abyss of the self as it

were um you put it this way he said you

know PE people walked off the medieval

Cathedral into the abyss of the self in

one of his letters you see and it became

a cultural contrivance with the best of

intention to help people find their path

and deal with whatever their psyche's

reaction to you know again typically not

always but typically what brings people

to therapy is that their belief system

or their conventional practices are no

longer working for them I had a client

from Houston once who said in his AA

group their slogan was this isn't

working for me but I do it very well

that pretty much um summarizes the first

step of going into 12st step is that

recognition that's right and then uh you

know 12st step of course provides so

much more but applicable to all of us

you know our our our practices sooner or

later will often because they're driven

by these stories that we carry INTC

psychically uh they don't work for us

but we've learned to do them with

certain facility and so forth and that's

when the discrepancy becomes so

difficult then one has to to face the

you know the the fire so to speak then

what matters is how am I to conduct my

life in the face of these circumstances

which I'm not able to solve in the old

way and that's the adventure and that's

the challenge and at the same time it's

intim

to to many people understandably so

sooner or later again one has to say is

this your life or is it someone

else's most people are not living their

life sadly they're living reactively

they're living whatever the stories were

and I put stories not in the sense that

they're so conscious as such as they

are representing whatever message we

internalized and produced a splinter

narrative again when triggered it has

the power to to govern our behaviors

it's why again you start with your own

patterns and say where did this come

from I wasn't born with it pattern is

something that is replicating itself as

a result of this story spilling into the

world so you know what what I learned in

my own life was I had put so much of my

emotional distress up in the world of

the life of the mind which was rich inv

valuable I don't repudiate that but it

was too

one-sided and what I had to do was come

back and face what was on the operating

table in that Psychiatric Hospital the

world of repressed emotion fears etc etc

it's like both are true now see if you

can honor both of them and when you do

something grows and develops within you

to respond to that in a new

way so we've been covering a lot of

human universals and things that

everybody should think about and address

we talked a bit about things more or

less specific to men um what about women

what what are some of the um unique

psychic challenges that um that they

face and need to address in specific

ways sure well first of all each woman

has to examine what was the message

given her by her family by her mother

her family extended family expectations

and role models and cultural setting and

so forth and say is is this something

that supports my personal growth and

development or not I mean that's a kind

of inventory men have to ask that same

question as

well um we we have to acknowledge that

biological differences suggest if you're

a woman you're the one who's going to be

carrying that baby and still in our

culture the major responsibility for it

while shared by father and mother

hopefully still is something you have to

attend and many women are trying to have

it both ways as we know the the career

development and and being a parent at

the same time I saw a survey some years

ago that um a large number of women

Executives all at M mbas and had all

achieved you know like vice president

status or something in their

corporation when at asked around age 50

would you do this all

again almost 100% said no it cost too

much from me it cost me too much they

felt something else was missing they

they felt friendship was missing they

felt intimacy was missing in many cases

they felt parenting was missing or it

had gotten short shrift you see um as as

men often face when they look at

retirement they you know as the old

saying you on your deathbed you say GE I

wish I spent more time with the office

you know it's like I wish I'd done this

or that I know a few scientists who to

this day say that they plan to die in

their office it's always a sad thing for

me to hear this yeah I also know their

children in many cases and that's uh

about four fifths of the time is not a

good picture that's right yeah and uh

again not all right this four fifths but

um because other colleagues are

spectacular parents but I grew up with

the children of a lot of academics and a

lot of times it ain't the pretty picture

that's right so I I think that um

another thing that men in our time

really need to learn is if you're in a

relationship part of your role is

supporting the growth and development of

your partner and the more insecure the

man the more threatened he will be by

that because she might go off in some

other direction you see um and that

means sharing household duties and

sharing child care and so forth forth

which you do to the best of your ability

having a child and having two careers

requires an enormous amount of juggling

as we as we all know but you can do it

in good faith with the best of

intentions if not resentment builds and

one-sidedness build so I I think for for

women they still need a partner that

will buy into the notion of genuine

reciprocity in our responsibility to

each other and to our our work together

which includes child

rearing uh without which women are

unduly burdened you see unfairly

burdened and I don't think we've solved

that one yet I think that's still

open-ended in the in the culture at this

point on the other hand it's it's

stunning to see women grab hold of the

opportunities available now uh I'm

living in a retirement community as of a

year ago and so many of the women that

I've had din with my my wife and I have

dinner with various people have said

well when I was at this stage women were

not allowed to do this one woman was a

scientist and she said I just wasn't

recognized in the physics World until

like late in my life and you forget how

recently that was the case I mean that

was that was a deep violation of the

human Spirit Well it was routine and so

many of the women that I see there who

are going to be over 70 most of them are

over

80 live lived in a world that was not

unlike a segregated world you know just

as you know I grew up where segregation

was practiced by half of this country

it's not so long ago somewhat hard to

Fathom um how much things have changed

and yet also how much things persist

that's right that's right well and you

know the 60s happened and what this what

happened to the 60s is a a a kind of re

Resurgence From Below in both men and

women some men and some women to

overthrow the sort of oppressive nature

of role definitions and so forth you

know I mean you couldn't think of

marrying a person uh in another religion

for example you couldn't think of

marrying someone of A different race I

mean it was the price of that meant you

had to go live in anonymously in the

city somewhere or you couldn't be gay

for example uh the love that dare not

speak its name as it was called um all

of that's been radically challenged and

rightly so and and yet what that does is

bring about a world of great Freedom

greater freedom but also ambiguity you

know if this isn't right well but what's

this and what's that and people are

troubled by ambiguity and so therefore

there's there's always a reactive uh

nature in in some individuals who are

fighting that you see so again it shows

up in very ious issues of of racism

whether we have abortion or not or

whatever the social issue may

be lot of what's playing out there is

the traditional role definitions versus

a sense of the autonomy of the

individual to live his or her journey

you say I'd like to shift a bit to

discussions of pathology or um asserted

pathology nowadays I think thanks again

to social media um or no thanks to

social media um there's a lot of use of

psychological terms M

narcissism

projection um

gaslighting clinical diagnosis I mean I

I admittedly took the liberty of saying

that I as a non-clinician view the the

landscape of a lot of social media as as

borderline and I have no credential to

be able to diagnose an individual let

alone the internet but so I'll be clear

about my limitations um whenever

possible

but there are real pathologies of the of

the psyche of the mind yes um I'd be

curious about your view of the ones that

tend to capture people's um attention

the most you know I mean uh I think we

Now understand some of the neurochemical

basis of certain CH psychiatric

challenges schizophrenia bipolar in

particular OCD particular sometimes by

way of which medications they respond to

or don't um but that alone doesn't allow

us to understand their underlying

mechanisms I think a lot of that is

still mysterious but I'd love um to get

a different perspective on these things

which is the psychological perspective

which um of course Embraces biology but

um looks at it a little bit differently

so um yeah what what are your thoughts

about the way that these days um these

words are slung and

um and what's your view about our actual

treatment for these uh for these

conditions both for the people suffering

from them and the people that suffer

because others suffer from them yeah

well you're asking me to speak both as a

therapist and as a citizen I think and

I'll address the first one first um part

of the therapist's role is to

differential diagnosis in other words if

a person comes in with a depression we

have to try to Define what kind of

depression are we talking about there

different kinds of

depression is this a reactive depression

it's only pathological if it lasts too

long or lasts interferes with their

normal functioning too much and that's a

judgment call if a person's grieving the

loss of something important in their

life the loss of a marriage would say

it's appropriate to feel uh depressed

for a certain length of time until

life's ches move one forward and so

forth there is um um biologically driven

depression which can be approached with

medication although many of the

anti-depressants are very limited in

their success long-term therapy tends to

be more effective as various Studies

have recognized albeit there's a you

know an economic cause to that and then

thirdly there's what you can call an

intas psychic depression which is what I

experienced was that you know there were

certain parts of my life that had been

walled off and and you know that was

crying out pathology comes from the

Greek word pathos which means suffering

and logos which means expression of so

pathology means the expression of the

suffering Psychopathology is expression

of the suffering of the Soul so what is

it in terms of this person's natural

desire to live in a meaningful way

that's interfering with her life is it

biologically driven is it as function of

the social context in which they live or

is it some personal task that they have

to address and that kind of differential

diagnosis is is essential and as you

said there are certain conditions that

are predominantly biologically driven

such as schizophrenia bipolar

Etc so secondly then speaking as as a

citizen you know the internet and I

don't want to get lost in the internet

again but it's like it's a vast Open

Stage in which whatever is unaddressed

in people can can be put out there

without censorship without reflection

without the other being represented and

you know it it allows people to to

reveal whatever is going on within

them uh with without genuine dialogue

and of course you can have opposition

but what has to happen typically is

again associating with like-minded

people I must be right because these

other people agree with me you see so

you know any of these terms can be

misappropriated and and will be sooner

or later so what one has to say is we

can only make diagnosis with you know

observation over time it's very hard

initially to to know what's really going

on as I mentioned what we do or what

someone does is logical what we don't

know is what it's in service to inside

of them

and you will not get much sense of that

by the internet because it's too

superficial that's why it takes repeated

observation and conversation for that to

emerge the reason I keep coming back to

the internet is I think it's where most

people get their information now it's

unless they're listening to this as a

podcast that's where they're going to

get this information

um I think what you said about um the

lack of dialogue being really key I mean

I think we see this now also at the

level of media we have a very polarized

media yes um this is an independent

media channel we don't have a political

stance despite what some people might

assert we don't right it's about science

and health information to the for

everyone who is interested zero cost

that's that's that's the the mission

understood

um when we read and see things now um

about politics but also about business

about sports about celebrity about kidss

about culture um all too often the the

labels of psychology are placed on those

kids are depressed they're you know

they're not just lonely they're

depressed and they may very well be um

experiencing high levels of clinical

diagnosis of depression that that could

be true so you know my concern it's a

it's a real concern which is why I keep

bringing this up is that uh in doing

that that we both um diminish the

suffering of those who are really

suffering from those pathologies yeah

and we also perhaps um create a little

bit of catastrophizing about you know

feeling low for an afternoon um might be

a great source of of stimulus to go like

you know write or think or nap or

Insight um and you know I load to think

that in people learning terms that

somehow they're getting further away

from what they need

no I I agree you know Lou pastur from

which from whom we got pasteurization of

course um reportedly put over the

entrance to his office tell me not your

politics or your religion tell me only

your suffering and I I always think

about that in the context of therapy

because everybody's a suffering Soul

because you know life is difficult and

then you die so have a nice day right um

life is suffering and that's not that's

not pessimistic that's just you know

descriptive the question is what does

that suffering make you do what does it

keep you from doing that's the central

question there is where the person is

called into some

accountability you know if you're

depressed all right what's the task that

that depression is asking of you uh if

you're anxious where's that anxiety

coming from how much of that is archaic

how much of that was inherited from

family how much of that is what you know

unique to your life and what is the task

that is to be addressed there I also

wrote a book called swamplands of the

soul that deals with anxiety depression

loss betrayal etc etc and sooner or

later life is going to take us to

swamplands where you find yourself

really mired into something and one will

feel very much victimized in that way

but that's that's the passive experience

the summons is always what is the task

that this visitation to the swampland is

asking of

you what do you need to address if if

you feel that your partner betrayed you

and left the marriage for example all

right and took your self-esteem with

that all right well your task is the

recovery of self worth because without

that no other choice you make is going

to be very good um and maybe that's a

hard project but that's nonetheless the

work you have to do so always the

question what does this make you do what

does it keep you from

doing and to bring responsibility back

to the individual and of course some

people are willing to accept that

responsibility some are not and that

makes the difference I had a colleague

many moons ago who said she could tell

in the first hour whether the person she

was seeing was a big kid or a little kid

because everybody's recovering child and

the big kids could do the work the

little kids wanted someone to tell them

what to do or tell them that there's an

easy fix to this um and in the long run

uh those persons going to stay stuck

pretty much until something else happens

in their life perhaps well to me it

seems that the the litmus test is the

extent to which somebody is pointing

fingers at others or directing the work

towards themselves regardless of who was

wronged sure right one individual both

individual like regardless ultimately I

think what you're saying and forgive me

for interrupting is that if one is

asking what is the task to develop what

you know to control one's anxiety to

develop stronger sense of self to um to

better understand uh what one really

wants and assert that um to uh set

better boundaries so that um people's

projections are not as um permeable to

us whatever it is

ultimately There's

No Business of looking at what others

are doing wrong in that it's all

introspective and self-directed thing

that's right well and you gave good

examples of the kind of tasks that rise

out of a person's experience now for

example if a person has been subject to

Serious abuse in childhood physical or

emotional or sexual or whatever um it's

affected their entire life well what is

the task you know it's it's it's to rest

from that experience a sense of

self and that one is still here to live

one's Journey that's why I said at the

beginning of our conversation I'm not

what happened to me I'm what is wanting

to be expressed in my life through

me to get a person to that place take

some time and repetition frankly you

know the two hardest things I ever

learned as a therapist and I still don't

like either one of them is patience you

have to sit with it over time you have

to sort and sift and sort and sift and

hold this over time till something else

emerges and secondly powerlessness I

can't fix anybody right but we can try

to promote the attitudes and behaviors

that will allow that person to find what

is Right From Within them because

something in each of us always knows

what is right for us if we pay attention

and if we are willing to honor what

emerges and have enough courage to

address that then we can live in a

different way and it's very tough in the

face of subst substantial abuse for

example because it was so intrusive and

so devastating it's cleared out a space

in which the self seems to find no room

but that's that's the task then is the

recovery of a sense of self and purpose

that's independent of what happened to

oneself it's almost as if one needs to

really understand their own story but

then be able to depart from that story

yeah that's why I said one has to have a

larger story than what happened to you

right one has to have a larger story

than the story that one's culture gives

you or your family of origin gives you

what is that story that's why I said my

instructions and my models were to stay

home and stay

safe something in me hungered and I

honor my teachers to this day I enter a

local librarian who showed me any book

she said she recognized this kid's a

reader so she said to me you don't have

to stay in the children's section you

can go anywhere you want in the library

which I I thought was like having a lot

of candy I I enjoyed that and as a child

I devoured the biographies of famous

people because I think I was looking for

clues about how do you live a larger

life I couldn't have languaged that it

was just some deep urge within how do

you live this life in a way that's more

satisfying and I was privileged to have

some people there notably teachers and

the librarian who gave permission to

that and and supported that and I'm and

I'm grateful to them so um you know I I

I think it probably would have happened

anyway but much later in life but I I

look back and I realized there was

something there that wanted to go as I

said to see where the airplanes went

what the ocean looked like what it meant

to live in a foreign country what it

meant to learn a foreign language you

know all of those things were

unimaginable to my family and I you know

rest their souls um because I I I grieve

the life they were not allowed to live

you know I I never forget that and then

it you know causes me to resolve again

to stop and say all right now where are

you being blocked today by convention or

your old fears or or your inhibitions or

or whatever because there's there's

always a summon to show up in fact in

one of the books I said my motto which I

think about every morning is very simple

shut up suit up show up now I'm speaking

to myself when I say this shut up means

stop whining you know there are people

who don't have food today there are

people whose children are being killed

today there are people don't have a roof

over there you you have tons of things

shut up don't whine speaking to s suit

up means prepare do your homework don't

expect life just to present it to you

you have to go out and work hard at

something show up meaning not show off

but just do the best you

can step into life you know sooner or

later life knocks us down death is the

great democracy but you're here to live

it as best you can by lights that matter

within instead of what people around you

are saying you know

and as simplistic as that slogan is I

know a lot of people have copied it and

put it on their refrigerator because

it's a reminder of this is your life

you're accountable what are you going to

do about

that I'm going let that sink in for

everybody I think um shut up suit up

show up is uh is um essential um I love

that I love Eric's stages of

Developmental

maturation um for those not familiar um

Ericson I think another danne right is

it danne yeah um psychologist you know

set about to um kind of explain

neurobiology without knowing any

neurobiology and asserted that there

were specific core conflicts that

infants and children young adults and

adults go through um and the AG the age

ranges are more uh variable now

um based on life expectancy and other

factors than they were originally but

one reason I like um Erikson's stages of

development so much is that um as a

developmental neurobiologist first

that's where I started out more or less

um it makes perfect sense to me that the

brain circuitry would be resolving

certain things about interactions with

physical objects and relational objects

and it just makes perfect sense and and

what what genius it was to to um to

superimpose on that um some ideas about

what infants are doing from 0 to one and

from 3 to 5

Etc rarely if ever do we hear about the

maturational stages of adulthood and the

core conflicts that we

all have to go through um you know

perhaps not exactly from age 45 to 50 or

50 to 55 or 75 to 80 and so forth but

that life as it were might be a series

of of um trying to make it through

specific milestones and when we don't

make it through a milestone um problems

arise sure sure you described the first

half of life as one in which we're kind

of foraging more or less for most people

unconscious of how our parental

influences or family influences um set

about certain patterns that may or may

not be healthy for us and then at some

point some event

comes um often times a painful event but

that but it could be a joyous event like

the birth of a child or something like

that and all of a sudden we get hit

Square in the face with the work that we

need to

do would you say that the second half of

life is one in which

we because of our life experience and

because of some awareness and yet

because also our brain is yes still

plastic but it takes more work than when

we're kids to to modify our brain

circuitry that we you know that we have

to set about this juggling Act of still

trying to understand the self while

still bringing the self that we have

into the world right we don't we don't

really get to pause go to the

shop and um come out a year later in

most cases um

so regardless of whether or not somebody

is 10 15 20 50 or 80 years

old how do we know what our work is then

like how do we best know like what to to

focus on because it can beit be a bit

overwhelming to to think about like

tackling all of this sure sure well let

me say first of all many years ago I was

when I was still teaching at a

university um I taught a course on life

stages and for one of the papers I asked

the students to imagine two stages ahead

of them so if they were typically 18 to

22 let's say to imagine themselves in

their 40s and try to write about their

in their 40s and the assignment

completely failed Al although it it was

made useful uh for the classroom

discussion because all of them imagine

in their 40s they would have this

perfect marriage their adolescent

children will would adore them and they

would be in these satisfying careers

despite everything we'd read everything

we' talked about as a time of turbulence

and disappointment and and and so forth

and and it was a complete failure so it

it's hard for us to imagine that we too

will go through these similar kinds of

things but usually we do and some of

this is triggered by roles in one's life

a lot of it's determined by our own

aging of the body and so forth so for

example the last stage in Ericson's um

um

discussion in so-called old age is the

conflict between Despair and

integrity and I remember reading that

when I was young I wondering what did he

really mean by that now I know that in a

very personal way despair is one sees

friends die one sees Avenues in your

life closed that you can't possibly do

that you're confronted with the unlived

life or the mistakes you made you're

dealing with loss of functions of the

body you're you're facing your mortality

and so forth and so on and how could you

not despair in the face of that well at

the same time there's again the summons

to accountability what now is life

asking of you how are you to show up

today in in this changed environment you

see so you know the the stages of life

you know and Shakespeare wrote about the

seven stages of life I think Ericson had

eight stages and again underneath

this these things happen right and often

one doesn't realize it one reads about

it somehow it's sort of like when you're

young yes mortal I understand I'm mortal

but you know that happens to people out

there you know it's not part of my DNA

you see well it is and sooner or later

life is going to unfold unless it's cut

off in some way you know and uh I

remember reading when I was in graduate

school um a saying in ancient Greece

that I saw in several different

environments and it said best of all is

not to have been born second best is to

have died young and I thought gee how

awful that is right well I think I've

understood why they were saying that if

you if if you're born into the veil of

Tears so to speak you're born into

suffering you're you're you're born into

mortality you're born into loss and so

forth if you're going to live you're

going to go through some of those if you

live long enough you'll go through the

loss of people you love and care about

you may outlive your children as I've

had an experience and sooner or later

you know life will take you to these

difficult places and what are you going

to do then who are you then and how are

you going to address that and that's

where the issue of Integrity came in I

think Ericson was was right on that to

in to be a person of integrity means to

integrate something to pull back one's

stuff and and sense this is who I am and

and this is where I stand Visa this

dilemma it's why I said the Practical

question is how now am I to live my life

in the face of this

situation that's a task that comes to

each of us at at some place in our life

and that never goes

away let's talk about death okay I've

often wondered whether or not um the

human brain's ability

to um adjust the aperture of our time

perception is an Adaptive thing because

we're we to not be able to do that we

would probably always focus on the fact

that at some point we are going to die

this to me um is analogous to uh

situation in space not outer space but

um let's just frame it this way we can

Orient in time and in particular under

conditions of stress the our time

Horizon tends to shrink we have to solve

for now we get the troubling text

message somebody's we care about is in

trouble we need to solve for now now so

the time Horizon has shrunk we're on

vacation we're relaxed everything's

taken care of we're fed we're rested our

loved ones are safe we're safe and all

of a sudden we can Daydream right so um

in the space domain um the brain can

learn to navigate a small environment

like this room um and in conversation

we're present to this room but we can

also imagine that we're just two people

among billions of other people floating

on a planet in the galaxies and we can

expand our notion of space the

space-time dimensionality of perception

of the human brain is vast and it can be

consciously controlled or unconsciously

controlled so that's great it allows us

to be functional in a number of

different SpaceTime Dimensions um it

also can allow us to avoid the reality

which is that at some point our time

here is finite yes and the example you

gave earlier of somebody who is just

trying to pile up as much money to get

to the y was an example I think of a a

shorten time

Horizon other compulsive behaviors maybe

even addictive behaviors I would argue

um have some component often of being a

way to avoid the reality of death it's a

way of packing away the fear of death

because if you can create these

reward-based which eventually become

punishment based in the case of

addiction um milestones and and

algorithms that the brain is running

solve for this now solve for this now

solve for this you Stave off the reality

which is death is

coming are we as humans meaning is it

our work if we wish to be the most

conscious healthy version of

ourselves um to understand and

acknowledge our sense of mortality I I

think of the um what I consider the

great commencement speech of Steve Jobs

at Stanford in 2015 where he talks about

the the knowledge of one's mortality is

actually in his words more or less one

of the most important features of our

self-recognition as humans um so that's

the question and then the um the

challenge becomes how often to think

about it um you don't want to think

about too much it can uh because it can

be paralyzing it can lead I mean if we

just think that we're if we acknowledge

that we are indeed it's a fact just two

people among billions floating around on

a planet in the M then then nothing

really matters right our one can get the

sense that our impact is zero but if we

over um emphasize our impact thinking

that everything we do like the movement

of this book is going to impact

molecules that then will impact you go

you'd go crazy you become dysfunctional

in a real way so those are the two

extremes and I'll just kind of set that

about and and let um for uh reflection

but it in terms of our our sense of our

own mortality and what that means about

our sense of life seems like a pretty

big topic and I know you're writing a

book about this and I'm very excited to

read it when it comes out well I've

actually written about it before um the

Paradox here is it's mortality that

makes this life

meaningful if we were

Immortal we would simply do this for a

century then we' get bored and then we

do something else for a century and then

get bored and something else for a

century life is short as as Yung said

that short pause between two great

mysteries from whence we come we know

not whether we go we don't know the

problem is the identification of the ego

one of the things that's occurred is in

many traditional cultures that ego was

subsumed as I said into a larger story

take away that story and what's going to

fill that space the ego you know my my

own importance my

self-perpetuation the fact that people

have Frozen their brains and wanting to

be revived in some future um you know

era is a good example of denial it seems

to me um it's it's life means something

because your choices are finite you

don't live here

forever now when the more you identify

with the ego the more threatened you're

going to be by that um and and then you

begin to realize all right the center of

my personality is not the ego there are

several things to say about this none of

which is proof of anything simply

observations uh and and Yung pointed

this out in a essay once called the soul

in death um psyche doesn't seem to

recognize uh its own termination people

who are overtly dying and they know

they're dying and I one of my patients

right now is a gleo blastoma client

who's who's not going to be here in a

few

months um who's acutely aware of of

mortality but the dreams have to do with

Journeys and crossings and things of

that sort in other words as if

the human psyche is not bound by time

and space per se but the ego is so if

there's another life it's another life

you know if there's a life after this

it's another life this is the only one

we know about for

sure and I would say in terms of the

fear of death which most people don't

want to talk about but sooner or later

it comes up in therapy no matter what

stage of life one is involved

in you know is either

either there is another life of some

kind which is larger than my imagination

can conjure up or there's an

annihilation of this ego identity either

case my theories about it and my

anxieties about it are rendered

moot so again the more I identify with

the ego Consciousness the more I'm tied

into its perpetuation the less I'm

identified with that the less it

matters I would say to you at this

moment I'm trying to be as honest as I

can about it the chief thing I worry

about as I approach my

mortality uh is I don't want my wife to

be alone I care for her and I know there

are areas where she needs my help and I

want to be here for her as long as I can

and my existence a little over a year

ago was sort of problematic coming out

of the all those surgeries so that's one

reason we moved to retirement community

so there' be some structure there for

her secondly I don't you know want to

suffer obviously um but that's outside

of my control and and thirdly I'm still

curious as a human being there's so much

to learn and when we were talking about

the internet and its perils it's also an

enormous learning tool I I love to

Google up things and find out about

things that used to be so difficult to

learn about so I I still heavily

invested in the adventure of life but

I'm less and

less um attached to it in some peculiar

way uh it's the ego attachment you know

um the German word galenite mean is the

word for serenity it's it's the

condition of having let

go and the only solution so to speak for

our fear of mortality is accepting it

paradoxically of letting go of the

fantasy of the sovereignty of the ego

that it's immune somehow to the Natural

order of things the natural progression

of things now I'm not saying that makes

me wholly unafraid of death that would

be delusional and it's in another way

but I can say that I'm not defined by it

in any way and I think you're right A

lot of people what what it usually

produces is either depression and and

toror of some kind or phonetic

activity so the inability of a person to

relativize the ego in the context of the

idea of the

soul and does that Soul perpetuate I

don't know if I knew I would tell

you I wouldn't want to keep that a

secret I don't know it's a

mystery maybe I'll be a conscious enough

to experience it maybe I'll just be

annihilated either way as I said my

present speculations are just that

speculations and ultimately irrelevant

and again the thing we have to recognize

it's mortality that makes this life mean

something because your choices matter

you're here a short time what are you

going to do with that precious gift you

call your life what are you g to do with

it I can't think of a more appropriate

place to end and yet um I have still so

many more questions um but I think

because of today's conversation I

realized that those questions are uh

questions to ask of self um as I think

everyone listening and watching this

surely is stimulated to ask ask many

important questions of self um I must

say

I'm both um a bit a struck frankly

because I uh you know again I'm familiar

with your teachings and and work in the

form of books um and it was a great wish

of mine in my life journey to sit down

with you uh face to face and have a

conversation so um that's why I'm uh

speaking more slowly today than I

normally do uh my audience perhaps will

notice that and if they send some

emotion it's that I feel like there's

just so much richness here to take in uh

for myself and for everyone listening to

take in um I'm certainly going to listen

to this again and and take careful notes

and we we likely will put some notes and

some highlights we always timestamp

everything so that people can navigate

back but I think there are just so many

um essential prompts of the self of the

soul that um people are going to be

motivated to take as a consequence of of

hearing your words today so uh I just

really want to say thank you so much for

the work that you've done and that

you're doing and continuing to do um and

for taking the time to share this uh

this information with us because it's it

really is uh it really is the the guts

like the core stuff of of being a human

being so thank you so much well thank

you Andrew may I just ask add as a

footnote here there's a wonderful letter

of

poet RKA to a young man in which he

said you want the answers the key is to

find the right questions and live the

questions you're not yet ready to live

the answers but you you ask the right

questions in time if you live them

honestly with as much Integrity as you

can manage someday you'll live your way

into their answers for you and that's

what I would say h ask large questions

as children we did what was the about

why am I here what's what's the story

what's going on here we get so inured to

those questions by our adaptive

necessities and we have to come back to

those questions I'm still asking those

questions I've do it consciously now ask

large questions you'll live a large and

interesting Journey ask small questions

and it gets diminished somehow

another thing I say to a lot of patients

when you reach a a decisive point in

your life we have to make a decision one

way or the other ask does this path

enlarge me psychos spiritually or does

it diminish me and you usually know the

answer to that if you choose the larger

path you're going to grow and develop it

it's going to take something out of you

but it'll give something to you if you

don't your life gets narrower and

narrower and narrower and something

inside of you knows the difference and

sooner or later the psyche is going to

show up with its point of view and the

more we fled from that kind of question

that kind of conversation the more

pathology is going to erupt when we've

avoided the big question so thank you

for asking big questions and thank you

for inviting me to be part of this

conversation today it's been a privilege

and a pleasure thank you so much thank

you for joining me for today's

discussion with Dr James Hollis I hope

you found it to be as insightful and

practical as I did if you're learning

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