Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Yale Psychiatrist on the Science of Manifestation, The Truth of Your Intuition, Reconnecting to our Souls and Why Mental Health Needs Spirituality! | Dr. Anna Yusim

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

What if everything you’ve been told about spirituality and mental health is wrong? In this powerful episode of Mayim Bialik's Breakdown, Dr. Anna Yusim—Clinical Assistant Professor at Yale Medical School, co-founder of the Yale Mental Health & Spirituality Program, and author of Fulfilled: How the Science of Spirituality Can Help You Live a Happier, More Meaningful Life—reveals the biggest misconception about spirituality and why it’s not about religion, “good vibes,” or blind belief…it’s about science, psychology, and lived experience. Dr. Yusim explains how connection to a higher power can measurably improve mental and physical health, how to have authentic spiritual experiences without religion, and the two ways to manifest—including which one actually works (and which one most people get wrong). Dr. Yusim also breaks down: - How spirituality, meditation, and manifestation can change your physiology, mood, & nervous system - What it really means to raise your frequency & how to do it in real life - Unconscious reprogramming: what it is and how to use it to break old patterns - Why surrender opens the door to creative solutions - How to overcome victim mentality while balancing personal responsibility & external circumstances - Breaking intergenerational cycles of self-sabotage using family constellation therapy - How to tell when family conflict can be healed, and when boundaries are necessary - How to protect yourself from energy vampires Dr. Yusim also explores the mystical edges of psychology, and where science draws the line: - 3 types of intuition and 4 intuitive pathways for receiving extrasensory information - Similarities and differences between psychics and schizophrenia, and how information is received in each case - Whether telepathy is heightened intuition, if anyone can access it (& whether they should) - Where spiritual practices fit inside a Western psychiatric model - How she clinically distinguishes between healthy intuitive experiences & serious mental health conditions that require treatment We also discuss: - How after-death communication through psychic mediums can help people process grief (and when it becomes unhealthy) - Crown Reading vs Third Eye Reading - Whether everyone has spirit guides or guardian angels, and how to navigate conflicting messages - Dr. Yusim’s personal journey with claircognizance and the psychic reading that shifted her life path - Karmic patterns and the soul’s repeating lessons - How to tap into your Higher Self - 3 universal truths found across all spiritual and religious traditions - How psychedelics help process trauma from a psychiatric perspective - Why the Law of Attraction may not be working for you - Why some people can train themselves to hold their breath for extraordinary lengths of time This episode is the bread & butter of MBB, bridging psychiatry, spirituality, intuition, trauma, and healing, without bypassing science or mental health! Go to https://helixsleep.com/breakdown to receive 27% off Sitewide. Check Out Odoo, The all-in-one platform to manage your business by visiting https://www.odoo.com/r/J4l Go to https://www.shopremi.com/BREAK and use code BREAK at checkout for 50% off Start your new morning ritual & get up to 43% off your @MUDWTR with code BREAK at https://www.mudwtr.com/BREAK #mudwtrpod Dr. Anna Yusim’s book, Fulfilled: How the Science of Spirituality Can Help You Live a Happier, More Meaningful Life: https://annayusim.com/book/ Learn more about Dr. Yusim’s psychiatry & coaching sessions: https://annayusim.com/ Follow us on Substack for Exclusive Bonus Content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BialikBreakdown.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube.com/mayimbialik⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This psychic and a young child come up to me and the psychic says, I'm a psychic. I have a message for you. Can I give you a message? What? This woman starts telling me all of these deep truths about my life, including the name of the guy that I had a crush on. I don't know if she read my mind. There's no way this woman could have known. And she knew. That which we can see with our eyes and hear with our ears is only 1% of reality. 99% of reality is unseen and unheard. Dr. Anna Yusam, she's an award-winning psychiatrist.

She's a clinical assistant professor at Yale Medical School and has spent years studying all of the spiritual traditions to find what can she bring to her Western practice that can really transform lives. Nobody wants to consciously self-sabotage, but we do. There's something holding us back.

Intuition is an epiphenomena of consciousness. It is also the voice of the soul. Your connection to the part of us that already knows what is best for us in any given situation. How can you receive intuitive information? The four clairs, clairvoyance, Claire audience, Claire sentience,

and Claire cognizance, which is when you just know just by virtue of knowing. There are people who hear things routinely. At the quantum level where matter and energy, we need to clear out whatever blockages we have within ourselves, ego, anger, jealousy, hatred, depression, all of those things that are so human, if we don't know how to metabolize it,

they contract us, lower our frequency, and prevent us from how to have to be able to us from having the best life possible. Ultimately, there are two primary ways to manifest. One is Hi, I'm I am Ia Bialek. And I'm Jonathan Cohen. And welcome to our breakdown. Welcome to our expansion into the psychic realm. What's that I hear? Is it intuition? It may be one of the four clairs. Today we're going to be talking about a variety of aspects of our spiritual experience that directly impacts our brains, our nervous systems, and everything that we decide. If you're not sure why spirituality touches every part of your life and existence, you're going to want to

hear this episode today. If you want to develop better intuition, if you want to feel connected to something greater, if you want to access your guides and guardian angels, this is the episode for you. If you're rolling your eyes at the mention of guardian angels and guides, this is a episode is also for you because we're going to talk about what is actually happening when we tap into information that is not available in any physical sense. What does it mean to say that there is spiritual energy in the universe that's around us all the time? Why are some people able to tap into it and others roll their eyes at it? When we talk about the four clairs, you may have heard of clairvoyance, but have you heard of claircognizance? Have you heard of claircognizance?

Have you heard of Claire audience? Have you heard of Claire sentience? We're going to learn about the four Clare's and what it means to be in touch with information in the energetic and spiritual realm. And if you think this is a very out there conversation, we're having it with a psychiatrist and an MD that has been trained at some of the world's best academic institutions.

Who is the psychiatrist? who is so deeply tuned into the spiritual realm. Her name is Dr. Anna Yusum. She's an internationally recognized award-winning board-certified, Stanford and Yale-educated psychiatrist and also a coach. She has clients, including Forbes 500 CEOs, Olympic athletes, and A-Lister's. Her book is fulfilled, how the science of spirituality can help you live a happier, more meaningful life.

She's a clinical assistant professor at Yale Medical School and the co-founder of the Yale Mental Health and Spirituality Programming Center, which bridges the Yale Medical School and the Yale Divinity School. She is an incredible expert on all things, psychology, psychiatry, and mysticism. She's traveled to over 70 countries and has spent years studying all of the spiritual traditions to try and find what is in common and what can she bring to her Western practice that can really transform lives. We talk about autoimmunity, we talk about depression, anxiety, we talk about trauma.

Also included in this episode is a conversation about prayer. Be careful what you pray for because you may not like the results. She explains why the law of attraction may not be working for you. We're going to have Dr. Yusim explain all of this and break all of this down. It's a wonderful episode. We cannot wait for you to hear it. And please hop over to Substack because Dr. Yusum, book also contains a ton of exercises and meditations, and we're going to feature one of those

just for our substack listeners. So please go over to biolicbreakdown.substack.com for content you cannot and will not get anywhere else. Dr. Anna Yusum, welcome to the breakdown. Break it down. Thank you so much, Ma'am. It's amazing to be here with you today. There's so many different aspects of spirituality, of mental health, of psychiatry that you are an expert in. Before we get started, what would you say is the biggest misperception people have about spirituality and mental health? It's a great question. And I would say that the misconception is that the two are actually very separate and distinct and so-called strange bedfellows. And the reason people have that misconception is because often everything that is scientific and medical is seen as

subject to experimentation to double blind placebo-controlled trials. something you can touch with your hands, hear with your ears, very empirical, whereas spirituality is something that is deeply subjective, transcendent, very personal and hard to reproduce, you know, experimentation and replication, which is why the science of spirituality is often such a paradox and a mystery to many. But I believe that they actually are so interlinked. And that's what we will talk about today. Well, I think a lot of people want that intersection because they want proof, because it can be so subjective. And we talk about spiritual awakening, how people are often touched and their lives are transformed and they have miraculous health benefits. And yet people want a roadmap and there doesn't seem to be one. What have you discovered as you've studied this from a scientific basis? Is there a roadmap? What should people know is possible?

That is also such a great question because you're exactly right. People want certainty. They want something they can touch. What do I have to do to get better? A, B, C, D. I have to become spiritual. What does that even mean? What if I don't believe in God? What if I believe in Mother Nature and I'm in flow? But God has never really been there for me. What if God abandoned me when I got cancer? You know, what if I have all these beliefs that are in contrast to this whole spiritual thing that everybody's pushing on me. So I think that a lot of people encounter that. The way that you can answer a question like that is twofold. One is to, look at the science because there's been a ton of science at this point, looking at how spiritual beliefs and practices could actually improve physical and mental health as well as well-being. And there's numerous studies showing that, for instance, going to church on a regular basis reduces suicide by up to five times. And so this is weekly church attendance, humongous effect size on suicide reduction. Very interesting. This is for both men and women. However, it's not for every population. Do you have a sense of what population

might not have that effect? The LGBTQ community. You know, so it's more the heteronormative communities. Church going reduces suicide. LGBTQ, the opposite effect, very interesting, right? But the effect sizes for those people for whom it does reduce it,

very profound, very powerful, very real effects. And then you look even deeper. What is it about churchgoing that reduces suicidality? Right? And there's many different things. Is it the community? Is it beliefs about healthy living? Is it having, you know, something to do every Sunday at noon? Is it something, you know, much deeper? And there's actually one primary thing

that was at the root of it all. That was the number one factor where all the rest also came into play. And it wasn't any of the ones I mentioned, any ideas what that is. I want to believe that it is some connection and feeling that you're a part of something and that you matter in some way outside of the social connection. I want to believe that, you know, from a spiritual experience, we are touched in some way that we can't ignore. I think that that also is a huge, huge part of it. But interestingly, the number one factor is actually a moral prohibition against suicide, that church going instills in people. Wow. So very interesting, right? That was all the other factors, what you said as well, feeling that you have a connection to the divine, being

connected to your inner essence for the first time. How can that not be significant? And yet the number one thing is the moral prohibition. And this is all based on Tyler Vanderweil's research at Harvard's Center for Human Flourishing. So it's, you know, data like this that's super interesting and super compelling. And they have this for recovery from cancer, recovery from addiction, so many other things as well. Depression, anxiety, etc. Spiritual. beliefs and practices consistently having positive effects, but, you know, in nuanced ways, similar to this. Let's separate out spiritual belief and practice from religion because it's such a murky area for people, the institution of religion, as you mentioned, especially for people

who may be not in the heteronormative community, the morality there or the judgment there can have a negative effect. So let's talk without religion. What does it mean? to have a spiritual experience. Yeah. And I also love that you broaden religion and the distinction between the two. And so according to the Pew Research Center and all the studies there,

there's four groups among us. We are either spiritual and religious, spiritual but not religious, religious but not spiritual, and neither religious nor spiritual. And interestingly, over the past 25 years, two groups have been going up

and two have been going down. The two that have been going up are both of the groups with spirituality. The two that have been going down are both of the groups with religion. Religion is going down in our community, in our country, in our society,

and it's being replaced by people wanting more of a spiritual belief. So anything that is more orchestrated, ritualized, with authoritative, is starting to go down, replaced by a more personal connection to the divine,

whatever that means to somebody, whether that is in a more religious way, because you can be spiritual through-bearing religious or in a more secular, way, which is connection through yoga, meditation, something that is, you know, connected to you and your divine essence, such as a connection to nature, psychedelics, et cetera. All of these ways are ways in which people can connect to their spiritual essence and spiritual self. Miami-Bialx breakdown is supported by superpower.

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Head to superpower.com. Use the code break at checkout for $20 off your membership. And after you sign up, They'll ask how you heard about them. Make sure to mention Miami-Biotics Breakdown to help support the show. A lot of people get to the end result of a spiritual experience through suffering of some kind. For sure. I just keep racking up the suffering and waiting for the spiritual awakening to happen.

We all are, Miami, unfortunately. You're like, what's on the other side? How do we speed that process up? Exactly. Where's the roadmap? The other thing I think that happens is that people who have, have a spiritual experience or who are seeking it, believe that there is some understanding of how the universe works, how to navigate life, that they are missing, right? Like, it's this multiple

sided benefit. Yes, there are physical benefits, which we want to touch on. Yes, there are internal benefits like more inner peace, more clarity, less anxiety and depression. And then like the third bucket is actually like, I'm not saying life is going to be perfect, but there's this belief that we are all here for some purpose. And by increasing our senses, we can navigate the world differently. And I'm not saying we achieve X, Y, or Z or have this many cars or anything, but there's something where we are in acceptance and life unfolds in a way that seems to make some kind of sense instead of random chaos. Can you talk a little bit about? the people who are seeking the third, and then we'll cover all of them.

Absolutely, absolutely. And what this makes me think of, you know, I talk a lot about manifestation. That's a very popular buzzword these days, right? And you think about how do you manifest? And I think that there are two primary ways to manifest. One is deliberate action and intent, which some people may equate as the more masculine way of manifesting. You set a goal, you say, I'm going to do this.

You work very hard. You make it happen. Great. We all know how to do this. This is how we got through graduate school. medical school became a neuroscientist, et cetera. And then there's the other way, which is not about doing, but much more about being. And in being, you essentially figure out how to embody the most joy and peace that you can

possibly embody and essentially have this thing called the vibrational frequency and have your vibrational frequency become a match for the vibrational frequency of whatever it is that you're trying to draw in. And in that state of being, you set your intention, you do what you have to do. do, but it's very different. You don't go out and make it happen. It's like a surrender and receiving. And this is the two ways that I think that we as humans manifest. One is very action-oriented, masculine. Let's do it. The other one is more feminine receiving. Let's be. Let's enhance our state of being and let's receive what we can from the divine. You know, I think that there's a certain

amount of hand-waving that sometimes goes on when people talk about raising their vibration. You know, it is something that does have a practical nature to it in certain forms of yoga. We actually, you know, kind of work on, I don't know, I think working in these arenas of raising a frequency. But maybe Dr. Usum could explain to us sort of what that means in terms of matching it with that of someone else. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, like ultimately, We are energetic beings and we also are matter. So we're matter and energy. And as such, we have a frequency, as does all matter and energy.

And, you know, in a way, like sometimes we have our own destiny, but we might want a destiny that's a little bit of a different destiny. And in order to reach that destiny, we need to clear out whatever blockages we have within ourselves that lower our frequency. And what are the things that lower our frequency? We can think about those things. And this is from my studies of Kabbalah way back in the day, you know, the manifestations of ego. So our anger, our jealousy, our hatred, our sadness, our depression, all of those things that are so human and that we've all felt and are so normal. And yet, if we don't know how to metabolize it, if those things become a part of it, they contract us, lower our frequency, and prevent us from having the best life possible. And so that's one of the ways of increasing your frequency.

And the other way is filling yourself with the positives, filling yourself with joy, peace, living with purpose and mission-based, purpose-driven, contented action in the context of your life, serving others, interacting with gratitude and awe, which are like the spiritually adjacent, you know, entities and states of being on a regular basis. It feels like this is the intersection of the spiritual language

that is common and popularized and the quantum science neurophysiology. Can we bridge these two? Because a lot of people hear this, I'm going to raise my frequency, and they're kind of like, okay, sure, but like, is that just something that I'm like thinking? Is it in my body?

Is it in my quantum field, whatever that means? Like, how do we bring these two different disciplines together to make this really understandable? What is the mechanism? by which spiritual connection, manifestation is actually changing, right? Things about our hormone profile, our hormonal profile, our physiology, our mood. What is the mechanism for that? I think that's a great question.

And there's people who are devoting their life to studying that. We have Dr. Mark Potenza at Yale, where I'm based, and we have Lisa Miller at Columbia. So the two of them together have done studies looking at the neural correlates of spiritual experience. So there are certain regions of the brain that get activated when you think about God, when you pray, when you are in gratitude, when you feel aligned with your purpose, right? And also, you know, because spirituality is something that is so encompassing in it could be secular or religious. for instance, a form of secular spirituality's meditation. There are tons of benefits of meditation helping with hormones, with somatic processes, with anxiety,

with your sympathetic and parasympathetic system balance, with regulating your vagus nerve, tons of studies showing all that. And, you know, different meditation techniques showing subtlety and variation in that. But nevertheless, the finding is clear that meditation. over the long term has a huge impact mechanistically. So I think that to answer that question, we first have to say, what part of spirituality do we mean? And then looking at each part of spirituality,

really look at what the science shows. And there is a lot of science. Circling back to frequency raising, how does that help us navigate life or get the life that is one step beyond or two steps beyond where we're currently at? We're talking about it, yes, at the quantum level, I do believe frequencies raise, but I talk about it really more mechanistically as a metaphor, metaphorically raising your frequency. And this is moving from a state of contraction to a state of expansion.

And we all know what it's like to be contracted, right? To feel stuck, to feel scared, to feel fear, to be in those ego states that I mentioned, control, fear, and sadness, depression, anger, hatred, jealousy, all of those things. Nobody wants to be there. And we all know what it's like to be in expansion, right? And so what do you do? How do you go from one to the other? And there is many, many different ways. There's many different.

And I think that first the distinction has to be, there's things that you can do consciously. And then there's ways in which you have to work on your unconscious because there's a lot of aspects of us that we can change everything consciously, but still not be receiving in life, that which we hope to receive. And why is that? It's because there's something holding us back in our deeply held unconscious. core beliefs that needs rectification and release and metabolism. And until that happens, whatever conscious work we do to raise our frequency and remove, you know, blockages is going to hinder us. So this is a very powerful, important step. So doing unconscious work. And there's many different ways

to do that from psychoanalysis to hypnosis, to unconscious reprogramming, you know, through hypnotic suggestion with certain therapists who are trained in that. And psychedelics can do that for people as well in certain circumstances, certain trauma work can do that for people. And then at the conscious level, you align, you know, with expansion to the degree that you are able. And I can, you know, talk much more about all that too. What comes to mind when you're explaining this is like, there could be a solution that you haven't even thought about yet because you're so worried about finding the solution that life can't unfold and give you an opportunity. I want something so badly that I'm

just going to force a solution versus sitting back and saying, I have to have a little bit of trust in order for that solution to unfold, which can be a terrifying component. I completely agree. And this is, I think, the most powerful part of faith, which is surrender, is that you do your, whatever it is that you are seeking to manifest or that you would like to have happen, you do your work in the physical world. You give 100%. And then you have to trust and have faith and believe that there is also something greater that is supporting you, if you're a spiritual person, if you choose to live this way, right? And in doing so, when you surrender, you're exactly right, that magic can happen. Things can come into your consciousness through synchronicity, into your intuition,

and you can see things in a new way or something can present that you never ever would have thought that was a solution to a problem. And this happens, you know, in magical ways, for instance, with mathematicians and artists who are trying to solve something in their mind, they do all their conscious work. And then finally they go to sleep and they wake up with a solution. That's one way that that manifests. And in other ways, people are trying really to solve a problem in their life. And then one day a solution just comes from out of the blue. They're like, I never would have thought of this. And they're like, thank you very much. And, you know, they thank the divine for the intervention. It's like you're mentally trying to solve this problem. You can't figure it out.

Finally, you give up. And you're like, I'm just going to go get a coffee and enjoy myself. And you end up having a conversation with someone in line at the coffee shop where they say something and all of a sudden the problem opens up for you and you see it totally differently. Mime likes to joke, as she did earlier, that she's just in the suffering part. But all the time she's like, oh, I saw this differently. And if we try to help people understand what a spiritual awakening is, I think we have to dismiss the idea that it is somehow all of a sudden I'm floating on a cushion and I don't touch the ground anymore because I've achieved such a grand state of

enlightenment. And instead, it is about these moments of shifted awareness that all of a sudden I have a problem and I haven't been able to figure it out. And a solution is available in a way that I hadn't imagined before. Yeah, I love that. And also, you know, a course in miracles, which is a spiritual framework. There, they describe a miracle as a shift. and perception, just like you said. And that's exactly it. We see the world anew. Our mind expands. Our life expands. Very powerful. You know, many of these things are generally kept separate from the fields of psychiatry, from, you know, kind of the classic Western materialist perspective. I wonder, did you receive any pushback when you started incorporating some of this spiritual

perspective into your practice and into your kind of worldview? And how have you managed to balance that? Yeah. So I anticipated receiving a great deal of that when I first wrote my book, which was integrating mental health and spirituality. But I also was very committed to writing the book in truth based in my research and my experience. And so I went to Stanford for undergrad, Yale for medical school, and NYU, then I very deliberately chose not to be affiliated with an academic institution as I wrote my book and started my practice

for the next, you know, X number of years. And after I wrote my book, I started talking at different schools, at, you know, Kripalut, multiversity, all these different places. And when I went to speak at Yale, I saw my old professors. They liked my book and they actually invited me back on faculty. And that was like a shock and such an amazing revelation that here I put something out there that was really kind of out there. And rather than dismissing it, Yale was ready for it.

Like society was ready for that integration. And that was when in 2017 we started talking about the creation of this mental health and spirituality center, which would be at Yale a bridge between the Divinity School and the medical school. And we started working on that and we're still working on that. We have the program now. We're going to have the center when we have enough funds for that. And eventually, God willing, an institute, which will also degree granting programs at the intersection of mental health and spirituality. So it was I anticipated having a lot more pushback.

But I think because I tried to approach it in the most scientific way I could. had wonderful colleagues in psychiatry stand behind me in my work. I think that was incredibly helpful. And Yale accepted it and has been super supportive of the work thereafter. Here's an area that has a lot of crossover between what I will call the spiritualist language and the medical psychoanalysis language. The notion that at a unconscious level, there may be things happening that are running our perception running our beliefs that we don't even realize are happening,

that make it seem like the world is this horrible place, that make it seem like we can't get anywhere, that we're stuck in some way. You mentioned doing this unconscious work. Can you talk a little bit about that level of programming that is influencing and filtering people's reality? Absolutely. And this was probably Sigmund Freud's greatest contribution

to the field of psychiatry, was the understanding of the unconscious mind. And the idea of the unconscious mind comes from the fact that you have your conscious mind where you will certain things, but then you also see how you as a human being will self-sabotage, right? How certain things just for whatever reason don't seem to work out in certain parts of your life. You have challenges, right? In my book, I call these our soul corrections or tichoons, those things that come up in our lives again and again and again, often much to our chagrin and dismay and despite our best efforts to change it. Sigmund Freud call these your repetition compulsions. The same idea. It's those things that are your particular self-sabotage pattern.

And so nobody wants to consciously self-sabotage, but we do. So what is that unconscious process? By virtue of being human, you will self-sabotage. Now the question is, what is your unique self-sabotaging pattern? And it's often through therapy working with a professional. You can see how this, you know, someone can hold a mirror to how this can work for you. Can you give us some examples just because, you know, there's people who don't want to cheat but end up cheating or there's people who don't want to drink to excess but they can't seem to control their addiction. Am I thinking of good examples? Those are great examples. It's that you want to be faithful, but for whatever reason you can't be faithful, that you make an intention,

you make an intention to yourself, to your spouse, and then you don't end up being faithful over and over. What is sabotaging you? What is the unconscious pattern that you are playing out? And the same thing, you really want a relationship. You want a healthy, stable relationship with an amazing man or woman. And yet you keep drawing in emotionally unavailable men or women. And why is that? You want one thing, but you keep drawing in the other. So what is the delta?

What's the gap? And there's so many different reasons for that on both sides. Like if you want, we can dissect and I can give you like the 10 reasons that like this could happen. Just send me your bill and I'll be happy. to do that. Exactly. What are some of the reasons? People often think they're like, well, it's unconscious.

I don't know how to get to it. I don't have all this endless time to circle around and discover it. Most people don't have financial resources also to do that. Absolutely. In which case, bibliotherapy. Get some really, really good books and start drilling down and start understanding yourself through books. Yeah.

And all the podcasts, all the amazing content that is put online. but often working with a professional, of course, is if people are able, much better. But let's talk about that. Let's talk about why somebody who says that they really, really want a relationship. Let's say a woman with like a, she wants a wonderful man, a committed man with whom she could have a family. And who does she draw in train wrecks?

She draws in train wrecks, one train wreck after the other, right? This guy is dating five other women. This guy she has to take care of like she's his mother. This guy ends up stealing from her. Now she's got to be polyamorous, but he's the one who wanted it. She's not even sure what polyamorous is, but okay, we'll try it. Exactly, exactly, right? And so, so many different ways to understand this, right?

And this can be understood first from the lens of, you know, her own upbringing, that as much as she wants this healthy, stable relationship, she might not have the pattern for it. She might have the default pathway of something totally different based on what her parents are playing. So she might be running that old program without even realizing it. option one. Option two, which can coincide with option one. She really, really wants commitment, but there's a part of her that's also terrified of commitment, right? And so she also loves to be free, and she's strong and independent. And so in being terrified of commitment, how better to avoid

commitment than to constantly draw in emotionally unavailable men or train wrecks, things that don't work out, right? So those are just two, but there's so many more. And as you go with somebody deep into this work, you can understand why they're making the choices they're making. And ultimately, as you start to look at intergenerational patterns, because usually the patterns that you observe with somebody are not just with this person. They go from their parents and from the grandparents. You start to understand the intergenerational shifts. And in understanding those shifts, you then make the unconscious conscious, and suddenly when the unconscious is conscious, you finally have control over it. You can make a different choice in a way you couldn't before.

And in doing so, what you're doing with the intergenerational pattern is the buck stops here. You're done. You don't pass this onto your children. You actually stop the intergenerational pattern because you have chosen to do the work, metabolize it, and let it go. It's very, very powerful work. The pattern that I see is that when someone is continually ending up in the place that they don't want, when they consciously want something else, what they end up doing is blaming the universe. but when you describe it that there is this program running that they may not be aware of,

the external reality of their lives is actually the perfect reflection of all the mechanisms, all the dominoes that are falling on the inside. They're just falling in silence. 100%. And I think that the first point that you made about blaming the universe and thereby making oneself the victim of the, you know, an evil protagonist or an evil, you know, God or an evil whatever, that does happen for many people. And that's another subconscious pattern that for whatever reason, they learned that in being a victim, they somehow have righteous indignation of the victim. And so they seek out blaming the victim whenever they can on an unconscious level.

They could have learned this. Somehow another, they just, you know, came into the world and this was a pattern of theirs. And once they recognize that pattern, they can make different choices as well. And that's a very powerful pattern that, you know, we when something goes wrong, tend to internalize it, oh, this was all my fault. Or we tend to externalize it. It was this person or my parents or an evil God or unjust circumstances. And in different situations, it's different. But usually people tend to sway one way or the other. And if people sway too much at blaming themselves, it's actually good to externalize a little bit.

But if you are the victim and have victim mentality, it's good to start taking more responsibility. What did I do to get here? And what kind of control do I have to get myself out? The other component that you talk about is this idea of intergenerational patterns. And the language that is familiar amongst people in the energy healing world is the notion that I'm going to do the work and break the cycle. Let's unpack that a little bit because inherent in that is the work of Bert Hellinger and Family Constellation work. I want to talk about these intergenerational patterns, and we've heard about the epigenetics work with mice and showing that mice who go hungry will then multi-generations later have

physiological influence of that and impacts of that. So we've seen those studies. But what you're talking about is actually more pervasive, whereby a mother or father or even grandparents or even great-great-grandparents' psychological profile, whether that be pain they're carrying broken relationships, not being able to accomplish something. Fleeing war? Fleeing war, fear, intense fear, physical safety issues. Those patterns not only psychologically, but energetically are imprinted on the individual. and the way that Bert Helengar talks about it,

and I'm curious how you interpret it, is that because you're a member of the family and you're connected to these people, the child will reflect those patterns, not because they think they have to, but almost as a reflection of being part of the system. It's like, hey, I understand, I speak the same language of this family energetically,

even if they never knew that the parent had an affair, even if it was so buried in secret that there's no possible way the conscious would ever have registered it, that these patterns exist. And again, we struggle with the word in the energy realm because it's hard to visualize. But it's almost like there is this code of ones and zeros that are just surrounding us in a similar way that Neil Thies,

when we spoke to him, explained that everyone who lives in a house shares a microbiome in some way, like that information is just passed back and forth. The same is true with the informational data of our emotional experience and our psychological experience. And so you think, oh, I'm not anything like my parents, but you've received all of this information on a physiological level that you're not even aware of. I completely agree.

This is why I think Constellation Therapy is super, super interesting and doing genograms and seeing the patterns and families. And those patterns can be like you said. It could be patterns of addiction or patterns. of certain emotional things or patterns of cheating, or it could be patterns of like, here's more subtle patterns, of the parentified child, of somehow or another, the child comes into the world having to take care of the parents because the parents are unstable mentally or physically or weak mentally or physically. And the child is a strong one.

And then what that does in a family system is that actually reverses the family system because you're supposed to have the grandparents, the parents, the child, and the energy is supposed to flow down. And the idea of the family system, is even after people have passed, the energy is supposed to support you from your ancestors. And if you have the family system aligned in the right way, you get support from your ancestors to have certain processes and patterns work out in your life with the right energetic support. And when that is not present, like a parentified child, that like flips the, you know, that like has the energy flowing the wrong way.

And so then you can energetically fix that. Or there could be a pattern of secrets that, you know, and you're exactly right. The most interesting thing is, like you said, this is imprinted at the energetic level. People might not even know about secrets consciously, but they just feel it. They know. And children sense everything. Children are sponges. They pick up all of the things of their parents.

The parents think the children don't know. They know everything. They might not know it consciously. They might not know that they know, but they do know. It's being imprinted in every single part of their being. Their energetic being, their physical being, their spiritual being. That's who we become. And so to recognize.

what patterns exist and see what, because in every family, there's amazing patterns. There's traits that we love and traits that we want to expand on. And there's also traits that could be really problematic for your life in whatever way. So going through and doing this genogram, really understanding where you fit into the family system and then figuring out how you could do the rectification exercises with that. Very powerful work. And I've seen it in my practice create huge shifts with families. What happens when there's a conflict in a family, right? Can you explain a little bit from your perspective, especially as a psychiatrist, right? How do you manage the energetics of a family, let's say, that is in conflict? How do you know

when people should be brought back together? How do you know when people should be kept apart? And it also relates to some of the conversations you've had about sort of energy vampires, right? If you sense that someone, let's say, in your life or in your family is taking something from you energetically when you are with them, is there a way to remedy that? How do you work with that kind of energy conflict? Great question. So I think we'll take the first one first. So in working with families and couples, how do you know when people should be together and rectifying and when they should be apart? I would say that the goal in families, to the degree that's possible, is always to rectify and to enable people to together and metabolize whatever is going on and to have safe discourse and to create the space where people can openly discuss what it is that they are experiencing. And the situations where people should be kept apart is if, first of all, if somebody requests that specifically and then to understand the reasons for that. And second, if there is danger, danger to one's safety or any sort of abuse. And in those situations, that could definitely be a different way of treating.

But with conflicts, you really want to bring people together. And because conflict is an inevitable part of life, it's an inevitable part of families, of relationships, of being of friendships, and for people to know how to rectify conflicts and be able to speak their truth in a way that is grounded and where they feel heard and where they can be compassionate, that's a very, very powerful skill. If you can learn that in your family, you're going to be very well suited for life. That's the first question. The second question about energy vampires.

So it's a very interesting thing because someone can't be an energy vampire unless you let them take your energy. You know, so it's like, you know, to some degree, right? And so it could be that in certain families there's a person who could be taking more energy and someone doesn't know how to protect themselves. And then in those situations, the person who doesn't know has to do everything they can to learn to protect themselves and to create really, really good boundaries. And so I think that, you know, because you can also think about energy vampires are the people who need to be taken care of. And then they will pair up with the caretakers. And there will be a perfect hand and glove relationship that, you know, the energy vampires will be with the people who have so much energy to give and don't know how to do anything but to give. Right.

So it could be this beautiful symbiosis until one or both parties decides it's not and then they decide to revamp things. But if you really do feel that somebody is negatively taking your energy and you don't want that to be a part of your life, there's many different techniques that you can learn, you know, which I talk about in my book, to be able to ground yourself and create the boundaries, spiritually, energetically and physically, to protect yourself and your energy. It's interesting. If you're in a dynamic with someone who you feel draws a lot of energy from you, when you start to create those boundaries, all of a sudden they don't want to be around you. Well, because you served a purpose in their life and you can no longer serve that purpose. and they really feel it.

Yeah, everything shifts. They need something from you. You can no longer give them what they need. Let's talk about clairvoyance. Tell us what you think about it, what your research is discovering. Yeah, so I think clairvoyance is one of the many forms of intuition. And what is intuition?

So I love to, you know, intuition is an epiphenomena of consciousness, right? That's one, an emergent property of consciousness. And another way of thinking about it is also the voice of the soul. It's like your connection to the deepest part of yourself. So you can get messages through your intuition that are maybe even deeper than what you can get through your rational mind or more profound than what your emotions can tell you. Right. So it's a very deep voice. And how can you receive intuitive information?

There are the four clairs, clairvoyance, which is when you can see things in your mind's eye. Claire audience, which is when you can hear a voice like we're giving you information. clairsentience, which is where you can feel something in your body, and Claire cognizance, which is when you just know just by virtue of knowing. So those are four intuitive pathways that you can, you know, receive information. Clairvoyance, I think, is super, super interesting. And to be clear also, you know, we talk about hearing voices and seeing things. Those can be incredibly powerful, intuitive properties for us to develop in our lives.

And this is what psychics and intuitives can do. And there are also people who are very, very sick. and do not know how to control those very things. They can hear voices and see things and not stop it and then be diagnosed with schizophrenia, be put on medication, and their life goes down a downward spiral. And so I think that being able to develop those capacities within oneself

in a safe, healthy way is an amazing thing and deepens one's intuition, but it's also important to recognize the other side that it's not always without its problems. I'm sorry. I think everybody is entirely more comfortable with the notion that you could just like hear things than I am. Let's talk about the four. Let's dive into it together because I love when you when you're like, wait, what? I'm like, everybody's like, oh, you know how you can like hear things and it tells you what to do. No, that's when you call the doctor and you say I either need more pills or I'll meet you at the ER. Totally. No, and I always, you know, I'm very intuitive, but I can never hear things and I always want to hear things. And I'm always listening.

thinking that today I'm going to hear it and I never do. So, you know. Well, each person has a different modality often that is their primary modality. Totally. I'm so, wait, wait, hold on. I'm not, Jonathan, I'm not ready for this. You're telling me that there are people, I literally am this years old when I'm finding this out. There are people who hear things routinely.

Lee Harris, when he came on the show, the show and talked about hearing information that was a voice other than their own. Now, that's an external channel of some information in the universe, but other people have it as another version of their own voice. Sorry, I'm literally, this, I'm not, this is not me acting. I just like, this hadn't occurred to me because I know people like hear voices and like, oh, it's different than hallucinations, but I never thought of channeling as this kind of kind of receiving in this kind of category, right? So you said clairvoyance is a visualizing.

Claire audience is a hearing. Hearing. Mm-hmm. Clare sentience is feeling. Feeling in your body or knowing emotional, like an emotional knowing or feeling something in your body. And then Claire cognizance is... Is you just know it.

Like it comes as a thought. It's a good knowing. Uh-huh. These are new words for me. I like learning new words. They're fun words. They're very fun words. And I wouldn't say that they're necessarily scientific words and more in the spiritual community words.

But I think that they're relevant for how people receive intuitive guidance and intuitive information. And they also map on to schizophrenia and psychosis, the other side of this. You mentioned the idea of the soul and intuition being a connection to our soul's knowing. Where do you think this information lives? Is it in us? Is it outside of us? Are we part of a big computer simulation? How do you imagine it?

Also, what is it, right? Like, what are we talking? I don't mean to sound like Bill Clinton, but like, what are we? What is is? Yeah, okay, let's first address what is is. Okay, is. No, so we exist here as human beings, but I think that we are not alone here. And there's many different, you know, places to tap in for information.

And one of the highest forms of places that you can tap in is the infinite field. And this is the, you know, what people describe as an infinite field of knowledge. And it has information answers. It has, you know, there's this thing called the Akashuk records, which is, you know, if you believe in that. We know it well. When people are hearing voices and seeing things, they're tapping into very, very different things because some people are getting beautifully inspired divine information, helping them to make the most important decisions in their life in the right way. And other people are getting voices to kill themselves and kill others.

Okay? So let's be very clear that people are not always tapping into the same thing. And where you are and where your frequency is, where your mind's frequency is what you're tapping into. So you want to get your frequency high, you want to get on the right channels. How to do that, you know, so Al Powers at Yale, one of our scientists, neuroscientists and researchers, is actually studying precisely that. He compares and contrasts voice healers or psychics with schizophrenics. And he asked the question of what is it about voice hearers that enables them to use this intuitive, clairaudient information in the service of themselves and, you know, their clients, whereas schizophrenics have no capacity to turn this off. And it could be completely overwhelming and bad things could happen. So he's looking at the mechanism of that. And it's very different. But I'm not sure that Al would have a concrete answer to exactly where it comes from,

but he probably would agree with me that it comes from many different places. But there are all these, call them radio stations, and it depends on where you are tuning your attention to know where you're receiving that information. Totally, totally. Yes, exactly. We're going to hit pause on our conversation with Dr. Usom, but part two has got a ton that you're going to want to hear about. Are psychics for real?

Can people read your third eye? What does it mean to have spirit guides? How do we tune into what messages they might have for us? And from my perspective, is any of this really real? We talk about the three types of intuitions that people have and spiritual pitfalls. As you explore the spiritual world, there are dangers that you need to be able to navigate. She also talks about karmic patterns and universal themes that appear across all traditions. We're also going to ask her to explain how psychedelics can help get in touch with our spiritual side.

and is that the only way? And in addition, we'll talk a bit about the Kabbalistic tradition and how it views our purpose here on this planet. Most importantly, we talk about why the law of attraction may not be working for you. Head over to Bialikbreakdown.substack.com where we are going to be exploring our own law of attraction and how to pray in a way that is going to truly serve you and help you get the life that you want.

We hope you'll tune in for part two of our conversation with Dr. Usum and from our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time. It's my and Bialyx breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. One fiction. And now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown.