Sense of Soul - Travelers with Donald Altman

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

Today on Sense of Soul Podcast we have, Donald Altman is a psychotherapist, international mindfulness trainer, former Buddhist monk and award-winning author of over 20 books. He is profiled in "The Living Spiritual Teachers Project" and featured in "The Mindfulness Movie." He also writes the Psychology Today Mindful Practices blog, which has been read by over 1 millions viewers.  Donald also won two Emmy-Awards as a writer on a CBS produced children's program in Chicago. Donald is joining us today to tell us about his new spiritual suspense novel called, Travelers which is a novel about a grieving psychiatrist who faces demons both real and imagined. Travelers is the 2023 Indie Book Awards Finalist for Best First Novel & General Fiction. Tavelers is an inspiring story of hope, healing and renewal, a gripping mystical journey through Time and Space, rooted in the reality of a Psychiatric Hospital. If you want more of Donald Altman he is also the host of Pathways Radio & Podcasts and you can also read his Mindful Practices blog on Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/contributors/donald-altman Visit: www.MindfulPractices.com and the Reflect Community: www.facebook.com/mndfulpractices Learn more about Sense of Soul Podcast: https://www.senseofsoulpodcast.com Check out the NEW affiliate deals! https://www.mysenseofsoul.com/sense-of-soul-affiliates-page  Check out the Ethereal Network! https://www.mysenseofsoul.com/ethereal-network Follow Sense of Soul on Patreon, and join to get ad free episodes, circles, mini series and more! https://www.patreon.com/senseofsoul  Follow Sense of Soul on Social Media! https://www.mysenseofsoul.com/sos-links  

Hello, my soul-seeking friends. It's Shanna. Thank you so much for listening to Sense of Soul podcast. Enlightening conversations with like-minded souls from around the world, sharing their journey of finding their light within, turning pain into purpose, and awakening to their true sense of soul. If you like what you hear, show me some love and rate, like, and subscribe. And consider becoming a Sense of Soul Patreon member, where you will get ad-free episodes, monthly circles, and much more. Now go grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. In today's episode, I have Donald Altman. He's a psychotherapist, international mindfulness trainer. He's a former Buddhist monk, and he's an award-winning author with over 20 books. He's

profiled in the Living Spiritual Teachers Project and featured in the Mindfulness Movie. And he's also a writer for Psychology Today Mindful Practices blog, which has been read by over 1 million. Donald has also won two Emmy Awards as a writer on CBS produced children's program in Chicago. He's the host of Pathways radio and podcast. And honestly, this man has done so much inspiring work. I could go on for an entire episode. But today, Donald is joining us to tell us about his newest book, which is also an award-winning book. It's a spiritual suspense novel called Travelers,

about a grieving psychiatrist who faces demons, both real and imagined. Hi. Oh, hi, Shanna. Thank you so much for being with me today. I'm excited to hear more about your book. Just to start off, I'd love for you to introduce yourself and maybe tell us a little bit about who you are. Well, I live in Oregon, but I'm from Chicago.

And the journey to writing Travelers was never could have predicted. Everything changed really, I'd say in the late 90s when I entered a Theravada Buddhist monastery. Theravada is the old school of Buddhism. And that really turned my life around because I had experienced a lot of trauma growing up in a family of origin. who of us doesn't right experience some hardship in some way but the silver lining for me was that I started to recognize some repetitive you know destructive patterns and I'd gone to therapy and done some work but some of these things were still there and it's kind of like, I think, you know, who brought this can of worms, right? So I wanted to look more deeply into that.

And I met this monk, there was a friend who said, oh, there's a monk I think you should meet. And I met this monk, never expecting that I would some months later ordain with him as a teacher in the monastery. When I met him, he had this incredible sense of compassion and availability. And I'd never really sensed it like to that extent from anyone before. And so I was hoping to learn how did he become like that. And he seemed to have such this great sense of peace and equanimity about him. So I had an opportunity after, you know, my soul destructive pattern repeated again. And I thought, you know, I've got to, you know, maybe I can get to the bottom of this and have him as this wonderful guide on the journey. And he was a wonderful guide. And I got

to have some one-on-one interviews with him. And it was an amazing thing as a novice monk, you go through this two to three hour initiation in this very ancient order. And they were all Burmese monks. His name was Uthi Lananda. He's a well-known teacher from Burma who came to the United States in the late 70s. And what I discovered was that the one thing that he

loved teaching more than anything else was the loving kindness meditation. And that was something that I think helped him develop that sense of this other way of being that I think is it's innate. I mean, it's in all of us. We have it there. It's like a seed and just need to cultivate that seed and, and, and help that grow. So that was a major change for me. And I was only in the monastery for a period of time. And I had a sense, I was very right. I was ready for the experience. And I thought I would, my work would be out in the world. And when I got out of the monastery, I started doing different spiritual workshops and realized, though, that I had people coming to me with issues that I felt, well, you know, maybe I need to learn more.

And so I went back. Never expected to go back to grad school at 50 years of age. And, you know, I doubted, I wondered if I could do it. You know, most people were in their 20s and some in their 30s. But I wanted to work with people in also a, you know, a therapeutic way. And I came in at the right time because mindfulness was just beginning to be accepted in the field of therapy. And so it was wonderful. And I worried about that actually, because I was like, well,

are they going to accept? Because I could see the benefit of what it had done in my life. And so as the timing was right. And so it changed my whole career path. And even the kind of work that I did and the kind of writings I did, and I started doing spiritual mindfulness and self-help books at that time. Who were you before? Well, before that, I actually was also a writer. Primarily, I wrote for a number of different things i wrote for children's

tv show back uh um in the early part of my career oh really can you share which one yeah yeah it was a cbs produced show out of chicago called the magic door okay we won a couple of emmys for that show and i was real proud of that show uh uh dan castellaneta who was uh the voice of homer simpson he was on that show oh wow uh one of the other writers the guy that wrote groundhog day that famous we had a really interesting staff and group of people there and it was a lot of fun yeah what was your faith looking like were you part of any religion prior oh you know what my i mean i grew up in a jewish family okay yeah um but i never i never for some reason i just didn't really gravitate toward it. And I don't know why, you know, from an early age, I had feelings.

When I was a young boy, maybe, you know, my five, six, seven years old, that I had lived before ideas of reincarnation. Nobody ever told me about any of these ideas. So I had these other feelings. And so, yeah, actually, and it caused a bit of consternate a bit of up ended things when I became a monk, they didn't understand why I would do that. Right. So even though my family wasn't particularly religious, but you're taking a different path. Right. What I've learned, I think, is that no,, but you're taking a different path. Right. What I've learned, I think, is that, you know, everybody has to take their own path. There's not one path for everybody.

Yeah. I actually remember Thich Nhat Hanh had said he felt it would be a travesty if someone lost their religion. And that wasn't his intention in writing. I think it was Living Buddha, living Christ in that book. And I always thought about that. And unfortunately, you know, I did grieve my religion. I've been, it's been a journey of grieving that. And coincidentally, I've been very fascinated with Jewish mysticism. But yeah.

You know, and that's interesting because I found that I was just more interested in the mystical aspects of all different traditions. Actually, that was whether you had mentioned the Gnostic readings.

Those are so amazing. And I had a monk in the monastery who taught me the Gnostic readings. Those are so amazing. And I had a monk at the monastery who taught me the mystical mantras of Buddhism, for example, things that people don't normally hear about. But I always kind of sought out that. I love the Sufi tradition and the mystical ideas in there. And I've had some Sufi friends so I think you know I always say that Jesus in the Gnostic Gospels reminds me of a Zen master right yeah much different than the Jesus that we were taught when I was younger. So I love that. And actually, in looking at your book and reading

some of it, I saw your book as almost like allegorical, like it's an allegorical story, or many allegorical stories. Yeah, I wanted to take people out of the ordinary world and the story is based on a psychiatrist who has uh lost his i won't say lost his way but he's he lost his daughter and so it's such a devastating loss for him that he uh he really didn't know how to recover and he's taken when this mystical traveler and her sentient dog and this suicidal patient come to the psych ward and things are happening that are out of his ordinary realm of reality. He's and he ends up being taken on a mystical journey, an unwanted mystical journey, I should add. That is so interesting. Yeah. I mean, so I'm add. That is so interesting. Yeah. I mean, so I'm writing a book right now myself.

It will be my very first book. It is on my journey of the Pistis Sophia in one of the Gnostic Gospels. And in my prologue, I am what you're describing. So I actually said that I felt like i was some sort of traveler going back into time and seeing things and i'm like whoa this is nothing that i ever imagined and then coming back into this world looking going whoa nobody knows what's going on. And I felt that I was in between these two worlds. And it was, yeah. I mean, I guess sometimes literally felt that way.

But, you know, just writing the prologue, it was unexpected as it came out that I felt almost like I was time traveling. Well, I think there are just so many mysteries. And that's the other thing I wanted to do was help people reconnect with the wonder and the magical nature of everything that's around us. Right. I mean, through all the years and I mean, all the cosmos started what they say, the size of a pinhead and that it manifested everything we see around us. And so I think there's something magical happening here. But even that we're talking, we're here together sharing this moment. And how did that come about?

Right. Two mystics yeah it's happening all over right now yeah i i think so i think people are you know reacting to the mechanical nature of everything's thought of as being mechanical and reductionist, even consciousness. Yes. It's down to neurons firing as if that's what consciousness is and that we don't have free will.

I mean, many of these neurologists, neuroscientists don't believe that we have free will, that everything is just a firing of all these neurons. But it's really, I think it's kind of silly to think about that. If you ask anybody, you know, we have choice and that's the beauty of it. I mean, if we didn't have choice, some people would say, well, why is there, you know, bad things happen in the world? Why would God allow this? Well, God allows it because we have free will. And we have a responsibility to ourselves and to others.

And mindfulness, which, you know, I've spent a lot of time working on, is really about just reducing suffering in the world, reducing our own suffering and reducing the suffering of others. So we're all connected. And yeah, just again, it goes back to that mystery. I mean, how can we explain the things that happen in our lives? And we have to be open, I think. And I think that's where the journey of looking within. I don't know, was that a part of your journey? Did you look within and say, how did I come to have these beliefs or these ideas? You know, actually, it was a specific question I asked myself early on. It was, how much of what I believe in have I been told to believe in?

And of that, how much have I experienced to be my truth? And I was speechless. I was nothing, you know, except for the only thing I think I could actually have honestly say that I experienced to be true, to be my truth was love. Anything else, who I was, who I was trying to be, who I wanted my children to be, what I believed in, all of it was what I was told to do and believe in and do. And, you know, it's interesting. I still am triggered a little bit when it comes to religion. I think I have religious trauma syndrome. But, you know, when you were talking

about free will and choice, I think of the word heresy, which in Greek means choice. And that has been quieted in us for a long time. It was heresy to go out of that box that means choice in Greek and that to me is almost like they push down the free will that is in the in this hmm because it's like our free will is finally freed yeah as and self-awareness self-awareness is kind of the root i think of that free will and we can actually say okay is this really am i doing this because i was told to do this am i doing this because i habitually have hardwired myself to do this, like I have it. Or, you know, who am I? What do I want to be in this world?

How do I want to express myself? I love what you said about love. I mean, that is, I think the Buddha said, hatred does not overcome love. Only love overcomes love. You need to bring a positive attitude, even toward those who are maybe challenging to you in your life. That's the big challenge for us, isn't it?

To face what we don't know or don't understand or people we don't understand. And if we could just get curious, I think we could just get curious about other people and not view them as enemies or as ignorant, but just as people who maybe we just, you know, we haven't walked in their shoes. We don't know where they're coming from

and how can we bridge that gap? Yeah, using that empathy that is such a gift right i mean we all have it you know i remember there was a time where i thought oh i am an empath you know like i am like it was something just unique to me and then in working with people's energies and you know raising four children and just realizing oh it's all in us to be able to put ourselves in someone else's shoes however i think that there's a lot of fear in that Yeah. Maybe implicit bias or judgments or fear. Just fear, really. Yeah, fear is, I think fear is one of the things that drives a lot of people.

That's actually one of the ideas in Travelers, now that you mentioned that, is overcoming fear. And this character has to overcome his fear and enter kind of this unknown space. And he goes on a shamanic journey. In fact, an interesting thing happened when I was writing that after I wrote the book. At the end of the book, he goes on this journey in this wilderness area with his guide, who's this traveler Jackie and her little dog. And he gets lost. She gets separated from him. And he's got a spirit guide who he connects with.

And at some point in this wilderness, he encounters this fierce wild animal who is going to attack him and he jumps off the trail which is very steep and almost like a cliff goes down there's a falls he heard the water underneath but he jumps off the cliff into the unknown and i won't tell you what happens but some months later i was hiking the same park. It's a wilderness area, kind of probably about 30 miles from Salem, which is the capital of Oregon. And it's this amazing 10,000 acre wilderness park with I don't know how many falls they have. Wow. Yeah, beautiful. And I'm hiking there with my wife and I tripped and fell. And I incurred the same injuries that my character did.

Oh my gosh. This was like six months after I had written it. I love stuff like that. And she helped me out of the park, which he didn't have anybody to help him. But I had the same kind of injuries. And as was walking out I described things in the book this was a part of the side of the park I'd been to the south end this was we were hiking the north end and I you know just made up in my mind what I thought you know part of the park would look like and even I had described in the book what was actually there in the north end of the park as look like. And even I had described in the book, what was actually there in

the North end of the park, or she was taking me out of, and it hit me even as we're, you know, hiking out of the park. Oh my God, how did this happen? I described an experience, something that's in my book. That is awesome. Do you think that maybe you predicted it or did you manifest it? No, I, yeah, that's the wonder. That's the most, it's a synchronicity. Yeah. Things that just happen, but it's important we pay attention to this. For me, it felt like an affirmation in some way.

It was a painful affirmation. Was there a lesson in that somehow for you? You know, when it, yeah, I think when it happened, it was, the lesson might've been to be a little more careful about where I was stepping. Cause it's a very rocky trail, a lot of branches and things. And I had wanted to stop and take a little rest, but I thought, no, I'll just keep going. So maybe there was a reminder to, you know, sometimes we need to listen to ourselves. And if, you know, your body's telling you or some voice inside you is saying,

okay, let's just take a pause to listen to those intuitive ideas inside. And I didn't. And I had that. Yeah. So, you know, you know, I have a child who's autistic. I have mental illness and neurological issues in my family. And the only thing I could say about it is, you know, having people in my family who, who do struggle a little bit socially and stuff like that, that they have been such a blessing to me

and to my other children. They've taught us compassion. My kids having a brother, I have four kids, so his siblings have been blessed. They are very compassionate, very empathetic. I mean, they're always standing up for someone. I just always think what a gift, you know, he is. And actually, my oldest son had worked with more severe disabilities than his brother. He had a nonverbal Down syndrome child that he worked with. That kid changed my son's life. You know, he was like early 20s and they had this connection.

They could understand each other on a level that most people couldn't and so even with people who have mental illness you know in my family have I know caused all of us to be more patient more considerate caring more present really you have to be present with, you know, someone who may have schizophrenia or is autistic. I feel like people who are, you know, and I had a clinic for many years, but I had a major depressive disorder in my 20s. And I think that, you know, people are experiencing emotional issues, mental illness, whatever you want to call it. You know, to me, I see it as kind of an initiation, spiritual initiation, if you look at it. Sometimes you have to enter a dark place to get, you know,

to where you can see the light and see things differently. We stigmatize mental illness, which is so wrong. I mean, I hope that's changing. That's one of the reasons I wanted to write this book too, was one of the kind of sub themes in Travelers is how the system kind of sees us like in a machine kind of way. But you have to look at the context of the whole being and the spiritual side of sees us like in a machine kind of way. But you have to look at the context of the whole being and the spiritual side of our nature and how healing that could be. When I was going through my in my 20s going through this difficult time, I started to have experiences, non-ordinary

experiences. And I remember when it happened, I was also seeing somebody, a psychiatrist at the time, who's very helpful. But I never told him about these experiences. It's probably a good thing I didn't. He might have said, oh, you know, you're having hallucinations, or you're having auditory this or that, and would try to give it a name, a diagnostic label, which wouldn't have been good and pathological. And it wasn't pathological. It, for me, was an opening into a glimpse of something beyond the pain and oppressive condition I was feeling, as if to say, wait, there's more to you and more to the world

than you could ever imagine. And it gave me a sense of relief, actually. These were fleeting glimpses of non-ordinary reality, or maybe you think of them as having a vision, or I don't know what you might call it. I felt what I experienced was actually my life energy, my life force. And I allowed it to happen. I remember at the time just thinking, you know what, if this is happening,

it must be natural in some way.'m just going to allow it and and actually it was very related i think to meditative states and meditative differences but i didn't pathologize it myself and i actually know people who said that they've started to experience the same thing and they got afraid and blocked it off. They were afraid. For me, it was actually, I think the depression was kind of a spiritual initiation and allowed me to see things differently. It's like if you want to make a good omelet, you have to crack a few eggs, right? I love that because I can so relate.

I know that for myself. I mean, I grew up with anxiety. I didn't know what it was. You know, I thought I was having a heart attack from a very young age. Then, you know, of course, then knowing what it was and it's, you know, I mean, I was on medication for seven years, so numbed out. And then I got off of it and I went and learned some tools and mindfulness was my very first tool that I learned well and then I tricked myself in listening to mantras because it was suggested that I do mindfulness so I look it up and this is early 2000s and there wasn't a whole lot that I could find so I saw something on

mallas they didn't have no mallas I could buy anywhere and the ones that were there were so expensive now you can buy them everywhere so I made one and I was like well what you know this is kind of boring just going around and so I looked for something to listen to well at the time I was still very Christian, so I wanted to find something that had to do with God. So I found something that said God is love, and it was a mantra. Little did I know it was one of the most powerful Hindu mantras, ancient, ancient.

And I would do it, and I loved it. It was like I was awakening awakening and I would notice everything I became a different person it's incredible for me too I mean I've worked with mantras where I was doing mantras at one point under the tutelage of one of the other monks this is even after I left the monastery for about up to three hours a day, just sitting and doing three hours of mantras. And it was amazing to me how it started to change my life. We're vibration.

And I mean, we look like we're solid, right? Everything looks like it's solid. But if you go down to the molecular level, it's all vibrating, right? And that's what these mantras are. They're vibrations, and they actually can change, I believe, somehow our molecular structure of how we're thinking, feeling. And they're very powerful.

Even the loving-kindness meditation is a mantra. My favorite one, too. You mentioned that. That's my favorite one. It was my first one one and I use it all the time. Yeah. I would just, I mean, I have taught that to a lot of clients too. And I have people adapted. I say, you don't have to use the word just as they're written here. And they were given originally to the monks when the Buddha told the monks to go out into the

jungle and the forest to meditate, they came back and they said, you know, it's kind of scary out there. We're afraid. So let me give you this loving kindness practice is a meditation will overcome your fear. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. And so at least that's the story as it goes. I love that. So that helped them. But I think it is so powerful. Simple practice, you know, because you send the loving kindness to yourself first. And then you send it to others. And I have, I'd like to show you, I've developed a very simple, and it's portable.

You can do this anywhere. And it's a loving kindness practice using the breath to help anytime that you might feel unsettled or overwhelmed or stressed to take one breath in and say one of the words, like just say love or peace, or may I be peaceful. May I be loved. May I be accepted and breathe that in and feel it just coming into all the cells of your body. And then as you exhale, exhale that out, that wish for all other beings. As you breathe it out, may all beings be loved, may all beings be accepted or forgiven, whatever it is that you sent to yourself. And here is a simple one breath in, one breath out, loving kindness meditation.

I love that. That meditation is truly, I think meditation. I love that. That meditation is truly, I think, what we're missing. It is for us to breathe it in and then share it with the world collectively. You know, many years ago, I remember I had visited a friend. I was near the LA airport and I lived down in Los Angeles for a period of time. And I left, it was evening, and I was walking in my car and in this dark area. And I had this feeling, I had the thought,

wow, what if somebody attacked me right now, like at knife point, you know, and where would I go? And I'm looking around, where would I run? What would I do? I don't know why this thought came in my head. And I'm still walking a little bit. And then lights on a car about a block and a half down, lights on a car. And I said, so what if it was these people in this car? But they drove up here and jumped out and attacked me with a knife at knife point. And that's exactly what happened. And so here I was at this guy, a big like butcher knife and yeah. And he was saying, don't run, give me your money. You know, a little voice said, throw the money, throw the wallet said, so I threw the wallet and I ran in the other direction. And the next day I reported it to the police and the policeman took my report. then he said i started to go and said wait wait

he says you know i'm just wondering i'm curious you're the first person i get a lot i do a lot of these reports you're the first person that wasn't angry at the person who attacked you and i said well i could feel their distress and i did i felt this person in order to do what he did he was under a tremendous amount of you know I could feel his angst his worry is just like he didn't really want to want to do this but he had he must have been so desperate and I felt that desperation I felt all of that and I felt compassion for him. You know, so if somehow we can allow ourselves to get behind that automatic conditioning, right, and to go deeper.

You know, ever since COVID, I haven't done too many live workshops, but I would do the live workshops and I would talk about compassion and there was a beautiful story that Tolstoy did called the three questions. I think he would particularly would like this, look that up online, three questions by Tolstoy. He wrote in the 1880s and it's made into a children's book too. Beautiful illustrated children. Yeah. By a guy named Robert Muth, m-u-t-h and so um and so i would prime them and talk about this

three questions and this story that really talks about you know what's the most important thing to do in the world who are the most important people and when is it the most important thing to do anything and it's about this king and he goes out and, you know, he's searching for these answers. And anyway, he gets the answer that the most important person is the one who's right in front of you right now. The most important thing to do is to help that person. And when should you do this is now. The most important time is now. Because you never know if you'll be

with that person again so they were very you know moved by this story so it's such a powerful thing and then I would have them pair up with someone they didn't know I said okay you're going to sit for three minutes in silence facing just sitting, facing that person and feeling compassion, you know, feeling understanding for someone. You know, nowadays, everybody's talking about their differences and they, you know, they have their little, you know, box. I'm one of these. I'm one of those. You're not. But if you really look at humans, I mean, our human birthright is that we all experience loss. If you're in a human body, if you have a human mind, you're going to experience aging, you're going to lose someone close to you. And that's what we have in common. It brings us together

far more importantly and deeply is the human experience than all these things that we look at on the surface that make us appear different from one another so i have them sit and they would look at one another and i sometimes tears would start to stream or other people start to just laugh with one another feel the sense of joy yeah and afterwards i said what was that like? And I had people say, you know, it was like I was looking in the mirror at myself. And just having these powerful experiences for three minutes. And how often do you sit with somebody who's really, especially now, our attention has been drawn outward to screens and different kinds of things all the time. We don't have time to just reflect or just to sit face-to-face with

uninterrupted time with another. And when I would ask people, well, how much time do you sit with, you know, sometimes somebody would come in and they'd have an issue with a relationship issue. And I'd say, well, how much time do you sit daily face-to- uninterrupted, and just talk with your partner? And some people would say, I remember people would say, well, can I count the time when I put the television on mute during the commercial?

But I was like, what do you want? Yeah, go get me some popcorn or something. What do you want for dinner? Yeah. So, you know, we maybe have lost some of that with others just sitting and being face-to-face, putting those devices away for a little bit and, right, taking a little breather. I'm doing the thing now that I have to tell you is I'm calling it no phone weekends. So I'm putting the phone away for the weekends.

And I noticed that my mind slowed down. I became more present. I wasn't thinking, I wasn't future tripping about, oh, wait, oh, you know, this thing that I had to do or waiting for this text or wait, you know, I was just, it brought me more present. And so I think we just need to create some little boundaries and little ways of making sure that we're taking care of that part of our lives I love that you know I did see that you had wrote a book on mindful eating am I right

yeah yeah yeah we do that my 11 year old is out she She absolutely knows that. And she does have anxiety sometimes and she calls it energy on her chest. That's what we started calling it for energetic beings. But she did stop eating chicken for a long time after mindful eating. That will happen. And you rarely finish a full meal because you're present with your fullness. I mean, it truly is. I talk about it all the time. I just, even last night, was sharing it with my massage therapist that she should do mindful eating because I'm a firm believer.

Because of the therapy I was getting when I was diagnosed with ADHD as well, which I think is just a symptom actually of me being extremely stressed at the time. But, you know, she told me to look at people's mouths when they were talking. And so, and also to ask them to actually look me in the eye when they had something to tell me. Yeah. So that I could hear them you know I mean they're talking to me as I'm doing dishes and cleaning and cooking and I have four kids and you know all these things and then they'd be like didn't you hear me you know uh no so you know it is it kind of goes back to that part of myself that was out of balance that got me the diagnosis of ADHD actually made me be more present with other people.

It brought me to a higher place in my consciousness. It almost sounds like a silver lining. Like you heard ADHD, but the silver lining was that it brought you to this other awareness yeah I think and I think there's silver lining in everything I I like to talk a lot about gratitude in my work and in my books and gratitude comes actually it's from a Latin word gratitudo which goes back to mealtime, saying grace at mealtime, finding what is pleasant at mealtime. Really? I didn't know that. Their basic gratitude, I think of five basic kinds of gratitude. Gratitude for just the basic things, water, shelter, food, things without clothing, you know, things without which, you know, life would be really maybe impossible if not suffering. There's ordinary gratitude.

Mother Teresa talked about the ordinary gratitudes of simple things, right? Having your patience, your, you know, having love, have just simple things in life that enrich you. Then there's personal gratitudes, things without which that enhance your life personally. You have a career, you have a, you know, you have personal transportation, you have your health to whatever degree that is. So you have these personal things you could be grateful for.

The next one would be relationship gratitudes. And so these are the things that all the people in your life that nourish you or you nourish them, that enrich your life, bring you joy and happiness. And the last thing is interesting. This is what I call the paradoxical gratitude or silver lining gratitude. This is being grateful for the things you wish you didn't have in your life. Now, that's an interesting one. A lady in a workshop once, when I mentioned that, and her hand shot up right away. And she said, oh, I have a paradoxical gratitude I'd like to share with the group.

And she told the story of how there was a tornado. I think this was in the Midwest. I don't know if it was Kansas or wherever I was doing this workshop. And she said, I lost my house on a tornado. It was flattened. She said, nobody was hurt. But she said, I always had the belief

that you're independent, you're self-sufficient, you gotta do everything on your own. And this community came to my aid at this time of this loss and helped me in such a way. I never realized that there was a community of people out there. And it changed my worldview from thinking I had to do everything on my own to realizing, you know, I'm part of this network of people. And then it made her want to become part of that network and part of one of those people who helped others. Right. So it changed her life. So that was a paradoxical gratitude. I love that. Reminds me of when I lost my dad, who I was very close with, I worked for him. I had kids going in different directions.

He was always there taking one. He was great. He was such a great dad. I was lucky. And I just did not. We almost had a very codependent relationship on each other in many ways, too. So I thought I was very screwed when he died. I was like, I don't know what i'm going to do and

what i did was i had to do everything for the first time for myself and i found strength within myself i never knew existed and i always say he gave me birth twice, once in my life and once in his death. That's gratitude, I guess, of the fourth gratitude you said. Yeah. Yeah. We do put so much limitations on ourselves. I mean, I did the majority of my life. And we're told we only have five senses.

We're told we only, you know, can do this or that. And I have found none of that to be true. I mean, when you've heard before, I just thought they were like, you know, for like people who were like in Nike ads, you know, like go to the limit, you can do it. And, you know, but you know what I'm pretty dark you know what today I'm hitting 1 million downloads on my podcast I mean what that's

ridiculous I never had any expectations ever so it's you know it was all with my intention that it would land on whoever's ear that needed to hear and so i think that you know i'll probably celebrate tonight but i'm celebrating me beautiful that's an accomplishment and i think it's a testament to your own uh authenticity and what and your desire to give something of value to others something meaningful well i've been blessed thank you i mean you share a lot of yourself and it comes through. And yeah, and people need hope nowadays more than ever. People need inspiration, right?

You can feel like a very chaotic, scary world out there. And so I think our reason to be here is not to be fearful, but to be joyful. And to seek that out. And it's so important too, I think, the people that are around us need to think about who am I associating with it? You know, you can catch a cold. You can also catch a fear, right? You can catch a laugh from somebody.

You can catch a smile. So, you know, think about who you're around. I'm not saying, you know, maybe that person is part of your family. You don't want to, you're not going to cut them off because they have a, you know, a negative way of viewing things. But maybe you want to just limit certain, put limits on things, but also seek out the positive, right? Seek out people who help you feel inspired, right? Yeah. Help give you hope.

Or maybe they have stories of hope that they share, can share with you. So we can catch hope from others. And we can catch motivation from others, right? Just like you catch a cold. I love that. And I think that vulnerability piece, like the story that you shared about your depression, I mean, immediately it triggered someone in my life

who's in their 20s, you know, who also is going through that. Like you gave me hope, right? So I caught that hope from you and I will spread that, you know, with him. And I think that that is what vulnerability does you know it brings us closer to each other just like you said without this meat suit i mean we're just bunch of vibrations yeah all the same stuff yes really to be alive in this world right now and to maybe just impact one person's life.

I think if you make one person's life better, you've done an amazing job, right? Yeah. You have to change the world, change one person's life. And sometimes we underestimate the effect that we have on others and what we're doing and how we can you know give hope to another and that's a beautiful thing sometimes i uh think about people who changed my life in positive ways and i and maybe i never got a chance to share that with them so i made it more of a practice now to make sure i let people know how I appreciate it. Something it did for me. There was somebody when I got into grad school, helped me get into the grad school.

I remember her. And after I graduated, I went back and I said, you know, I don't think I ever thanked you for helping me back then. And boy, it made it, you know, for her to hear that was beautiful. It meant a lot for me to be able to let her know. Yeah. Yeah. You know, even the people that need to struggle. Yeah. Teachers come in all shapes and forms, don't they? Yeah, they sure do.

And the ones that you thought were the hardest asses were the ones that got you the most motivated to prove them wrong well you know what donald i am so grateful for you i i am truly and i i can't wait to read your book i i now i really really truly um you know it's like i have so many authors on, there's not always, you know, chances to read books and many of them, you know, speak about the same wonderful, beautiful, you know, advice. But like I said earlier, you know, you really do put something out there that's just, it's almost like you're sneaking in like, hey, don't forget about this or these people, right? Or maybe the simple things that we forget, like being grateful.

Yeah. Being kind to other people. Well, I enjoyed sharing this moment with you. Let me know how you liked the book but i felt like i just had a nice talk with a friend and talked about some things that really mattered and resonated yeah me too so where can everybody get your book just if you were to go under an amazon or barnes and noble or one of the indie book sites just type in travelers by donald alt. That should show up. It does. And that's the site.

Mindfulpractices.com. M-I-N-D-F-U-L practices.com. And I have a newsletter. You could sign up and I have a link to my mindfulness blog on psychology today and some other kinds of research about mindfulness and tools. I'm really into giving people very easy to use, simple tools for improving your life right now. So you'll find those there.

There's also some classes that I have. I have the mindful eating. It's called Eat, Save, or Satisfy, which is a 12-week to mindful eating program. And there's some 30 minutes to an hour of online video that goes with that book. And so you can access that. And so that's been very helpful.

Oh, great. Now I have someone to send them. Now when I'm telling them about mindful eating, I can send them to you. That is so, that's so awesome. You know, tools is something that we need right now. We're in chaos. This is chaos. And so, you know, and I always think back, my dad dying again, taught me a lesson that I needed to learn tools. He died 64 years old, no tools, worked himself to death, you know,

anxiety constantly, his heart just couldn't take it and so it's so important even just what you were saying earlier just those simple breaths yeah yeah well thank you it's so nice to meet you welcome take care all right take care bye bye thanks for listening to sense of soul podcast and thanks to our Bye-bye.