TrueLife - Dalybeth Reasoner - Psychology, Behavior, Experience

Episode Date: April 15, 2023

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/Mrs. Reasoner is a Psychotherapist in private practice, a psychology instructor, and an academic counsellor. She is well versed in the world of mental health. Some of her accomplishments include: • Teach undergraduate classes with up to 35 students and online in:• Client Counseling and Interviewing• Abnormal Psychology• Humanistic and ExistentialPsychology 0 Psychology ofDreams• Health and Stress Management• Social Psychology• Adult Development and AgingHuman Sexuality• Psychology of ChildhoodDevelopment • Psychology of Death& Dying• Industrial/OrganizationalPsychology• EvolutionaryPsychology• Community PsychologyPositive Psychology• BiopsychologyAdolescent Psychology• Psychology of PersonalityCross-Cultural Psychology One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear, Fearist through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. I hope everybody's having a beautiful day. It's Friday. We have an incredible guest. I hope the birds are singing and the sun is shining and that you have something beautiful

plan for your weekend. I am here with the intelligent, talented, and lovely Dolly Beth Reesner. She's a psychology instructor, a counselor, and a psychotherapist, but she's more than that. And we're going to get to know where today and some of her ideas. Dali Beth, how are you today? Wonderful. Really grateful to be on the show and to talk to you and share whatever is helpful to everyone, which is always my goal. Fantastic. Well, I had noticed that you've been on somewhat of a speaking tour and doing lecturing here in the great state, the Aloha State of Hawaii. And I thought there were some interesting topics on there, everything from psychology to parenting.

And I was just curious if maybe you could give some of my guests, maybe an intro into what your recent lecture series has been on. So I've been teaching psychology for the past 20 years. And I've been a psychotherapist for 23 years. And so it's evolved. over time. And I love that, the evolution. If you go into psychology and spirituality, you have to be open-minded and always be willing to deconstruct and reconstruct whatever it is because there's new research from without, and then there's new insights from within. And a combination of that

has happened in my career. So I really focused more on holistic, a holistic approach of body, mind and spirit. Very quickly in psychology, I saw that whatever you do to your body affects your mind and affects your emotions. So very much into health psychology. And so when I was teaching and with clients, I really focused on, all right, let's look at your body. What's going on in your body so that we see how it's affecting your emotional and mental states. So are you sleeping? So usually if people say, well, tell me one thing that I can do to be happier after 20 plus years of studying psychology. There's many things I can say, but I would always start with get enough sleep. If you can just add one more hour of sleep and if you have any sleep issues, I would really just

address those first because that really changes everything. And so getting enough sleep is my kind of magic cure to start with. If you can start with that. And so looking at sleep, exercise, meditation, nutrition, have clients that come in with anxiety. and they're drinking caffeine and coffee. And it's like, oh, no, that's making it worse. And so I'm a huge proponent of green juices, juicing, drink, like alkalinizing your system. And just giving it what it needs in order to deal with everything else, all the things that likes those at us.

And so I'm very aware of our body as the temple, like the way you take care of your car, taking care. This is the vehicle that we use to be able to have the experience. experiences on this earth. And so taking really good care of it as much as you can. So I said I would have a lot more money if I didn't spend most of it on organic foods. So a lot of it goes on just prioritizing things for health. And so that's been a big part of my teaching and a big part of my counseling clients. And then moving on to, of course, emotional issues. So I have worked with parents. I did play therapy with kids, so kids who have been abused and neglected.

So if anybody and any type of trauma, childhood trauma from parents getting divorced or bullying or anything, I really recommend parents with kids under 10 to look for a play therapist because they're really, very Jungian, Carl Jung, gets an issue of it. Cognitive behavioral therapy is great to talk, but as you get older, I think that's better. And you can do play therapy at any age. But I really recommend play therapy for kids because they play. their issues. And sometimes they can't verbalize them. And it is really healing. And it's fun for them. They don't even realize that they're in therapy. So that's one of the things I did for a long time for

Department of Health, Department of Education. I worked at psychiatric hospitals in Hawaii and then have my own private practice, Positive Health, Hawaii. And so working with parents. And I recommend a book by Dr. Sheffali, her name's a little bit difficult to pronounce, but it's called Conscious Parenting. And I think that's really key. But out of all the books I've read in for parenting, the conscious parent and conscious parenting, Dr. Shafali, her approach is really to see kids as mirrors that teach us and that we're not, you know, to not impose our hopes and dreams and expectations of them. and to have them be like little mini-meas and that we get all our unfulfilled wishes through them

and all the pressures that we put, right? And in the excuse of we just want the best for them. And so a lot of times we're looking at what is it that they want, who they are, and not prioritizing what society thinks is in part, but their own spirit and seeing that they have inner wisdom. And so if a child's acting out, there's always a reason. and kids are not born that way. I know we have genetic predispositions.

But if they're acting out, they're hurting. And instead of just like, okay, we got a behavior modification to get them to behave, which is a lot of when I worked as a school counselor, it's like we just got to get them to pass. And it's more of, well, what's at the root of it? They're hurting. Where's the wound that needs to heal? And that's for all of us.

For all of us, we can take the 300 plus disorders. and unless it's like a neurological disorder, right, or something's hormonally, neurochemical imbalance or hormonal imbalance or some type of brain damage, it's really what wound are we not wanting to feel to heal? We're numbing it somehow in some type of behavior. So getting to that root of it has been really key for a parent, for us,

and so you need to feel it to heal it. And so, yeah, that's a big one. And recently, yeah, and of course we know what we resist, persist. And so going with that line, very much Michael Singer has been one of my teachers of the untethered soul and the surrender experiment of learning to relax and not resist, to let go, to surrender, to accept Byron Katie, loving what is, the power of now. Eckertoli. These are like, I don't feel the need to go back thousands of years for wisdom because I feel like we have these amazing teachers that are alive today that are telling us what we need to be happy to grow, to evolve, to learn tools for today. And those are definitely some of my teachers that I'm so grateful for, Suzanne Giesman. So I moved also into, so I wrote a book,

called love is not enough about codependency. And that has been something that I struggled with and being in psychology, being in therapy myself, being a therapist, something that I've worked through. And then now I want to help others that are also going through codependency and how you can move from that feeling not enough and feeling like you have to become what somebody wants in order to be loved and surrendering and doing everything that even hurts you to make sure that they love you at any cost. And so going from that to just what I call awakened goddess, like I really woke up to my real self, my higher self. And that process was amazing. So I'm kind of talking about a lot, but it's just been like from psychology to Dr. Wise and past life regressions,

which I've incorporated into my practice. So it went from very traditional psychology, holistic, positive psychology that is the study of how to be happy and healthy, things like being grateful, learned optimism, to more spiritual. I mean, I've gone into parapsychology now researching from near-death experiences, to somewhere along that line, realized that I had mediumship abilities while doing the past life regressions and helping people with grief,

like from myself to others to connect to loved ones who've passed. I've never seen anything help grieving people who've lost someone help as much. It doesn't take away the pain, but as much as knowing their loved ones okay, getting evidence and being able to communicate with them themselves. So helping them to communicate.

And so grief, And that has been a big component now of the therapy that I'm doing. Yeah. It seems like a long arc, but I think it's a common arc. I think a lot of people start off with like the scalpel of the intellect and like the psychology of figuring things out. And okay, well, I'm going to shave off this part and I'm going to, I'm going to examine it. I'm going to get down deep in there. But then as you begin to grow in experience and mindset and you begin to, you begin.

to understand that there's so much that you don't know, you can't not move into the world of spirituality. And in some ways, it sounds a lot of what people are, I think, some of the biggest ailments we have right now, whether it's a child acting out, or whether it's a parent who is, you know, sort of pinning their unrealized beliefs on their kid is this lack of spirituality. It seems that in the West, we have just decided to move away from spirituality. And people are now, you know, it seems odd to say, oh, I can connect with my son that died or I can connect with my mom that to some people that throws people off. But why wouldn't it be that way? It's always been that way. If we look back at the history books and we look at different cultures, there's always been a way to

connect with our ancestors. And it just seems like we're rediscovering that. Is that like, you think it's a normal character arc or are we rediscovering something? Or was there a certain thing in your life that really made you begin to turn towards spirituality more? That's it. Yeah, you're 100% right. We're actually going back to our roots of knowing that this is natural. This is not, we call it super natural, but it's actually really natural. For me, what happened was that, you know, I've been doing therapy for over 20 years,

but in the path, I realized, at a certain point, I realized, I feel psychology is very helpful. But at some point, I realized it was a bit of putting a band-aid on it and not getting to the root of it. And so there's different layers. And so I thought, okay, people are functioning better. But at the bottom is, why are we here? What is the meaning of life? Like the bigger picture.

And so you can be functioning. You can be successful. You can be healthy. I mean, at the end of the day, we all die. And so Freud said, you know, the anxiety beneath everything is death anxiety. And so if you are not dealing with that. And so I realized that, okay, psychology is super helpful, but it's not getting to the very, very depth and root of it all,

which is our spirituality, just knowing, finding what you believe in. So it's not for me to tell you. And so for me, I started out with faith in my life, very traditional fundamental faith. And then studying psychology, actually, my questions were an animal. answered and I started more critical thinking. And so I left traditional religion. And kind of psychology can become your dogma. Science can become your dogma and your religion, right? And for a while, technology, artificial intelligence and the future, that became my religion. Like, well, maybe we don't have to die. The belief that the hardest part of my life was actually when I believe that when we died, nothing happens. It's just and so I give people who can believe that credit. because I felt like groundlessness.

Like that was the hardest part, but I had to face it. I had to go there and say, that's a possibility. And I think that was the hardest. I think faith, of course, Freud and our roots say that religion in any type of faith is a crutch to deal with the death anxiety. I don't see that anymore, but I do feel like faith helps you to be able to cope with life better. And I mean, there's different ones. and then you find a different evolutionary points in your life, what works for you?

So for me, I kind of said, okay, if we die, nothing happens. How about putting our faith in not dying and things like the singularity, right, and immortality and transporting our consciousness to kind of AI and merging with all of that? I thought, okay, that's, I want to put my hope into that. We're telemarase, you don't, you can stop aging and reverse it. That was where kind of my hope was. And I was really excited about all of that. I love Tony Robbins' book, Life Force, and his new fountain of life places.

So I'm all for health. But this was focused more on immortality. Like because when you die, it's all gone. Let's try to preserve this as long. And if you can stay alive for a couple decades, technology is exponentially improving. Then it can keep you alive for thousands of years, then millions of years and maybe forever. So I was on that path and I had accepted it. I was working with it.

And then I read Dr. Wise's Many Lives Many Masters. And that changed everything. Something within just awakened. And I started remembering past lives. And then I got trained by Dr. Wise who, I mean, his credibility, like Mayo Clinic and Yale. And like, this is a real psychiatrist who was able to get some of his patients to remember past lives with evidence. And so I said, if, you know, if that can be helpful to my clients, I want to incorporate that into my practice. And it was very healing for me.

And I started, you know, doing it with clients. And it was very helpful. It's helpful to heal things that psychology wouldn't be able to have access to. So we do do hypnosis. But the past life regression is like, first of all, there's a reason we don't remember past lives. So if you believe past lives are real. because there's a lot of stuff that happens in them and there's enough things that happen in this life for us to deal with.

But sometimes we could be carrying things that are blocking us in this one that remembering could help us bring awareness too. That's the key. I think if you just do it because it's cool and it's fun to remember, okay, that could be helpful for you to realize you've been different races, different cultures, I mean, different genders. So you don't identify too strongly. to I'm a woman, I'm a man, I'm this culture, I'm this ethnicity, because that's just in this life.

And again, this is what I believe. You don't have to believe that. It doesn't mean that's the truth. But that's what I found for myself as my truth that it could be very healing to the world if we see ourselves that way because you're not as attached. And you realize, okay, next life, I could be something totally different. So why doesn't mean you have pride and you don't stand up for rights and things like that. But it's not who you are.

It's really not who you are. It's just like the car. Like sometimes I've driven a mini Cooper and sometimes I've driven a Volkswagen. And that's not who I am. That's the car that I drive in that some people really identify with their car. It's like that is who they are. I mean, I drove a Mercedes. for a while. I noticed people treat you different when you drive certain cars. And that was interesting

actually to realize. And it's true. Even in these bodies, they treat you different when you look a certain way. So that's true. But you're just changing cars. So that was really helpful. And that just opened up, I mean, a whole new world. Angels and Angel Therapy. And at the time, it was during virtues. She's actually kind of left that field, but trained with her and actually being able to connect with angels and spirit guides and things that's, yeah, definitely out of psychology, more, yeah, parapsychology, but finding it super healing and helpful for me personally. And then for clients that were open. So I still definitely do traditional psychotherapy. But when I see when clients are open to it, then introducing some of the insights,

Some people come to me directly because they want that type of healing or connection. Yeah, it's fascinating to me. When I think of past lives or I think of being, I think of generational trauma. You know, some of the things that we have gone through, we may not remember, but you can get a good understanding of it by, at least in my opinion, of what you're going through. If you just take some time to meditate or just find a quiet spot to think of, think about your life and really do some hard thinking. I have found that the same tests keep coming up until you pass them. And once you do pass those tests, then like you're, you know,

it's not so much that history repeats, but like they say it rhymes. And I think it goes in sort of like a helical pattern. So once you pass one test, you can kind of move up to the next rung and you continue to move up through life. And maybe that's evolution or maybe that's succeeding generational trauma or moving through our lives. It's an interesting thing to think about. And when you talked about angels or past lives or a Mercedes or vehicles, I come to the idea of labels because the labels we use, whether it's, hey, I drive a 1964 Pinto versus someone who drives a land rover.

Automatically, we have an idea of who that person is. Even though that's such an unfair judgment, we've already decided. who that person is. And so these ideas of labels and vehicles are a great way to begin to understand the flaws in our thinking. And it's not really our fault. I mean, we have a certain set of parameters we're given at birth, depending on where you're born and your idea structure. And I'm curious, it seems to me that you have a really well-rounded experience in different kinds of therapy. And some of the things you're talking about, I think connect really well to a new branch of psychology that's coming out that's affiliated with psychedelics. Have you, have you, like, touched upon any of the psychedelic experience in your therapy?

Yes, that's a great point. I watched documentaries on it. Michael. Michael Pollan. Michael Pollan. His is really great. His documentary, and his, I haven't read his book, but the documentary was really great. And I'm excited about that in psychology because I feel like it's,

also going to get to the root. And it's so promising for PTSD, for everything, but especially starting with those. My experience, I grew up in a very athletic environment. My dad was an ironman, isn't an ironman, triathlete, and did Molokai races and very healthy. I did the iron kids growing up, swimming, paddling canoe. And so they never drank. We never had alcohol in the house. drugs, anything like that. And so it was very much no drugs. And I didn't do any for all of my life until I had a friend go to Rhythmia, which is in Costa Rica to do ayahuasca and ended up studying with a shaman. And yeah, Rhythmia is a great place because it has kind of the American, Western medical nurse,

kind of people, in case anything happens, should be safe, but it also has the shaman and the, and the juicing and the healthy components. So it's like a spa and also like a retreat and an experience. So they went and did that and then came back, trained by the shaman and said, if I wanted to do it,

they would do the ceremony for me. So I did the ayahuasca sarah. Yeah, and that was amazing. Like what it was, it was beautiful. There was no, I feel like it can be purging, but when you, I've done a lot of self-work. And like I said, I keep my car as healthy as possible, my temple, my body. And so I didn't experience the purging part of it. Maybe I didn't take enough or whatever it was, but I did experience waves of love.

Just like when you're in the ocean, growing up in Hawaii. Yeah. Imagine when you're in the ocean and you go up. Sometimes there's another wave and you're like, okay, I can't have waves coming so soon because I don't have enough time to take a breath. That's what it felt like, but it was waves of love. And I kept feeling I can't, like I can't take another wave too much. It's the weirdest thing because it's beautiful, it's amazing.

but you feel like just almost like what I have two children 21 and 16 like contractions. It's like wait, just please give me a second to like breathe, but it was waves of love. And then there was roses everywhere, pink roses and rainbows. And then I felt forgiveness. So I thought I had done a lot of work already. You're a therapist. You should definitely be therapy yourself. so that your own blocks are not getting in the way of the work that you do.

And so I thought, you know, I have an ex-husband and I have a relationship who have passed and issues with my dad. And all of a sudden, I felt so much love and forgiveness for each of them. I guess more. There was more stuff that I needed to like go and forgive. And I felt so much love for each relationship starting with my dad, my ex-husband, ex-boyfriend. So key major people in my life that I thought I had either asked for forgiveness and just so much love for them. Yeah.

And that was, so I had that experience, which was amazing. And then I'm definitely a proponent for the use of psilocybin and DMT. I've watched a documentaries and everything. I haven't tried that. But I did once later on eat some chocolate, some brownies that had stuff in them. Yeah. I was hungry and I just thought, I'd never done it before. So I just didn't know and I ate a lot of brownies.

That's so awesome. That's my best choice. Like dark chocolate is definitely. And I just thought, I mean, you can't have, I mean, it was like big. And then within a matter of time, Unfortunately, it wasn't a good experience. I no longer knew who I was. And I've never had that happen before and sinned. But it's the scariest thing. I just, I was fully awake and aware, but I had no memory that tied me to any, any personality, any, anything. So I knew, but I knew where I was. I was in a cabin. And I knew that somebody was there with me because there was somebody there. with me, but I didn't have any memory that connected me to Dolly Bath. So I could look at my everything, but I had no memories.

So zero memories that could tell me, give me any clues of who I was. And so not having any identity was the scariest feeling I've had my whole life. You would think it's liberating. Like I'm just consciousness. And I've done that in like tanks. I love float tanks. And I recommend them for many issues from PTSD. see that there's a lot of research float tanks. And I love that experience was beautiful. I felt

back in the womb. My mom and I felt being pure consciousness just this wasn't like that. This was the scariest like my heart. I know heart racing. I think I'm going to die. But the whole thing was just not having any memory. Like who am I? And I kept saying, I don't know who I am. Please help me. I don't know who I am. And that was like for seven hours. I felt. Wow. And it was like it was a nightmare. And so that wasn't a good experience. And that's the extent of it for me. Does it feel like I've had some similar experiences where I've taken large dose as a psilocybin and just gotten to points where everything I knew about reality was wrong.

Like everything that I had thought I was. I'm like, I was living in a in a complete different reality. I was under the assumption that I was meeting Jesus and like everybody was in on this giant conspiracy and I'm like, oh, totally like everything makes sense now. And like for a few hours, I just, I was alone and I had prepared myself for like, okay, this is going to be a large dose. I'm probably going to begin thinking a lot different. And I did.

It was almost, I felt like I was in Kinkechie. sees one flew over the cuckoo's nest a little bit in it. But it was such an incredible thought process as I began to integrate it. For a few hours, like I was somebody else. And as I began to integrate it later, I thought to myself like, wow, this must be the closest you can get to having a mental disorder and getting to understand what that's like in some ways. And I think what you went through too, what an amazing opportunity for you to get to understand

what it may be like for someone who is riddled with anxiety or someone who has panic attacks or someone who is in those states that is not always well. And, you know, I think there's something to be said about being in those states. And it says it allows you to have some empathy for those people because you realize you too could be in one of those states. It may be induced by a chemical or it may come on as something else. But all of us have this ability to lose sight of who we are. where we're at and what we think. And when you do that, I think that it does allow you to grow on some levels.

Maybe you look back at it and you're like, wow, that was a tremendously horrible experience. Or you look back at it and you're like, wow, that was an incredible experience. I don't want to continue to do it. But having the courage to go through that experience and allow yourself to feel those things, I think it probably gives you insight

that you would have never had had you not gone through it. Do you feel like even though it may have been a horrible experience that you learned from it? Yes, I'm grateful for all the experiences. And yes, even though it was horrible and I survived it, I'm glad I had it because I just feel like maybe that's what it feels like for somebody with dementia maybe and all times. So that was the big one.

So not having memories to connect you to, I just realized that the memories are what connect you to the personality because I still was breathing and I could move. And it was still me, but I had no idea who I wanted. was. And so maybe having memory, some type of amnesia too. There's people who lose a few years of their life. And so how much of who we are is the story. And slowly the way that I started coming out of it was pictures of my daughters started popping up. And so I knew I had daughters. I'm like, oh, okay, I have daughters. But imagining not having any memory with them, like nothing, like not any experience with them, but just seeing a picture and saying, oh, I know that's my daughter,

but I don't remember ever doing anything with that person. So you don't have the relationship, the connection. And that, even that was scary. So yes, I can, I am grateful. I can definitely relate more. I have worked with people with mental illness, with schizophrenia and delusions and psychosis. And even in psychology, though, we see them a certain way. And I've always been more open to, well, that's how we see them. But what if they're open to a different dimension in reality? Because schizophrenics, they can hear things, see things. Their brain, is it their brain malfunctioning?

Or is it because their brain is malfunctioning? They're able to perceive things that we can't when our brain is functioning. Because I see the brain as a filter. And so when the filter's not working, then the things start coming in. I do transcendental meditation and TM, I mean, psychology. kind of likes to endorse that one because there's a lot of research, but I think all types of meditation I've done Tibetan chanting, which I love. And so just finding what works for you.

There's so many apps, right, that help you with that. But for me, that seemed to work. And so when I'm in meditation, I've had experiences, but nothing like that in any of my meditations or with any other type of. I grew up, you know, again, my dad. everybody my dad's very spiritual he follows yogananda and does crea yoga and so he was very much about uh lSD and drugs it's cheating it's it's a port cut and then my cousin did too much lSD and had a psychotic break in psychology there's like fear based about those it's like it's like it's gonna if

you have a predisposition genetic predispositions towards schizophrenia those drugs can trigger a psychotic and then you're done. And my great-grandfather was diagnosed with mystic disorder and institutionalized all his life because all he wanted to do was meditate. So he locked himself in his room and he just wanted to meditate. Unfortunately, he had five kids and a wife and he just was in there for them. That's terrible for my grandma and her siblings and my great-grandma. But he just started meditating and became addicted to meditation.

He just bliss, right? The bliss and I don't know where he traveled to, all these things. And at the time, a long time ago, they're like, they called it mystic disorder. So I'm like, okay, some people could say that schizophrenia. It's better than I'm messing with anything. Because what if I have a genetic predisposition? But I think that's all fear-based. And I do have part conspiracy.

Like, is it pharmaceuticals wanting to not the natural way, of healing? Is it a way to suppress it from society to awaken? It's easier to control sheep. Yeah, I'm with it. Individuals. And so I don't know. I mean, I don't have evidence. I haven't done in a research, but there's a feeling of why was it shut down so quickly and then why is it so fear-based? So I think we're coming back to it in a safe way. And I love how in psychology now, all psilocybin and LSD and microdosing. I'm excited about it because I feel it's being done right in safe environments. Therapists are being trained in how to do it.

And so maybe it's the coming together of spirituality and psychology. Yeah, I love that. I think you're right. I think that we are seeing this merger. And we need both. Like you need science and you need spirituality. And I think they kind of go together like the double helix. Like they feed off each other.

They move information back and forth between each other. I was recently talking with a really fascinating. There's a doctor that I talked to, Dr. Jessica Rochester, and she is the Mahadrina of the Santo Dimey Church in Canada, which is like an ayahuasca church. And she led me through this exercise where it kind of reminds me of the experience you told me where you like you lost all connection to who you were. And let's do this.

You care if we do a quick little thought experiment? Sure. Okay. So you don't have to say it out loud. This is for the people, if they're listening or you're watching, I want everyone to think about this as we go through this. So imagine writing down seven labels of what you are.

And they can be whatever labels you want. It can be father, mother, family, husband, you know, truck driver, psychologist, whatever your seven things are. So you write down seven things and then you put them in a back. backpack. You start walking on this trail and you get to the first stop, the first little checkpoint, and you pull out your backpack and you take your seven labels out and you've organized them in importance. And then you look through them and now you have to take three of them and set them down at that first checkpoint right there. You shuffle them back in order. Then you go to the next

checkpoint. You walk up the mountain a little bit and then you get to the second checkpoint and you take out your labels again and you look at them and you get rid of two. So now you only have two left. And by the third checkpoint. And now you, you got a tough decision to make because you have these last two things that you're holding on to, right? And you go, okay, I'm going to leave this one here. And you get to the top of the mountain and there's one more checkpoint. And here's the deal. Okay, I say to you, I want you to take this last thing you're holding on to. And I want you to leave it here. It's going to be okay. All these things that you've left are going to be there when you get back. But I need you to give up this last one. And we're going to go up into this, into the,

this spaceship for a little while and just and just be. So in this thought experiment, you give up your last label of whatever it is and you imagine letting go and then you go into this place where you're just there. There's no ties to things. You spend, you know, an hour, two hours, just being you, just being this idea of life and love and light. And then after an hour, you come back down and now you have the choice, Dahlia Beth. As you have the choice, you have the choices you're walking back down to grab those labels if you want them. And then what happens, at least for me in that experience, was this idea that the meanings of those things changed. And there were things I didn't want to pick up. And so when you told me that experience of what

happened to you, while frightening as it is, it's a lot like that thought experiment. But it does give you, imagine being with someone who understands this idea of, oh, okay, now you've lost it. You've lost complete meaning. Fantastic. You've made it. Now you have an opportunity. to reintroduce meaning to your life. You have an opportunity to reconnect these labels that you had. And if you don't want them, you don't have to take them. That is an incredible gift to give someone in their 30s or their 40s or 50s or 50s or even older.

Like, look, I'm going to give you the opportunity to reinvent how you feel about these things in your life. And that kind of harkens back to our relationships with our exes, our kids, our children that have maybe died. And when I heard that experience, I thought about that thought experience. I'm like, wow, the first time you go through something like that, it is tremendously scary. But what if you could go through it again, but this time understand the environment? It's like when you go hiking sometimes or like if you're out in the ocean and you're by yourself and surf getting super big, you get really scared.

But the more often you're out there and the more you become comfortable with the environment, the more opportunity you have to really enjoy the power and the beauty of that power out there. And so I just wanted to share that experience, that thought experiment with you because it kind of reminded me of that. What do you think about that thought experiment? I love that. I love that. A couple things. I think what happened was detachment. There's a detached to those things that I am. And so I do.

I feel like it can be on the other extreme, right? Because now there's a sense of, you know, people say I identify as whatever it is you identify. as. So I don't really identify as human and as Dolly Beth. And so I know I am doing this and it doesn't mean I have like personality disorder or anything like that. But just I really, I'm not attached at all to this. I mean, it's still life and everything you do, but I really don't identify as human. And people say, but you are human. I'm like, I know. I am right now. a human role and the role as Dolly Beth, but I really feel the way, like a movie, like Tom Cruise plays a role. I mean, he seems to play the same role.

Totally. I'll say people that are in more diverse roles. I feel like it would be like telling an actor once they finish a movie, like, do you identify as that? I'm like, no, I identify as who I am. And I did. get to find out who I am when I'm not Dolly Bath. And I think that is priceless. And so if you get to see who you are when you're not this role, when you're out of character, when you're not in costume, when you're not in the movie. And so it's the same character, it's the same person playing different roles, past lives or simultaneous lives. It doesn't matter. But I just see it as. And so

that's been a gift but also it's I don't know you're detached and so you're not as attached to things which is good right very Buddhist detachment but it can take some time to adjust because you live in a world where everybody's it's very Truman Show

yeah totally very much in the Truman show what happened to Jim Carrey when and I'm so excited I got to go to Seaside where they filmed the Truman Show I'm such a huge fan And I was like, this is the house. And we're in, my daughter is the same. We're really into the same kind of stuff.

We're like, we're in the Truman Show, in the Truman Show. Like, where they film? And show, like within within. But yeah, it was hard for Jim Carrey, right? And his character to continue, like when you wake up, going about, he couldn't just play like everybody else knowing it was a movie. So that's taken some adjustment. That does take some adjustment.

And so it comes, it's a gift, but it's like, okay, now I know it's a movie. I still need to care about my role. It still matters just because it's a movie. Like I still need to be invested. So how do you balance being invested knowing it's a movie and that that's not who you are? And so that I think I'm learning how to balance that. And then I've lately, I definitely cannot explain this because I'm in the midst of it. So I'm always like definitely dropping things out of my backpack.

And you can't, I learned you can't rush somebody to take things out of their backpack of who they are. So it all happens in our time. For me, it's happened. But Thomas Campbell and my big toe. And he's a physicist, actually NASA physicist. And my dad is also a physicist. And so I think I have some connection with that that I really admire that type. of work and thinking.

And so his thing, his big toe, which I didn't even know what that meant, that means like your big theory of everything is that this is a virtual reality simulator. So the same as a movie. And so that we are individual units of conscious awareness from the source, whatever you want to call the big computer, I guess. Yeah. And that we're fractals of it. and that we are simulating.

So here, Earth is a physical matter reality. And then when you die, you go to non-physical matter reality. And that, of course, there's layers and things like that. So I'm like, right when I thought I had like, okay, like groundedness with the spiritual, I'm like, okay, the angels, the spirit world. And right when I think I have a figure out, I think I'm so curious and open minded that if there's new evidence for something else or if I have some experience, it's scary because it just takes the rug like from under you. You're like, I finally felt safe. I finally felt like I

figured this out, this thing that we're in and who we are and what we're here. And then something else comes and it's like, there's moments where you feel like, oh my gosh, what does this mean? It changes what I believe. But somehow, if you're open to it, it starts integrating and creating like a new new ground for you to stand on. So that's kind of, I'm always like people who know me, they're like, you're always changing. Like you're always, you don't just stay in the same belief or the same.

And I just, yeah, I can't. I feel like if I'm open and ready to know something else, I want to. I'm not afraid to be open to something showing that what I believed was maybe not what I thought. Absolutely. I think it's fascinating. And each one of those modalities give you a different understanding, not only of the world around you, but who you are and what role you play. And I've been, I've seen on some level, I've caught a glimpse of living those lives, the same way where you immerse yourself in these ideas.

Okay, what if it's this way? And you can live your life that way. And you get to see the world differently than if you look at it from the big toe perspective. Or lately I've been looking at it as this idea of humankind is like a super organism. You know, the same way that grasshoppers become locust, you know, and then we all move like an idea, like ideologies and ideas are actually organisms. And sometimes they work through us. And you and I are the leading edge of an ant colony that's moving through the forest, you know,

but we're all acting, you know, maybe somehow we're all acting through pheromones. And like we don't thoroughly understand what's going on, but we're moving down a direction that is something that's been laid out for us or something that we're moving towards. Like we're evolving as an organism together and like you see how this change happening. And when you do that and you, if you're really willing to embrace these different ideas and live them for a little while, I think you're rewarded with a different, understanding that people can either gravitate towards or that maybe you can help other people see things. And it's such a, it is a healthy thing to try and understand yourself from these

different areas. And it gives you perspective and understanding and empathy. And it's a, it's a beautiful thing. I'm glad to hear that you as someone who is going and helping people are willing to see these different modalities. I think it's, it's helpful. And I want to, I want to, I want to take that in a direction here where get your opinion on this. I, I'm a, I'm a big fan. Like sometimes I'll read this like a, like I, I came from a family that has a lot of mental illness. My father has bipolar and there was just a lot of mental illness in my family. And so I found myself always like, you know, I'm a big fan of the DSM and just reading like, oh, this is what this disease is or this is what people say this disease is. But if you start reading the DSM long enough,

you start thinking, there's a lot of mental illness in here. And there seems to always be more. And is it that people, is it that we as society are finding and discovering new mental illnesses? Or do you think that maybe it's our system, the way we're living? Like, maybe that's the problem. Maybe it's not the individual who's sick. Maybe it's the society that's sick. What do you think about that? Yeah.

This book isn't about mental illness, but I think it's called Tribe, Tribe by John Jonathan, I think. Chuck said, I can't remember his name, but in talking about how we evolved to be in tribes and community and that we've moved away from that, like 150 people. Our brain seems to be wired for us to be an evolution. And so we've created something really unnatural, the way we're living, to the way that we evolved. So humanity, whatever it is that, I mean, whether it's virtual or not, it's a, it's, We're in the video game and the rules of the body and the physics and all of it. And so being isolated, everybody kind of fending for themselves, even if you have family,

it's very individualistic in our culture. So it's not all over the world, but Western world. And that's the American Psychological Association, right? And the DSM, so now they have a DSM-5, it gets updated every 10 plus years. And it started out with maybe 80 disorders, homosexuals, sexuality was a disorder at one point. And then it got taken out. So things can be taken in, taken out.

What is it? Video game addiction is put in. You know, different disorders are put in. And so it's the way it's the way America, right? American Psychological Association assesses something as a disorder, like grief. They say, you know, after a month. If you are not done grieving, it's a disorder. It's like, what?

We give time frames and it's helpful. Okay, so there's different views. Some say it's not good to label. You talked about labeling. Like I worked in the school system. Once you have your child diagnosed it goes in their label, every teacher he or she will ever have, we'll see that label and we'll treat them according to that label.

And so they're self-fulfilling prophecies, right? Expectations. So we had experiments where teachers were told this group of students are very dim, not so good. And so they're going to need just extra work, extra help. And these kids are brilliant. And there was no difference between the two. They found that because the teachers expected the kids to be brilliant,

their scores actually went up. And the kids who were expected to not be so great, their scores actually went down, even though they were randomly assigned in each group. So expectations affect expectations for ourselves, expectations from our parents, expectations from our society can play a role. And so it's good. In that sense, I worry about labels. Your labeled as this, whatever disorder it is. And then you're like, oh, I act this way because of that. Then it can also be helpful to understand, like, why do I act this way? Why do I behave this way? And also for accommodations and treatment, right? Like EMDR, I think it's a great treatment. Eye movement, disinitization for trauma, for soldiers, for things. But some people believe, for example, depression.

is blocked energy. And if you unblock the energy, the flow shakti that flows through us, then depression is no longer there. So it affects the way you view a disorder and also the way you treat it. And this is just a psychological component. It doesn't look at the health, biological, what does to extent, but definitely not the spiritual component of it. So it's not, I think it can be a helpful tool, but like everything else, It can be misused to, you know, you have this disorder, so you have to behave this way and then you expect it and also the treatment for it. So I think it's the Western view, but definitely the way we're living, somebody loses their

job. Like in tribal society, it wasn't just like, okay, now you're homeless or grieving or, I mean, community would rally. And that's why I see countries, like, if you watch documentaries, like happy or I am by Tom Shadyak. It shows like Denmark, Okinawa, places where like it's not just you. Like if you lose your job or if you lose a loved one or if you're sick or a widow, like we evolved that everybody would rally around you and support you.

You never felt like because that's one of the biggest fears. I hear people go, oh, I'm going to end up homeless. It's like it wasn't a homelessness. There was no alone. It was a tribe that would be there. for you to support you when you're strong you you help the tribe when you're weak the tribe helps you and not that we have to go back to tribal living but in countries like denmark and there's more communal living and i hear i have a friend who lives in Colorado who's more in a communal living

doesn't have to be hippie skippy but um there is a sense of isolation well i mean loneliness kills loneliness is as bad for you and loneliness and hopelessness is a as a as bad for you, according to research, as smoking and obesity. So you could not smoke. You can be the perfect health. And then it just tells your immune system to start shutting down. You're more likely to die from hopelessness and loneliness. So there's, and then a lack of meaning and purpose.

Like for me, I'm like, okay, I've read so much. And at a certain point, it's not about reading. It's about going within. And I'm wanting to find the answers from within through meditation. And it's bad. It's just basic. like be kind, be present, be grateful. Yeah.

Those are like every morning I wake up like, okay, be kind, be grateful, be present. And I mean, there's a lot of other things that we can apply, but I don't feel that we're doing that for each other. We're not present. We're not grateful. We're not kind to each other. And so you're saying, is there more mental illness? Maybe we're getting better identifying different ones.

but I think we're seeing like if the whole society is mentally ill. It's a conducive. It's conducive to mental illness. So the society, like political things you can put aside by Russell Brand, I think, is really good at showing how the society we build is the perfect society you would build if you wanted to increase mental illness. That's so crazy. So it's true.

Yeah. So I mean, I sometimes I help individuals. Yeah. Because I get really frustrated because there's an old story about, I mean, it's kind of scary. They keep finding like dead babies in the river. And they try. And then some of them are not dead.

So they save the babies. And then all these people are saving these babies in the rivers, whatever ones they can save. And so the whole tribe starts working towards saving these babies in the river. then somebody says, shouldn't we try to find out, like, where all these babies are coming from? Like, who's throwing the babies in the river, like the root cause of it? And you're like, no, we don't have time because if you go to look for it, we won't, you won't be able to be saving the babies, right? And it's like, but shouldn't we get to the root? Like, let's stop the babies being thrown in the river. Like, who's throwing them? Like, what's doing this?

And so when I'm treating people for 20 years, and it's like, and seeing that a lot of it is systemic, it's a system. It's the system that's conducive to this. It's a little frustrating because I am helping that one person and that matters, but what can I do? And then it can, you know, you have to meditate and pray on it. What can I do to change systems that are creating the environment, like a bad barrel instead of a bad apple, to stop the babies instead of say, it's great to save the babies, but you can save them all,

or most of them, you stop what's causing the babies to go in there. So your question is really right. And then I, at this point, I realize that we can focus, I don't know about changing systems, politics, all those things.

I think raising awareness, your podcast, like to raise awareness and consciousness is beautiful, your book. We can do our part and not feel overwhelmed. And at the end, what really matters is you raising your own consciousness. I think it's beautiful to share.

But the most important thing, I think Tom Campbell talks about it is like entropy. And entropy is, I guess, more disorganized energy and less love. And lower entropy is the goal, which is more love. And the more you can lower your entropy, the more loving you can be kind, humble, compassionate, joyful, all those things. it does affect the whole. I know we talk about being one and it's all connected, but if you're like, I can't change the world, I can't, because sometimes I would have that feeling like I want to save the world,

but it's like, it's okay. If you can lower your entropy, if I can lower my entropy and become the most peaceful, loving, kind individual, because we're connected, the entropy level of the whole gets lowered. So I'm doing my part. And then if I can help others to do it, that's great. But if I can't, at least you can focus on you because you have control over you.

Yeah, that's really well said. I agree. I think that the best way to make the environment in your world better is to become the best version of yourself. Right. And I agree wholeheartedly that you can, if you listen, the world talks to you or the spirit talks to you or there's something bigger than us that whispers to you, whether it's on the wind or whether it's the passing smile of a stranger. I'll give you an example of what I mean. I noticed in my life that I was being confronted with people that I was being mean to. And I figured I had to

think to myself, like, why am I being mean to this person? Or someone had pulled me aside and like, why are being mean to this person? And I thought, oh, I don't like that person because they're weak. But it wasn't that they were weak. It was that I was weak. And the world was trying to show me like, hey, this thing you don't like, it's not something you don't like in them, but something you don't like in yourself. And when you can begin to do that, and here's my, here's my, here is my thing I'll put out there for people. And this is what I learned. And maybe other people can learn by listening to this. These things that you see in other people that you don't like are things you don't like about yourself. And that's the world showing you. Like everyone's kind of a

mirror. If you see something in someone that bothers you, it's probably because you have that trade inside you. And that's, that gives you an opportunity to fix it. Like, oh, maybe I should, maybe I would be happier about myself if I was more courageous. Maybe I would be happier for myself if I stood up for myself more. And then you, if you can take that view in somebody else and apply it to yourself, that helps you become the best version of yourself. And it helps lower that entropy. And then all of a sudden, people begin looking at you as, hey, I like what you did there, George. how do I do that? And then you become the example, but you do that by seeing the negative things about maybe other people and realizing that's a negative thing about you changing it. And then you become an

inspiration for other people. And I think that filters right back into your idea of you becoming the best version of yourself. And it's so beautiful how we're all connected that way. And if you can understand what the world's telling you, if you can understand what the wind is whispering to you, then you can begin to make yourself better and people around. you better and society better like that. I think it's a great example of how you can make things better. And I do. I'm curious about the world we live in.

And while there's so much doom and gloom out there, I'm really bullish on the future. I think that we're on the cusp of a world not only more beautiful than you imagine, but more beautiful than you can imagine. Like birth, right? Like there's a real opportunity, or not an opportunity, but there's a real potential. for a child to die or a mother to die during childbirth. But that's why they call it the miracle of birth. I feel like we're on the cusp of birthing a new world, Dollybeth.

What do you think about the future? Are you happy about the future? Are you excited about it? What do you think? Well, first of all, that was beautiful. I feel like if people can really hear that, that's it. That's it. That's like all of it right there. You summed it up and perfectly beautiful.

It reminded me of like, ho-oponopono. They say if you spot it, you got it. I love it. And then me, I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you and prayers and things like that. But I think I don't watch the news as much, if at all, for my own mental health.

Yeah. Less depression, the less news you watch doesn't mean I don't care. It just means I'm really focused on myself. And whatever I think about the world I do, I'll find out and I will do my part. So definitely for activism and for. improving the world. And it's not that it doesn't matter, but I don't feel a sense that we have to save the world or save humanity because if it is a simulation, it still matters, but it's built in a way that helps us grow. And so I was telling this to my 22-year-old. I said, I wish I knew this

when I was your age, that the goal of the game or the goal of all of this is to lower entropy, to become more loving. And I know that's just the physics. I connect to the physics term of it, but it's all religions, right? To become more loving. Those are the only points you take with you after the game, after you leave this game and then you can come back

if you believe you come back, right? So with that model, you keep coming back after you reflect on and learn from. Because the whole point, like you said, it whispers to you. Yes. evolution, growth, learning, lowering entropy is a natural movement of consciousness. And so we all feel it, but we can resist it.

There's something called, you know, taking the path of least resistance. We can become like plants and we just choose by and take it. We can choose to do that. But that's the goal. So, I mean, if you know that's the goal, like I don't play video games, but if you play video games, you want to know what's the goal of the video game. And when your character dies, you want to know what points and memory, right? You get to keep to play again.

So what do you keep? And so my experience of losing all my memories, that was helpful to detach. But I'm so grateful that we keep our memories from every lifetime to learn, that we keep the memories from every lifetime to learn and grow for the next time around. So you can use it, even though they might be blocked, you still, like the points that only matter. And like they say, love is all you take. You leave everything behind. You leave the pinto and the land rober. You need all of it. And if you lost loved ones, you see that you leave them, whether they were in great shape, not great shape, whether they were successful, lots of money,

no money. Like you leave all of it. But what you do take is the love, how much love, how much entropy you decreased in yourself. And then you come back the next time and try to decrease it more. And that helps the whole decrease it. If you know that, then I feel like every action you take, it seems like every action you take every day, it's more, it's more like as a teacher, I've been teaching for 20 years at the university. And so it seems like every quiz is more important than big exams. It all matters, but all of us maybe don't realize that it's everyday choices of kindness, of lowering our entropy of being loving, every opportunity you have. that really matters every day.

And if you focus on that, I think everything else is okay. Like we don't have to worry about, so I feel great about the future because I don't feel like I need to worry about it. It's not that I don't care, whatever I feel inspired to do, whether it's write letters or protest or not

or help a client. It's more of everyday choices. Am I choosing love? I'm I choosing fear? I'm I choosing selfishness? Like you said, I'm my choosing to be mean? The little choices, incremental choices, is what matters every day. And if I focus on that, everything else I think is okay.

How would you apply that? Like, that's beautiful. And I love that you brought up those points. How would you apply that to a relationship, people? And it seems to me like while sometimes we take the macro picture of the future or we look at the past, but a big part of our mental wellness is the relationship. that we have every day with our loved ones. How would you apply some of those key points that you made

to relationships that we have every day? Yeah, being aware. So awareness is key when you notice. Like you're very aware. You're open to where you're like, I'm being mean to somebody. So are you talking about romantic relationships or any relationship? Well, let's start with regular relationships

to move into romantic relationships. Because I think they're a little, they have a lot more moving parts in there. Yeah. So regular relationships is coming to them with the approach of not because we have to manage the evolutionary part of us physical physical reality that it's about adaptation and survival and reproduction right and so you have to manage that with the spiritual

evolution and so it's not coming into a relationship with somebody as what can I get out from them to survive to be able to continue and reproduce right but to come into relationships with the spiritual evolution of how can I be kind to this person. How can I help them? Not what can I get? So if you have that perspective, we have to kind of rewire. So I do know that we're working. It's like knowing your car. I don't know anything about mechanics, but studying psychology has really helped me to understand the vehicle that we're using so that you can work with it. So the male brain, the female brain, even the biological. So born biological female, born biological female, there are differences. And knowing that

can be helpful in relationships or knowing how our behaviors are there to help us adapt and but not necessarily be happy, like to not make changes in our life because change means possibility of death. For 200,000 years of our species, we evolved this brain, right, and this system that wants us to keep us safe and alive, not necessarily happy and evolving and growing, but let's keep you alive. Let's keep you reproducing, you know, and that's survival instead of what's best for our spiritual growth. And so I think overriding, learning how to override that system, knowing how it works and overriding it, I think is really helpful. You know, this reminds me of a conversation I recently had with a gentleman named Kevin Holt, who wrote a book. And he was talking about divorce and how he had come to the conclusion that love is a choice.

And he had grown up in a family where his family had stayed together. And so when his relationship didn't work out the way that it wanted to and he ended up getting a divorce, he said that he felt like shame and all these pressure on him. And, you know, it can't, I'm neither a judge nor a jury. But it seemed to me that he felt this incredible shame and this judgment that was on him. Like when we talk about love and relationships and wellness, you know, how do we, how do we cope with the idea that the relationship we thought we were in didn't work? And how do we move past that once those relationships don't work? Okay.

So it's changing perspective. And what are your beliefs? So he had a belief that if your relationship doesn't work, So it could become from society. Where does it come from? Does it come from his upbringing, his culture, that you're a failure, that it's wrong, that it's against your religion. So what are your beliefs that?

Because even sometimes it's not even yours, but it's like osmosis. It's in the water. And you can absorb those beliefs and think. And so just flashing a light on them is important. So where did that belief come from? And realize, like, I always come back to the bigger picture. So if you see why we're here, where we go when we leave, like we're interacting with each other. Like you said mirrors.

We're being mirrors. Relationships are great mirrors. Oh, my gosh, having children. It's so hard. And it's a mess mirror to your stuff, that's stuff that's hitting you. Because if you get upset over something, that means your stuff's getting hit. It gives you an opportunity. Oh, because a lot of stuff doesn't upset you all day long, all day long, nothing.

But when it does, a trigger means it's hitting something that's not healed, that needs to be processed, that emotionally we didn't digest. Is our time up? No, I'm sorry. I just forgot to silence my phone. I apologize. Okay. And so I think for him, it would be an opportunity to see where those beliefs comes from because those are just judgments that came from a belief. But if you see that people come into our lives and you can see your role in it, but that staying together doesn't mean.

I mean, that's the goal. And if you didn't stay together, that something wrong, you can look. I mean, that was a part of my book, Love is not enough. You can love each other. Like every person, every man I loved that I wasn't with. I still love them, even though we're not together. And so what did I learn from them? What did I learn about myself from that person?

Because they're just opportunities for us to grow. So whether it's romantic relationships. And yes, you can use, I mean, talking about love, You can look at it from different perspectives. Like you can say it's lust or passion or whatever it is. But the first six months of a relationship, your brain is hygiene. So when you're in love, if you've ever been in love, six to nine months, even up to a year, the ACCCC, which anterior cingulate cortex, part of your brain and the amygdala,

which is the part of your brain, both of them for critical thinking and says, run, run. When you're in love, the first six months, you are blind. That's why they say love is blind. because evolution said, oh, we found a match. Let's make them blind to all their faults. Reproduce. Then they're stuck together. And that's it.

That's all it cares. It doesn't care about your happiness at all. It just cares about, right? The genetic makeup continuing. And so I recommend usually don't make any decisions before the first year pregnancy, getting married, tattoos, like wait until your brain comes back online. And people are like, well, what? happens after because the chemicals are so strong. It's like an addiction. It's as strong. So love is not

a chemical. It's like a combination of chem. It's not an emotion. It's a combination of emotions, but the chemicals are like the most potent drug and you can have withdraws, like a drug addict. And so you want to, I always say wait till your brain comes back online because it's offline for that person, not for everything in the world. You do have a little bit of rose-colored glasses where you see the world. They're also great in love. But wait six months, nine months to a year. And you, you know, if you're still happy when your brain comes back online, because that's when I, with couples I work with, they're like, oh, I wish it was like the way it was the first year. The six months, the butterflies. I don't feel the excitement, the passion. I'm like, evolution didn't wire you to feel that long

term because it wants you to get pregnant. And then it doesn't want you obsessed with that person because you're not going to take care of the baby. So it wants you to feel good around them, but not that passionate love. And so when people are like, I just don't feel. So there's people who break up every, like, year or so because they might be addicted to those love chemicals. They just want that, you know, and you can only get it with another person. Yeah. Or you break up with that one, wait a while and then get back together, like a real breakup. And some people do that.

They break up, right? They get back together, break up. And it's not a healthy relationship. But if it's a healthy relationship like it's good, after the year, you should have endorphins and feel chemicals around each other, do activities that are good for each other. So there's things you can do to keep the chemicals, like hugging, kissing, orgasm. We say an orgasm a day keeps the psychologist away. But anyway, so things like to raise oxytocin, the bond of collecting trust.

And so physical contact and things like that. But you can do things to keep the relationship great. But that passion that you had at the beginning is not meant to last. So you can have moments of passion, but it's not supposed to be. stained. So if you think your relationship, if you mistake that for love and you're like, I'm not in love anymore. That's that that wasn't love. That was evolution. That was chemicals that are wired. That's your brain offline. And then I have couples also say, you know, you didn't care the at the beginning that I left my socks everywhere. And she's like, her brain wasn't online. And then it comes

online and she sees them and before she didn't. So they're like, not she's nitpicking at stuff that didn't matter before. And so I do a lot of relationship counseling and that seems to be. But otherwise, relationships are great because they show you things that need to be healed and your belief systems from your culture, your parents, expectations. But I think expecting a relationship to last forever, another part of evolution is that our species is not monogamous. So our species did not evolve for monogamy. The male brain did not evolve for monogamy. It evolved to have many wives because that's how you get the most genetic reproduction, right? One man, many wives, as many wives as he can provide and protect. And so, and the children and offspring increases the

likelihood of those surviving. So that's the brain, male brain that continues. And so to ask a man to be in a monogamous relationship is a lot. It's a choice, your values, your beliefs, you can do it. But the male brain's not wired for that. So women or men, if you're with a man, need to know that asking a man to do that. It's a big ask. It's a lot of bigger ask than for us. Our brain is much more wired to be just with one man through evolution. And so I think that's another component. Those are structures that we created, one man, one woman or one two men, like marriage. That's something we have imposed that has nothing to do with our evolutionary wiring. spiritually, that's a whole other thing.

You can connect to somebody spiritually if you believe in soulmates, but it's very rare to be able to grow with somebody in the same direction and support. So some people might come into your lives and then go. And then other people come into your lives. And it doesn't mean those aren't failures. Those are just people that came into your life at a certain time. And you were at the same energy vibration. And then if it continues, it's great, but it's rare.

So to expect that, we have this expectation. We're going to grow all together. And then the divorce rate is super high, right? Wolves are monogamous. We thought birds were monogamous, but we found lots of birds. Like, we tested the eggs in the nest, and the dad says raising the eggs is not the bio-dad. So there was some messing around going on. So we know that, I don't know, some say 30% of birds are monogamous.

But, yeah, wolves mate with one person for life. and, you know, that's it. And they don't mess around. And it's just one person for the rest of their life. So that, if you want to say, those wolves should be the ones in Valentine's cars. They're the romantics. It's such a fascinating concept to think about, especially when we, you know, when we think about the lives we live, the idea of happiness, the idea of wellness. Like, there's just so many moving parts in there.

And on some level, on the amazing. at how successful we are. Like we spend a lot of time talking about all these problems that we have. But I mean, we should be giving ourselves a pat on the back sometimes for making it as far as we have and conquering the things that we do. And sometimes I wonder, Dolly,

but let me get your opinion on this. It seems like whether it's medicine or relationships or help that we spend so much time focusing on ailments. Might it be better if we focus like on, hey, this is a person that has everything going for them. Or this is what success is. Like maybe instead of focusing on all the negative aspects, what if we spent more time focusing on the positive aspects?

What do you think about that? I love that. I mean, I love that. That's what I do. Positive psychology, right? Positive psychology, Martin Sieligman. He studied, learned helplessness, and he studied thoughts that were being shocked

and noticed that if you have a lot of trauma in your life before the age of 10, that it kind of sets you to kind of be pessimistic, like expecting the other shoe should drop and that bad things are going to happen. And so you can unlearn it. I really recommend his books, Martin Seligman and authentic happiness

and learned optimism. So if you're not naturally optimistic, you can learn to be optimistic. But he was studying depression and lots of great research for depression and helping in psychology, right, was looking at disorders and we helped people who were severely mentally ill.

But then his daughter, I think he has like, five kids and his youngest daughter one said, one said, don't you study psychology? Why are you always so grumpy? And he's like, oh, yeah, okay. And then he started studying happiness. And this is like 40 years ago, right? 30, 40 years ago, we started studying what makes people happy. And that became, it's like, if we can study depression, why can't we study happiness? A lot of people were saying you can't. And what actually makes people happy and healthy and who's happy in the world. And so that became a whole branch of psychology that I went into, especially because we find psychologists who go into

that branch are the happiest psychologists of all because we can also have high risk of depression and things from working in this field. And so I'm like, okay, I'll jump. I like that and how to help people be happy and healthy in the school system, strength-based. And I really recommend the Penn State has a free website on positive psychology, authentic happiness. If you put Penn State Authentic Happiness questionnaires, these are based on real research. This is what the positive psychologist team uses. There's one called the VIA questionnaire. It's your character strengths, BIA.

If you put VIA and you take it, it's free. And it takes a while, maybe 45 minutes, and it's a list of your top strengths in your character. What are your top strengths? And then it says people who focus on their strengths are happier and healthier. So there's this movement we found in the school system, happier students learn better. So we're focused on education, raising the scores. Well, helping them to be happier, healthier brings up their scores. And so there is a movement to focus on kids, their strengths and not their weaknesses.

Because for a long time, it was like, we need to improve their weaknesses. And now it's like, well, let's get the weaknesses just okay. But let's focus on their strength. They're amazing at music or gardeners multiple intelligence. Like we all have natural abilities and intelligence because of nature and nurture, IQ, whatever. And some are kinesthetic like sport. And some are logic and math. But usually we say, oh, you're just a great athlete.

But we don't see that as an intelligence. And Einstein or math and science, oh, those are the really smart people. But it's like, no, it's just different modules of the brain, different types of intelligence. Some are musical intelligence. Some are like naturalistic, gardening, and some is philosophy, or the things we're talking about, religion, existential intelligence. So he identified those and said they're all the same. It's just different parts of the brain.

And we, society just values some. They say, oh, this is a really smart person. If you're smart at this, you're a jock or you're an athlete, but that doesn't mean you're super intelligent. But they're just different times. So I like that model. A lot of schools, Montessori schools, some of them, they're applying some of that.

And I like the strength-based. I think of Tim Ferriss, too, and he wrote The Four Hour Week and Book of the Titans. And I feel like he's also highlighting, like, people who are great in their field or Phillips Zimbardo, who did the Stanford Prison Experiment, who was very good, that experiment. But he started working on heroes. What are attributes of heroes? And so I do think focusing on strength, positive psychology, there's a movement. But that book you just showed me, that's full.

of disorders. And so I've been a therapist for 23 years and I don't diagnose. I don't diagnose. So that's my own personal choice. I can't work with insurance companies because you have to diagnose insurance companies because if you see a therapist, you have to put a diagnosis in order to continue seeing a client for them to pay. It's the reason why there's a code.

There's a code. If you don't put a code, there's nothing out of order. It's like coming the plumber. says there's nothing wrong with your plumbing, why does the plumber keep coming back, right? Something needs to be out of order. So if you see a therapist, you're using your insurance, make sure you find out what code, what diagnosing are they putting to be able to get reimbursed for seeing you. Again, I'm not criticizing, but that's just not, it's never been my approach to therapy. I like to see the person holistically. And some of my approaches wouldn't be,

they're not unethical, but they don't cover all the approaches. And so what they do is they do research on certain ones, like cognitive behavioral therapy, which I do. But if I wanted to do past life regression, so they wanted to be research-based. And I can see that because you want to be able to have some standardizations and some of it. But that doesn't mean, like play therapy for, you know, the school system stopped paying for play therapists.

And it's like, oh, there's not enough research to show play therapy. Well, is it showing it doesn't work? Right. It's just there wasn't any funding for play therapy. It was mostly for others. So the ones that get funded are the ones there's more research for. Just like, anyway, I think TM is great, Transcendental Meditation, but there's other types that work great, but maybe they don't have the funding because it costs money to do TM,

which I think is not inherently great. But I just think funding and research, there's a whole other thing. And so I don't want that to play a role. And you have this diagnosis. I have to diagnose you with this. And now I have to treat you only. with the ways they say I'm allowed to treat you. So it really puts you in a cookie cutter box.

And I don't like that. As you can see with my approach to life, it's very broad and definitely doesn't fit in a box. And so for some people, they're wanting that, so they wouldn't necessarily work with me if that's what you're looking for. But when I teach at the university, I definitely bring up all these topics to intro to psych students and others who are going into psychology to make them aware. of what's available, all about different options. Yeah, it's too bad we don't measure the results instead of having to go back and find funding. Because if you have a technique that is helping people,

that should be the measure should be the result. Like, look, this person is better. You know, and not like, what, I took a million dollars for me to train these Pavlovian dogs with a whistle, you know. That's how I measure a result. My reason is the client. And so if it's working, then to help them be happier and healthier and fulfill their unique potential purpose, then that's what I do.

And so, and I'm really grateful to have been able to do this for in this lifetime to help people in that way. Yeah. Well, I think you've got an incredible insight and a incredible desire to help people, which is, I hope it's contagious. but more people get what you have and they go and they do that because it's a beautiful thing, Dallie, Beth. Thank you. Yeah. You know what?

So before we, I let you go, can you tell people a little bit more about your book and where they can find it? Where people can find you and what you have coming up? Thank you. Yes. My book is called Love is Not Enough. My Journey from Codependence to Awakened Goddess and they can find it on Amazon for $11 and $11. sense. Perfect. I believe in signs. Yeah, I love it.

It's because 11-11 and so guidance and so forth. And then Positive Health, Hawaii is my website. They can find there, all the different services I do from traditional psychotherapy to some of the other things that I spoke about. And then I teach for Hawaii Pacific University. So I teach there. So if they want to take classes at HBO, they can be very my student. I've taught the military campus and the regular campus, but the military campus for a long time and really

grateful. I've been at HP for 23 years. And then Happiness University with Alice Inouye, if they're not familiar with that, she's a great astrologist, and I do courses with her also for the state, and I'm really grateful to do that. And in the future, we'll be providing maybe some courses that could be helpful. So I will put that on the website. So if they want to contact me, don't laugh. But my email is Dollybath at AOL.com. I just, I know, I know. I'm not saying anything.

Yeah, I'm still at AOL. I have not moved from there. I have, of course, university emails and so forth. But that's the best way to reach me or the website. And if they have any questions or comments, I'd be happy to help. I really love referring people. like being in the field so long. So if you say, because there's new approaches that we didn't talk about,

like MERT and your feedback, M-E-R-T, 4, that can be helpful. So I'm very grateful for technology and your approaches, especially for neurological disorders like ADHD and autism, PTSD, and depression. So new technologies that I'm excited about. But I always feel like you have to balance because I know people who are doing your feedback, but that's great to rewire your brain for all of us. It's like brain gym. But you have to do the emotional work and the spiritual work too.

But if anybody has questions, I'd be happy to help. Yeah, those are great points. Those things go together. And the more technology we learn about brain mapping or those QEEG machines. And it's important to understand that those are all great maps, but they're not the territory. You've got to get in there with the emotions and understanding and stuff. So, well, I thoroughly enjoyed talking to you. I hope you'll come back and maybe we'll do some.

I got some more people that I think would be a great, it would be nice to have more people involved in our conversation and would maybe give us different dimensions and things like that. So maybe in the future we could have a further conversation about more topics. I would love to. This was really a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Yeah, the pleasure's all mine. So hang on a second. I'm going to shut us down, but I wanted to talk to you one more moment before I let you go. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for spending time with us. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as we did. And we'll be back soon. Have a fantastic weekend.

And tell people you love them. Aloha. Hello.