Harnessing Inner Strength: The Resilient Journey of Dr. Alan Weiser

Have you ever wondered how a single moment can redefine the trajectory of your life? Join us as we uncover the awe-inspiring journey of Alan Weiser, a clinical psychologist who turned a life-altering accident at the age of 12 into a narrative of empowerment and triumph. Hear firsthand how Alan's fortitude saw him through a year of immobility and led him to embrace activities that defied his prognosis, illustrating the true power of resilience and self-discovery. His story isn't just about overcoming physical limitations; it's about challenging the mental and emotional boundaries that life throws our way.

In our captivating conversation, Alan and I unravel the intricacies of emotions and thoughts as the crucibles of human experience. We discuss how integrating mind and emotions can unlock infinite potential, and how understanding the true meaning behind our emotions can transform our perception of anxiety and anger. Through Alan's personal insights and professional expertise, we explore the idea of collateral damages and the profound impact unmet needs can have on our well-being. Discover how embracing existential principles and recognizing the functional purpose of emotions can reshape your reality and aid in personal growth.

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Chapters

• 0:45 Overcoming Adversity
• 6:39 Personal Growth and Self-Discovery
• 14:21 Understanding Emotions and Self-Management
• 24:27 Embracing Existential Immune System Principles
• 38:39 Mastery of Emotions and Self-Centering
• 47:22 Unraveling Chronic Pain

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:45

Welcome to Empowered Within, a soul-quenching, transformational podcast that will set your soul on fire. Through candid and inspiring conversations, leading experts, celebrities, healers and I share our journeys of how we've overcome challenges to living an empowered life from within. I'm your host, jennifer Pilates. Welcome to another episode of Empowered Within. Hi there and welcome to the show. I am honored to have with us today's guest, alan Weiser. Alan is a clinical psychologist who has worked in the public sector mental health institutions for many years, becoming an expert at bringing people together in solving problems. He founded New Options Inc in 2002 to help people with chronic pain learn to fully engage in recovery. Allen's early experiences have made him unusually gifted and qualified to lead others in the process of overcoming major challenges, pursuing self-discovery and seeking inspiration and innate potential. Welcome to the show, alan.

Speaker 2: 1:52

Thank you, good to be here.

Speaker 1: 1:54

Oh, I'm so honored to have you here. You have an incredible journey that started when you were 12 years old. Will you share that story with us, that journey as to how your life really took a turn there and brought you to where you are today?

Speaker 2: 2:10

Sure, it's really symbolic of the work that I do. That'll become more obvious as we speak. So picture the situation. I'm a headstrong kid. I'm one of those children that wanted to figure things out for himself. So at 12 and a half I decided I want to do trick diving on the diving board and the first thing I'm going to do is a backflip. Right, but I'm going to figure out how to do it myself. I'm not going to take lessons. So I did find out something. When you do a backflip on a diving board, did you know you're supposed to dive out, not straight up?

Speaker 1: 2:44

I did not know that.

Speaker 2: 2:45

Yes, when you do it straight up, which is what I did, you come down on the board.

Speaker 1: 2:51

Yeah, that's not a good idea.

Speaker 2: 2:52

No, and that's what happened. I hit the board, broke my neck in two places and you know it was taken to the hospital. They put me in a cast. I knew I had a broken neck right, but picture the scenario right. I'm a confident kid, I'm relatively intelligent, I'm a risk taker, and then this happens. This is then compounded, right? You can imagine how I might've been feeling and how frightened I was probably at the moment. The doctor comes in my room for the first time and literally says this he says if you don't die and you're not paralyzed, you will be crippled for the rest of your life though I can't believe a doctor said that to you at 12 when I trust me in the work I do.

Speaker 2: 3:34

You'd be surprised what doctors say that you couldn't believe. They say and he did.

Speaker 2: 3:39

He did and that devastating. But this is the lesson learned that translates into the work I do at this point. I wasn't going to surface how I was reacting, I just wanted out of there. They kept me in the hospital over a month. They want to be there longer. I just made such a fuss they had to send me home. Then I spent a year on my back on a bed, not allowed to get out of bed or even get up. Right for a year with a brace on. When I eventually was able to get the brace off and get out of bed, it took me months to be able to walk normally because I was so atrophied.

Speaker 2: 4:14

But the entire time I'm going through all of this you know tutors coming from school this is, you know right going into middle school. If you talked to me I would have been cracking jokes. There's no way anybody knew how I felt about what was going on or how I reacted to it, and I didn't allow myself to know. I just kept persevering. So eventually I get past that. But they told me I was fragile. So no risk-taking, no sports.

Speaker 2: 4:43

It completely altered my life. And worse than that, I go from being a good student to getting close to failing in high school. Now here's part of the point that we'll talk about. I never understood why that happened, except if you'd asked me. I'm not that smart, so I didn't do well in high school. Big deal right In high school. I would have told you that I wasn't smart as a way of explaining the grades. The part I'd forgotten.

Speaker 2: 5:08

That didn't surface until about four years ago in a session with a patient when I was relating the story was the thought I had when the doctor walked into the room when he said what he said. The first thought I had, which I had buried instantly, was stupid, stupid, stupid. Look what you did. People don't understand that when you're injured, when things happen, when you have medical problems, when you have other life-shocking events, that it alters everything. I'm introduced to mortality at 12 and a half, introduced to vulnerability at 12 and a half, and my reaction to that was to deny all of it for years. Now you might ask what did I do to deal with the physical challenge by the time I got to college? I go, you know what. I can't live this way and if I'm going to have to go down, it's on my terms, not what the doctor said Now that could have been really foolish. It's not like I didn't respect them, but what do you think I did to challenge the idea that I was fragile?

Speaker 1: 6:06

Oh my God, tell me, you did not play football.

Speaker 2: 6:10

No, didn't do that, but I wasn't particularly interested. No, I did something a bit more direct. I signed up for judo and trampoline.

Speaker 1: 6:18

Oh, my goodness gracious.

Speaker 2: 6:20

Yeah, you've seen judo, you know what it looks like.

Speaker 2: 6:22

Absolutely yes yes, yeah, I can tell you. I remember the first throw with my instructor. I'm flying through the air and thinking to myself you're either done or maybe not, but I had no regrets. Right, bottom line is I was fine. I've done martial arts for over 50 years.

Speaker 2: 6:39

Ironically, I find out only about five or six years ago when I'm working with a chiropractor who does x-rays of my neck for the first time in a long time and he knew what happened. He goes I've never seen what I'm looking at before I go. What are you talking about? He says you appear to have had a natural fusion. He says it's unheard of Now why that happened.

Speaker 2: 7:04

Who knows, maybe it was being on my back with a brace, maybe it was me, I don't know. But the point being, I don't say the patients don't respect your doctors, but I do say don't take everything at face value. Now I could have done something less drastic, but it worked out. So the point is I challenged the physical limitations and found my way through that, but the emotional impact of that that lingered for years. But the emotional impact of that that lingered for years, the effect on my confidence, lingered for years. So understand that it's an existential impact, it's not just a physical problem and that if you don't look at what happens to you as a person when this is going on, you're really missing out on tremendous opportunity to heal and recover.

Speaker 1: 7:40

Right, which you definitely do. I want to touch on something. Do you feel that you really I mean, and especially being such a young person focused all those years, even through college, just on the physical aspect of I will persevere, I will move forward? When did your mindset and the emotion kind of come together? Generally the after effects for most people, right, I found that you know in my own trauma situations. It was like a year later and then maybe two more years later it was the next layer that you didn't know about. So I'm curious how that all came together for you.

Speaker 2: 8:16

Yeah, I've always lived a life that involves going outside my comfort zone and, as you know, if you do that, you're likely to find out things about yourself you don't know Often pleasant surprises, right. So you know, I went through college and then I went to law school and becoming a lawyer began to challenge this right, because being a lawyer is all about seeking the truth in things, and I knew that I had problems with confidence. I knew that I managed to get through college and law school by working really hard, because I didn't think I was smart, but I did think if I worked hard enough, maybe I could do okay. So that was always dogging my tracks and I go like what is that Right? So eventually I went to therapy. That was helpful, but what really turned the corner was when I decided to just quit everything, which came around age 30. I'd been on the treadmill, I'd done what was expected, I'd become a successful attorney. I had a lot of the attributes people look for and I'm going like something missing here. I'm not okay with me and I was fond of telling people I loved myself, but I knew it wasn't true, so it was kind of triggered by my father's death.

Speaker 2: 9:24

At that point. I just go like you know what? I've got $800 in the bank, I've got a backpack. I have a friend who lives in Amsterdam. I'm just going to throw myself out in the world and get out from under all the props In those days. No cell phones or computers, right. So I'm out in the world and I computers, right. So I'm out in the world.

Speaker 2: 9:42

And I spent months and months and months and eventually ended up living in Marrakesh and being adopted by Bedouin tribe. And what I found out when I was out there? Nobody cared about me being a lawyer or anything else about me. It wasn't relevant. Most people didn't even know. That was just me. And I found out that I was actually the kind of person I always wanted to be, but I didn't know that. And that included paying more attention to my feelings and realizing that I was naturally empathic with people and making that connection. I just wasn't giving that to myself. So a lot of encounters that challenged my sense of limit, that put me in touch, that I was not working through how I felt about it, that I've been traumatized and never, ever dealt with it.

Speaker 2: 10:22

And then I went to graduate school. Going through graduate school, I had to be in psychoanalysis. I was in psychoanalysis for 15 years, so all of those therapeutic processes, all of the challenges always looking for ways to be challenged beyond what I know all led to getting more and more connectivity with me. What really topped it off was actually the working with patients and spending 10 years working with a chronically mentally ill in the state hospital, working with people that are psychotic, will really test who you are and how much you care. And I go like actually I do and actually I need to get through a lot of these hangups because I don't know if you know about this, but psychotic patients have no filters and I would sit in a group therapy session with eight psychotic patients calling me out for stuff I didn't even know I had a problem with.

Speaker 2: 11:11

And I said to my supervisor at one point, after about eight months of this, I said I think I need to quit this profession because it's incredibly painful to go into these group therapy sessions, right, because they're coming at me with stuff I don't even know about. And she went yeah, you can quit or you can deal with what they're bringing up. You can tell what choice I made. So I think the bottom line for this in terms of the people that we're talking to in this conversation is if you give yourself opportunity to challenge what you think you know about yourself, if you give yourself opportunity to step outside your comfort zone, you will discover. What I have come to understand is incredible, infinite potential, but you can't get there if you don't become integrated as a person. So I don't. It's a long answer to your question, but it was a process.

Speaker 1: 11:59

It's a powerful answer and I I adore it. Thank you and what you just said. So here's the question. It's kind of like a chicken and an egg question. What do you think comes first? Do you take the leap of faith and along the way you find out who you are and you integrate, or do you integrate and then take the leap of faith?

Speaker 2: 12:26

and then take the leap of faith? Great question. I think it depends that everybody gets to where they want to go, depending on what works best for them. For me, it wasn't about just moving from the more conservative position to the other one. I've always been a risk taker. I've always been interested in what's beyond what I know, so that worked for me. That is not everybody's way of operating, so I think it comes down to really understanding what it takes for you to make changes. What I talk to patients about is I'm not interested in diagnostic labels. I don't think they're that helpful. What I tell people is you've got an operating system. Everybody develops a way of coping in the world, a way of getting their needs met, being safe operating system, and you may find that you have an operating system that has some non-user-friendly features. So it's not about you're broken. You need to be fixed. It's about upgrading the system. Microsoft doesn't go bad Windows 10. They go. Windows 11 is more user-friendly.

Speaker 1: 13:18

That is such a powerful statement and I hope that everyone pauses and rewinds and re-listens, because that is what we need more of in this world. You're not bad. You're not, maybe not wrong. You just need an upgrade. Keep moving forward.

Speaker 2: 13:34

Well, it's true, especially when I came to understand you're probably familiar with the existential immune system that's in the book Well, it's a very interesting concept, because I don't know if you've heard any place that we don't just have a physical immune system, we have a total immune system emotional, psychological and existential. Millions of years of evolution, incredible tools, and most humans have no idea. No idea, any human being that ever tells you that they're helpless and powerless has no idea what they are.

Speaker 1: 14:04

So when you're working, or when you even came to know the existential immune system, how did that come about? Explain to our listeners what it is so that they know, and how do we tap into it.

Speaker 2: 14:18

Okay, Great question. The basic way of thinking about this is would you agree that all human experience is translated into thoughts and feelings?

Speaker 1: 14:28

100% yes.

Speaker 2: 14:29

Everybody knows right.

Speaker 1: 14:31

Right.

Speaker 2: 14:31

That tells you thinking and feeling are really important. What they don't know is that thinking and feelings are tools. They're not just an experience, they actually have a functional purpose. And then the next question is okay, what determines thoughts and feelings? What do you think the answer is what determines thoughts and feelings? These are not fair questions, by the way.

Speaker 1: 14:54

I know, but you've stopped me in my tracks. I want everyone to know. So I need to think for a minute, thoughts and feelings I'm thinking, my environment, how I'm feeling emotionally in that, in that moment.

Speaker 2: 15:06

Well, part of it, but if you had to have one word to summarize it, what would it be?

Speaker 1: 15:12

My energy.

Speaker 2: 15:14

Perception, perception, yeah. For example, if I was at the scene of a car, what terrible car accident I'd probably be throwing up. That's why I'm not a physician, right.

Speaker 1: 15:24

Right.

Speaker 2: 15:25

But if I was an EMT, I'd probably be eating lunch while I'm picking up body parts. Same situation, different perception Right Now.

Speaker 1: 15:37

The next interesting question is what determines perception? Yeah, what does? Now you've got me, because I'm usually just in host mode. So now I'm really thinking, and I love this what determines perception? Well, your mind, but it's deeper than that. It's the programming that you have.

Speaker 2: 15:52

Awareness.

Speaker 1: 15:53

Awareness.

Speaker 2: 15:54

Which encompasses everything you were saying. All therapy raises consciousness, right, Right? Think about all the times in your life when you change the way you perceive something because you're at a higher level of awareness. The way you see the world is a five-year-old versus a 15-year-old versus a 25-year-old, right, it changes. So I go. Okay. If thoughts and feelings are that important because they define experience, my awareness is going to determine ultimately whether those are serving me as well as they could. Now, if I don't know that those are tools and they have a functional purpose, that's a major problem. For example, did you know that anxiety and anger are the most important human emotions of all?

Speaker 1: 18:01

I have not heard it stated that way, but now that you've stated that, I can understand. Yes.

Speaker 2: 18:07

Yeah, this is where the journey to answering your question began for me. I'm sitting with patients 20 years ago in a chronic pain management program, which is what I got into almost by accident. I was done with community mental health for a lot of reasons. I wasn't certain of what I wanted to do. I took this job I was used to working with chronically mentally I figured chronic pain not so different, right?

Speaker 2: 18:29

One of the first things I observed is that people with chronic pain have a lot more anxiety and anger than the average emotional patient in therapy. And initially I'm going like, okay, that's just a lot of suffering, right, the way most people experience those emotions. But I remembered something, some fundamental ideas, like there's a yin and yang to everything. Life's a two-edged sword. Being human, there's always the pluses and the minuses, I go. So what possible purpose could these emotions serve other than making you feel miserable? Right, and that's when I made a connection. I go like wait a second, they're having these emotions because their needs are being threatened. I began to understand collateral damage. This is a concept that is missing in our current understanding. It's not about what happens to you, it's about the meaning you attribute to it.

Speaker 1: 19:17

Wait, let's pause there for a moment. Say that again.

Speaker 2: 19:21

It's not about what happens, it's about the meaning that you attribute to it. For example, let's say you tell me you lost a job. I might have a general idea of how you might feel about that, but for all I know, you don't care about jobs, or maybe jobs define you. What we don't do often enough is go like what does that mean to you? And what I saw the current model was it was very superficial. Oh, you lost a job. That's terrible, not. What did it mean to you to lose a job? What was my life, what was your life Then? You're nobody anymore, but that's not being treated. So the concept of collateral damages came into this. That made more sense to me that you'd have a lot more anxiety and anger, because those are in reaction to a threat to your needs, right, right.

Speaker 2: 20:07

That led to analyzing for the last 20 years collateral damages work to 200 potential collateral damages and that evolved into, you know, traditional therapy. They look at negative thinking, right, self-judgment, that kind of stuff. This took that and exploded it Because I realized thinking is the second most important mechanism and is that working the way it needs to? Sorry, I interrupted you.

Speaker 1: 20:29

Oh no, that's okay. I was going to interrupt you so I wanted to get to the 200 plus collateral damages. I want to make sure that we all understand what you mean when you say that collateral damages.

Speaker 2: 20:39

I want to make sure that we all understand what you mean when you say that. Yeah, so, for example and this was all learned my patients are great teachers, right? This was all learned in that first five or six years. I didn't understand that I was going to develop a new model of treatment. That's exactly what happened, but that's not different than what I've done in the past with other things.

Speaker 2: 20:52

Let's say that you have an injury, a back problem, whatever. If you look at the book, you'll see sections about physical impact, personal impact, treatment impact. People don't know that there's major collateral damages. For example, if you have a physical problem, maybe your sleep's disrupted. Well, if your sleep's disrupted, that can add 50% to your pain 50. Not only that, but it undermines your immune system because it's supposed to reboot when you're sleeping. People don't know that. They don't know it's one of the consequences of having that injury. They lose physical conditioning. Well, add another 20 to their pain and interference with recovery because now they get reactivated before they can even benefit from rehab right right, so this started leading into.

Speaker 2: 21:38

There's a whole lot of things that are happening physically. What's happening personally? Just some examples. How important do you think a sense of continuity is in your life? Will you get up every day and things feel fairly continuous? What happens when you lose that?

Speaker 1: 21:55

I have to realign. I have to take a moment and realign.

Speaker 2: 21:58

But how do you do that when nothing is predictable anymore? You lose continuity and predictability. That is an existential collateral damage. You lose your sense of identity as a person existential collateral damage, self-regard, self-esteem, confidence. There's a long list of things that are affected by this and treatment. There's so many things that go wrong in treatment, and even more so now post-covid. So the book really analyzes. Here are the places where you can have a problem, here's the things you can do to deal with it.

Speaker 2: 22:32

But this over the last 20 years, evolved into understanding that all right well, thinking and feeling are that important. What's that all about? And that's when I came to understand that anxiety is basically a fire alarm. You will never feel any level of anxiety unless your needs are being threatened. So you don't ask yourself why am I anxious? You go. What needs are being threatened? Right? Our mission in life as human beings is to get all our needs met all the time. We have to have a warning system, right. And what about anger? Well, you need to have an action system to take care of the threats. And these emotions do not become unpleasant and destructive unless you don't know how to use them. Anxiety disorders, depression, you name it. This is based on a mismanagement of these emotions, not the emotions. They're not pathological.

Speaker 1: 23:21

There is natural as breathing, if you know how to use them okay, so I want to go back because that was very important what you just said. So, anxiety, anger, it's emotions that are mismanaged yes like it's like it like what is the root cause of your anxiety? What is the root like? Getting to the root versus just the topical? A doctor wants to give you a pill to help you out.

Speaker 2: 23:45

Yeah, that's why any philosophy or any medical approach that goes get rid of those emotions is making a huge mistake, huge.

Speaker 1: 23:53

Right. Well, clearly, look at our world.

Speaker 2: 23:56

Yeah, and that's why when I developed a technique for helping people properly manage these and they did there's something called the survival triad. It's a combination of all of the stuff I learned, but it's kind of like the Beatles. You know how the Beatles took everything that was already there in music but added something to it that was a bit new and unique. This approach does that. It's founded on all of the traditional approaches, but it goes beyond that.

Speaker 1: 24:19

Okay. So I have to ask then how does it go beyond that?

Speaker 2: 24:23

Well, I'll give you a quick run through.

Speaker 1: 24:24

Okay, yes, can we?

Speaker 2: 24:27

It starts when you're knowing that there's something you're thinking about or doing that's making you feel anxious, Right? So you go like, okay, that's the triggering event, that's what it's called, that's what started this right I'm thinking about. I got snubbed by a friend right.

Speaker 2: 24:40

It's making me feel anxious, right. And then I go like, okay, if I'm having that feeling, I know that thoughts create feelings, so I want to know what I'm thinking about that situation that might be making me feel anxious. And I literally list the thoughts. And it might be if my friend doesn't like me, maybe I'm not adequate. I'm going to keep it simple, right. Okay. Well, and it's making me anxious, let's say at a six or seven on a zero to 10 scale.

Speaker 2: 25:10

The next step is to go all right, what need does that thought represent? Well, if I'm feeling diminished as a person, that is a threat to my self-esteem. And then I'll go and go. Let's talk about what might help you to see that this has nothing to do with your self-esteem and that if you didn't feel diminished as a person, you might be bothered by the comment, but you wouldn't really care that much. So it's about getting into it. It's about valuing the process of the thoughts and also how that relates to your needs. And then the best part we have all of this wisdom and knowledge we've acquired, but if you get swept away by anxiety and anger, you can't get to it, you lose access. You're getting ready to fight the bear in the woods, where you don't want to be thinking at all, right.

Speaker 1: 26:37

Right.

Speaker 2: 26:38

Which, by the way, if you want to be a really good dictator and make sure you keep your followers always anxious and angry, because then they're not thinking anymore, they're not in connection with what they know- Gosh, when you say that, I mean, isn't that a lot of our society right now going on?

Speaker 2: 26:51

Absolutely, there's no question about it. But once you know, once you're grounded, it changes everything, because if you can address threats to your needs successfully, it changes everything. And so that is one of the main founding principles of the existential immune system using emotions, and all emotions have a functional purpose. Do you know what the purpose of sadness is?

Speaker 1: 27:12

No, please tell me.

Speaker 2: 27:14

The celebration of loss.

Speaker 1: 27:18

Sorry, so why that is Wow.

Speaker 2: 27:22

Why?

Speaker 1: 27:22

Because you and I both, oh no, you just gave me such a validation because I had a major loss before this podcast and I thought the show must go on. Yeah, and I probably sat and was a disaster for a long time, but it it's just what you said. It truly really is celebrating that person and when you can have that mindset shift, that's everything.

Speaker 2: 27:46

Yeah, and part of the reason I think of it as a celebration is you and I know this you choose to care about anything Like. Why do people care about pets? I mean, it's a bad deal. You get to have that pet for 8, 9, 10, 15 years and then they die and you suffer, right? You get involved with somebody and you commit for life and you're together for 50 years and they die and then you suffer. Anybody who chooses to love anything is going to be lining themselves up for considerable suffering. Do that? That's an act of courage, right? We both know what happens. If you don't do that, then you don't get to feel any connection or any of that joy in life. But I think it's courageous to care and if you lose because of it, I think that needs to be respected.

Speaker 1: 28:30

I agree with you. I love that. You just put courage with love. It's so true because you're putting everything out there and I feel right now that there's so many people that either do do that or completely cannot do that.

Speaker 2: 28:46

Yeah and love. You want to know what love's for.

Speaker 1: 28:49

Yes, please.

Speaker 2: 28:50

Yes, love is the reason why.

Speaker 1: 28:54

Love is the reason why.

Speaker 2: 28:56

Yeah, that emotion. If you experience that emotion, it's saying this matters. That's how you know.

Speaker 1: 29:04

I know some of this may be simplistic, but oh, I don't think I disagree. I think this is so weighted and so powerful. What you're saying Simple in words, but if you're really feeling it and listening to you, I think it's incredibly powerful and weighted.

Speaker 2: 29:18

Yeah. So the key principles in the existential immune system are you take care of the importance of feelings, which are more important than any other aspect of who you are, by learning how to make use of those feelings properly, knowing what they're for. When it comes to thinking, what you want to eliminate is judgmental thinking, assumptions, rationalizations, magical thinking, belief-based thinking. Look at how dangerous beliefs are in our world. You know, I've been watching the series the vikings oh, I have not seen that it's fascinating.

Speaker 2: 29:50

It's ultra violence. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, but the vikings believe that you can if you sacrifice yourself for the good of the tribe. You go to Valhalla and I'm going like that's really interesting because they absolutely believe it. Right, you imagine submitting yourself to being killed, not even burned alive right, but you consider this on trade to Valhalla right, a belief. Now, maybe that's true. For all I know, there is a Valhalla. But my point is you know how dangerous beliefs can be Right.

Speaker 2: 30:22

So part of the work is to make sure that your thinking is working objectively and addressing the truth. And a lot of the techniques for helping with this kind of thinking, which a lot of them are traditional, goes like no, it's not that Right, it's this. All of these approaches, using this system, will get you to the truth in whatever situation you're dealing with. The third part is conflict resolution Right, which I don't call resolution. I call it embracement, because conflict is not a problem. It's another tool, it's an opportunity for you and the other person to come together. It's not an argument, it's not a fight, unless you don't understand what you're trying to do with it. So get grounded in dealing with your feelings. Get grounded in dealing with your thinking, get grounded in your interpersonal relations, and then one of my favorites is called the self-regard rule. You learn to treat your needs as equal to everyone else. You don't make decisions to give up what you need without understanding the price you're gonna pay.

Speaker 1: 31:23

That's super important.

Speaker 2: 31:25

And then reviewing a person's childhood in terms of what did it mean to go through a childhood where that was going on? Not a psychoanalytic approach, a meaning-based analysis. Those are the five main principles. You put those all together and it is a incredibly powerful system yeah, incredibly powerful.

Speaker 1: 31:43

What would be your, your number one tip for helping someone? If someone goes, I have no idea how to be grounded in this world today. What would you say to that person?

Speaker 2: 31:53

to help them. I would say to that person that this is the nature of the human condition and that if you appreciate that everything, while it may be challenging and distressing, the flip side is it's an opportunity, every challenge we're facing right now. You think about this. If the world could come together around all of our common problems, we could solve all of it right. There's no reason why anybody in the world should go hungry or be without shelter or basic needs other than greed and primitive thinking. You want to know. My explanation is for the current state of the world and the craziness in it yes, please, yeah how's that the hubris?

Speaker 2: 32:30

I'll give you a simple explanation yes it's the cornered rat syndrome, all right. What do we know about animals? When animals are hungry and injured, what happens to their behavior?

Speaker 1: 32:42

Oh, it's, it's become aggressive. They're aggressive and self-serving. Right, it's not about you, it's about me.

Speaker 2: 32:49

You've convinced enough humans that they can never get their needs met. They become cornered rats. And what happened? What I think happened was this has always been around the disparity, the haves and the have-nots but the rest of the world didn't know it. With the Internet and social media, now everybody knows.

Speaker 1: 33:06

Right.

Speaker 2: 33:07

And it's gotten worse. That's why I think people don't understand. You can't rationalize with a cornered rat. You've got to feed them first. Now you're going to feed them with empty promises. Where are you going with that? So, as the Vikings learned this interesting lesson right, If you look at the Vikings as a show, they used to just go take what they wanted and commit terrible acts of violence to get it.

Speaker 1: 33:29

Right.

Speaker 2: 33:36

Where's Scandinavia today? As cultures, as operating countries, they're the safest and most peaceful places in the world. They're the ones who treat their citizens better than anybody else does. I guess they learned their lesson.

Speaker 1: 33:44

Isn't that fascinating? Yeah, isn't that fascinating.

Speaker 2: 33:48

They know Americans are childish. They don't understand, they don't get democracy. They don't know it's messy and it's in many ways dysfunctional. What's the alternative? If they understood what it meant to live in a dictatorship, they wouldn't be thinking it's a good idea to get rid of democracy. But, they're cornered rats if they're not thinking.

Speaker 1: 34:08

I don't think anyone is thinking. I think even pre-COVID is that I think some people were thinking, but some people were clouded. And since COVID I just feel like there's this glaze. And I mean I'd like to think that I'm a pretty open person and I have my eyes wide open and there's times where I go to say things to people and I'm like oh, I didn't realize that your eyes aren't open, I didn't realize that. You know, I feel like you have to be so careful now with whom you're speaking. One, because you don't want to set anyone off, of course, but two, it really is two worlds I feel like we live in right now.

Speaker 2: 34:52

Think of it this way the world is in a chronic pain situation and COVID brought it home for people in a way they couldn't ignore. They've been trying to ignore global warming and a lot of other problems. They could not ignore, COVID right.

Speaker 2: 35:05

And the world has yet to recover from the existential shock of that, because what it brought home is nothing's safe anymore. You might've thought you were safe. Nothing's predictable. You think there's always going to be enough water and enough food and enough land? Well, think again. Right, we're on the verge of destroying this planet, right, this planet as far as I can tell. What a gift can you imagine? A better designed environment to support life? And we're going to take that and, through our hubris, we're going to end up re-engineering it in a way that destroys it now, not to mention that we have this universe out there that has countless other worlds, our solar system. It's a garden, it's a paradise. Everything you need is out there, and what we're going to do? Kill each other instead.

Speaker 2: 35:52

I agree, yeah, but it's a chronic pain problem right, and if you don't address the fact that things have changed for people in ways they can't handle, if they don't evolve the way they're coping with that? What the world hasn't done yet is figure out a different way to cope with these major problems. You're falling back on old techniques.

Speaker 1: 36:10

Right In a new world, and it's not working.

Speaker 2: 36:13

That's right.

Speaker 1: 36:14

What would you, okay? So the president of the universe has come to you and said what should we do these poor people? What do we do?

Speaker 2: 36:25

Well, I've got an answer for that one too.

Speaker 1: 36:28

Yeah, I know you do, that's why I asked.

Speaker 2: 36:32

Yeah, I've been promoting this for a very long time. I'm a big science fiction fan, as you might guess. I've been saying to people for a long time we need to get them off planet. Humans are too primitive. We live. We can't live successfully in large numbers. It doesn't work. Cities are a disaster. Right, we need space. Right, we had the new world to come to here, but that's gone. There is no new world on this planet. Right, there's nothing that is unaffected by what's going wrong in the world. Get, get off planet. Reduce the population by 50%. Have people start populating other places, have opportunity and frontiers and new discoveries. That's the hope of the human race. As long as we try and figure it out here, it's not going to happen fast enough.

Speaker 1: 37:15

So when you say that, are you thinking like let's just go Star Wars, right, or maybe there's another beautiful planet, Maybe there's a sister earth. So are you saying like let's split people in half and send some people that want to go over to sister earth? Or are you thinking like let's just really depopulate and call it a day?

Speaker 2: 37:35

No, I think I would want to say to people look, I get that you no longer think you have opportunity on earth to have what you need in life, but there are places where you can make your own way. Just people did in this country. They came and they got land. They built what they wanted to do. So your opportunity to have what you want isn't necessarily here, but it could be out there.

Speaker 1: 38:00

Okay. So I'm going to go down another rabbit hole. So, like right now and I'm going to say allegedly cause I don't really know if this is true, but somewhere in our current world there's being a bridge that is being built to help people get to the United States easier that are not American citizens, would you suggest, if the United States isn't for you, it's a big world, there's plenty of islands Really expand, because there's some people that don't leave their mile radius. Right, you get comfortable, and I've been that person you get comfortable in your little zone. Would we start there to help people before they, or are we just going for it? We need people to expand.

Speaker 2: 39:23

I think of it a little bit differently. It's like saying to people look, I get it. I understand why you don't believe you can get what you need on this planet. That thing is what I learned working in the state hospital. I made a lot of changes and I kept fighting good battles, but I couldn't change the institutional structure. And I'm basically saying I don't think the structure of the way this planet operates and the way humans interact supports the kind of opportunity that you're really looking for. And who is it? The?

Speaker 1: 39:55

guy from SpaceX.

Speaker 2: 39:56

Oh, elon, thank you Musk. Well, he offered the opportunity to go to Mars. And how many people signed up for it? 200,000. There were plenty of people on this planet If you said look, if you want a better life, you want opportunity, you want more empowerment in your life, maybe you can get it here, right? That's where Shark Tank comes in, right.

Speaker 1: 40:15

Right.

Speaker 2: 40:18

Which is kind of the other end of the spectrum. Or go someplace where you can make your own rules, where you can make your own way, where nobody's competing with you for resources, because that was America when we started. You didn't like where you were. Go someplace else.

Speaker 1: 40:29

Right.

Speaker 2: 40:30

I'm leaving aside the Native population issue. That's a different story. So that's basically the idea that you tell people that there's a choice If you think the only opportunity you have to get what you need is on planet Earth.

Speaker 1: 40:50

I understand why people don't believe that anymore. Interesting, oh, my mind is just spinning right now.

Speaker 2: 40:53

Spinning because then you go to the philosophy of where did you really come from and maybe it's time to go home maybe so, and so that's always fun to think about and that may well be true, but it's it's more about we live in an infinite universe, right?

Speaker 2: 41:06

right, right you have all these worlds that can support life. You know people go like what's it all about? Why are we here? I think we're here to have fun. I think we're here to have fun by discovering things and being inspired and taking on challenges that promote personal growth, and we talk about people achieving enlightenment. What is that? As far as I can tell, what that means is that I feel at peace with myself, no matter what's going on. I may be troubled by things. I am never troubled about me, and that was a long, long journey to get from where I started at 12 and a half, to truly loving myself. But once that came to pass, everything changes.

Speaker 1: 41:50

How do you discern when you are at peace within, while the world around you is in chaos? Because there's a lot of people that I feel don't know what that feels like, that grounded, aligned, like okay, I see what's going on with the world around me, I am safe, I'm okay, I'm aware, but am I really in that chaos or am I just viewing it? How do you help someone to understand that it is okay to be grounded and to be within themselves at that? Well, because right now that's like. Every day it seems like.

Speaker 2: 42:27

Yeah, and I have an awareness of all of that. But one thing I've learned to do is I don't really think about things that don't serve me in the moment. I don't anticipate the future or think about the past unless it's a value. Now A lot of chronic pain patients anticipate the future or dwell on the past. It's not helpful. I'm aware I'm not ignorant of what's going on and what could down the drain. As a matter of fact, I'm acutely aware of what could go wrong and it's going to go wrong one way or the other.

Speaker 2: 42:50

It just depends on how bad it's going to be. But it's also a wake-up call, because I think that I don't want to be too political here. But let's put it this way I learned growing up that when you're a citizen, you have a responsibility. I don't know if that's still being taught in school. It doesn't look like it has been All right. This idea that people don't think the vote has power or what's under attack? Right? Why do you think that's been under attack?

Speaker 2: 43:15

The idea that voting is legitimate because that's the one place you can assert your power in a big country. So you're aware of things. But being centered just means I'm aware In the martial arts, especially when you get up in the higher ranks, where it gets more and more dangerous. The first thing you learn in the martial arts is how to center, how to be present in the moment. Nothing's getting in the way. Emotions are there, but they're not interfering. The thinking's not interfering. You mostly want to react and be as intuitive as you can be. People don't trust that. They think too much, they think in ways that aren't helpful, they don't know how to manage their feelings and then they're being addressed by all of these threats. Well, no wonder it becomes a tower of Babel.

Speaker 1: 44:00

Exactly, exactly how I don't want to say this in helping someone who's going. Okay, this has been an incredibly powerful conversation because it has it holds a lot of weight for what everyone is going through in the world right now. Regardless, in one way or another, somebody's feeling something from this podcast. Where should they begin in this moment in time to ground and master their emotions?

Speaker 2: 44:31

That's a big question. Part of it depends on where they are. A lot of people may already have skills. I certainly had opportunity being a lawyer. I learned a lot of those skills martial arts, absolutely being a psychologist right, being a psychologist, if you're going to be good at it, you have to be able to be present and centered and not entangled in reaction, right? So I think, number one, where are you to begin with? If you were, are you even a person who understands that you could do that? A lot of people don't get that. They often struggle with the techniques that I use because you have to get focused and centered first before you actually get into the good stuff and the techniques, and people get impatient really fast, right? So, if you understand that, if you can be calm in the storm, did you ever see a movie called we Were Soldiers with Mel Gibson?

Speaker 1: 45:23

I don't think so.

Speaker 2: 45:25

Yeah, I'm not necessarily recommending it, but it's an earlier Mel Gibson movie. He plays the leader of the first troop of soldiers that were sent into Vietnam and for some odd reason they dropped these soldiers behind enemy lines and they encountered the equivalent of Custer. Know Custer's last hand? They were surrounded, they were cut off. Help is not going to get them soon enough, and I'm sure it was Hollywood.

Speaker 2: 45:51

But there's this great scene where the bullets are flying, the bombs are going off, people are dying and Mel Gibson's standing in the middle of all of this, literally standing, you know, like he's on a sunny day, looks completely calm and he's just observing, not thinking. He's observing and in observing he sees something and he sees the way out and he ends up saving the truth right. When we're confronted by threats, we are going to react to them. If you know how to manage your emotional reaction to it, your thinking reaction to it, you can stay in the center. These techniques get you centered, they get you grounded, they allow you to get into it. You don't want to avoid it, you want to get into it, you want to embrace it.

Speaker 2: 46:39

And I know there's lots of things in life people don't want to look at or face, but if you don't, it does not help. So it starts with where you are. It starts with whether you really understand the value of doing that, and with all of my patients that becomes an issue very quickly. And there's different practices. I'll help people get into Qigong, tai Chi, meditation, other kinds of practices they can do that will help to encourage that process. But frankly, sitting in a session with me, if you don't get centered you're not going to benefit from it. So it's kind of a learning process that sounds amazing.

Speaker 1: 47:13

Who wouldn't, after this conversation, be knocking down your door for a session? I think I mean you should have a wait list after this podcast, for sure well to.

Speaker 2: 47:22

To be candid about this, a lot of this is educational. I mean, we're having a conversation. You can benefit from having just heard some of the ideas, right? So what we've done is we have something we're going to be launching in the fall a self-study program. So I did videos with my partner on the entire model. We did a workbook to go along with the book and also other helpful materials. So what you're going to do now is you'll do the self-study, right, the book's out there and that's useful, but a workbook makes it even easier, right? And then videos, and then you're going to come to live webinars, which we're going to launch in September. Think of it this way you might get to being from a white belt to a green belt doing self-study, but the nuances and the finesse of this you get into by coming to these live webinars. Those are like round belt, light belt seminars, because a lot of this can be conveyed through education.

Speaker 2: 48:15

People do not need to be my patient as a therapist for them to benefit from this model. I've already worked with a lot of people purely on consulting and education, not therapy. It is, by definition, therapeutic, but just so people know, you don't have to see me as a therapist. To benefit from this approach, you don't have to live in the state that I'm licensed in. If I'm consulting or we're doing educational work, I don't care. Where you are Doesn't matter. None of those limitations exist. And this approach is so powerful because, remember, I've seen over 2,500 patients. I have a huge sample set, no experimental findings but anecdotally, this works and it works better than anything I've ever encountered. And that's why, if you look at the book, you'll see some very important physicians endorse the book.

Speaker 1: 49:02

Incredible physicians endorse your book.

Speaker 1: 49:06

And there's one actually speaking. You segued perfectly into this. Thank you, alan. There is a quote and it's in your book and on the outside of the book and it says it is more important to know what sort of patient has a disease than the sort of disease the patient has. And this is a well-known doctor who said this is exactly the kind of person that you are, and I think that this is exactly what we need in our world today. It's what we've always needed, and now I feel we're finally ready for it. We're also in desperate need of that of people as we've been speaking, ready for it. We're also in desperate need of that of people, as we've been speaking, looking at a person as a whole body, mind and spirit, not just the pain that you're in.

Speaker 2: 49:49

That's right. But the point I really want to make about this is look, it's a journey and I will tell people look, you know what, If you don't like the idea of self-discovery and self-exploration and personal evolution and upscaling your operating system, don't even get started right but understand that, even though it might take a while to get to that, there'll never be a session where you don't benefit from it.

Speaker 2: 50:13

It's like martial arts there's no workout that doesn't help. Even even if you're a white belt and it's going to take years to get to black belt. There's no wasted effort. So, but remember what I'm getting at. If we are what I think, we are creatures of incredible potential, much of which we haven't even learned. The physician within. Do you know? Uh, gladys mcglary, have you ever, have you seen a 103 year old doctor?

Speaker 2: 50:37

amazing yeah, I mean, I just recently discovered her, but that's her approach. Is the physician within. Yeah, I mean, I just recently discovered her, but that's her approach. Is the physician within? I actually believe that we don't need medicine, that we actually have the ability to do those things, but our society, western culture, does not focus on evolving those spiritual gifts. They don't evolve in knowing it. And think about this. One last thought on this that existential immune system includes every attribute of being a human being, for example, smiling. From an existential point of view, what's the value in smiling?

Speaker 2: 51:11

oh, it's contagious it's also transformational just smile right now and see what happens. It changes everything. We have all these attributes as a human being that are incredibly powerful, right, and we don't appreciate. That's part of our tools. And if we know how to use them properly, how do we use optimism or pessimism? Does that work right? Any attribute of being human is a potential tool to be made use of, but most people don't think of it that way.

Speaker 2: 51:41

Once you understand that and you go like I've almost died five times in my life, not just working neck interestingly, the role associated with water but each time I found out that I had more to go than I knew the martial arts, it says to you basically, you don't know limits. If you're interested in finding out what your limits are, you have to engage, you have to get onto the mat and actually try. People who have chronic pain and I think this model applies to any chronic suffering, not just physical pain they're afraid to get on the mat. You get them on the mat. You get them to engage, you get them to contend. You help them to understand they're not one trick ponies that whatever you used to be and could be, that does not define you right.

Speaker 2: 52:29

Your self-esteem has nothing to do with who you are. That is a gift from your system. Self-love is not conditional. We make it conditional, but it isn't conditional. So I want people to get that that if you truly connect to who you really are and what you are and we do this right. We look at people that overcome challenges. Stephen Hawking, right. How do you do that? How do you do what he did right? We look at shows. They're always showing people that overcome, but people don't get it. We're all that person.

Speaker 1: 52:58

Alan, this has been amazing. This is definitely one of the podcasts for the VIP section, the one that you always want to keep on and go back to every day, because I feel like there's going to be a new nugget that you're going to embrace in that next day when you're more prepared for it and dive deeper, and dive deeper. I can't thank you enough. This has been so amazing. Will you share with our community your book and where they can get it and where they can connect with you?

Speaker 2: 53:27

Yeah, the best opportunity would be go to the website newoptionsinccom. That'll connect you to other podcasts I've done a lot of information about the approach and directly connect you to Amazon. That's where the book is and also it will be announcing upcoming events that, like I said, anybody from anywhere could hope to participate in. Like I said, remember, the opportunity here is to learn. You don't have to necessarily think of it as just working with a therapist. I think it's a huge difference.

Speaker 1: 53:58

I agree with you a hundred percent and it's just the well-roundedness and the book is amazing. So I just let's see here if I can get it here. There we go, A little picture. The book is new possibilities, unraveling the mystery and mastering chronic pain. And this is not a book to just go. I'm going to sit down and read. This is the. You're digesting this. This is a novel. This is like the movie of all movies that you want to sink your teeth in and just ground into that moment with what you're reading and ruminate on it. And so I do feel, and for all my spiritual practitioners that are out there, it's definitely a book that you want to have on your shelf, for sure, and to help open up your consciousness.

Speaker 2: 54:40

One more step Thank you, I appreciate that feedback. I worked for seven years on that book, went through about three editors and a lot of iterations. I wanted it to be readable, but I also recognize it introduces so many new ideas that that takes a long time to digest, which is why we're doing this more intensive approach, because that'll move things along a lot more rapidly for people. But I really appreciate the feedback absolutely well.

Speaker 1: 55:05

As we close out the show today, alan, is there one last piece of advice or inspiration that you would like to leave with us all?

Speaker 2: 55:12

be grateful for being alive. I get up every morning, I go oh okay, I'm alive, everything else is cool, it's all gravy beyond that. Appreciate right, as long as you're alive, there's possibilities, right.

Speaker 1: 55:25

Endless possibilities, yeah.

Speaker 2: 55:28

So that would be my sort of final advice.

Speaker 1: 55:31

Thank you for that. I appreciate it. And again, thank you for your time today. Thank you for all your seven years into this book. That is amazing and then definitely will stand the test of time, without doubt.

Speaker 2: 55:42

Cool and thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity to share.

Speaker 1: 55:46

Thank you, alan. All of Alan's information will be over in the show notes on JenniferPlatyscom, so we'll have the links to the book, to his website, so that you can get in touch and you can enjoy opening and expanding your subconscious even more than we already have done today, opening and expanding your subconscious even more than we already have done today. So, as we say, until next time.

Speaker 2: 56:10

May you live an empowered life from within.

Speaker 1: 56:11

Amen to that. You so much for tuning in to another episode. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe to Empowered Within with Jennifer Pilates. Your feedback is important. It helps me to connect with you and gives me insight into who you are and what you're enjoying about the show. For today's show notes and discount codes from today's sponsors head over to JenniferPilatescom. Until next time, may you live an empowered life from within.