Safety and Wholeness through the Vagus Nerve with Michael J. Shea

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]The sympathetic nervous system is designed to access joy and the parasympathetic nervous system its design capacity is to access happiness and bliss. And this is very very important that that we are in a culture now that is so much using the default of the stress response with this autonomic system and especially with the vagus nerve.

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[00:01:28]Thinking Aloud, Conversations on the Leading Edge of Knowledge and Discovery with psychologist Jeffrey Michionlo.

[00:01:44]>> Hello and welcome. I'm Emmy Vades, co-host with Jeffrey Michishlo. Our topic today is safety and wholeness through the Vegas nerve with my guest Dr. Michael Shea who holds a doctorate in somatic psychology from the Union Institute and a master's degree in Buddhist psychology from Nuropa University. He has taught at the UPLE Institute, the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute, and the International University for Professional Studies. He is a cranial sacral therapist, a licensed massage therapist and an educator with the SHA educational group that is a center for the study of the human heart. He is author of somatic psychology and biodnamic cranial sacral therapy volumes 1 through 5. Myofascial release therapy a visual guide to clinical application. Myofascial release therapy and biodnamic cranial sacral therapy. The heart of the practice. The biodnamics of the immune system, balancing the energies of the body with the cosmos and the biodnamic heart.

[00:02:50]Somatic compassion practices for a clear and vital heart. If you enjoy this program, please like, subscribe, press the bell icon, and share. Michael is joining us from Juno Beach, Florida.

[00:03:04]Now, I'll switch over to the internet video. Welcome, Michael. It is a joy to have you back with me on New Thinking Aloud today.

[00:03:12]>> Emmy, it's a pleasure to be back. It's It's good to see you and it's good to see that you're surviving a cold climate cuz I'm in a warm climate.

[00:03:20]Yes, we are warming up here in Minnesota and I'm happy to talk with you because in our last conversation we talked about having a strong heart with compassion and today we're going to go maybe a little bit more deeply into the nervous system and talk about the vagus nerve which is connected to or innervates the heart. And to get us started, can you share a little bit about what is the vagus nerve and what role does it play in the body?

[00:03:50]>> The vagus nerve is part of the what's called the autonomic nervous system. So for the listener, we have two parts of our autonomic nervous system that regulates our physiology, our breathing and the heart rate and digestion. And one is the sympathetic version. Um, and that's we usually associate that with fight flight, but it's also associated with joy and happiness. But the other part of the the uh autonomic nervous system is rest and relax. And that's the the parasympathetic nervous system. And 75% of that rest and relax parasympathetic system is called the vagus nerve. And it's it's a super highway in the middle of the body, intervating every organ and sending tons of information up to the brain and then back down to the to the body.

[00:04:42]>> It is also the 10th cranial nerve. We have is it 12 cranial nerves? Is that right? That come out of the the brain.

[00:04:50]>> That's true. We have 12 cran 12 pairs because we have a pair and they they each of them come out, you know, the side of the head and back of the ear and down the side of the neck.

[00:05:00]And that is the 10th cranial nerve and it comes from two nuclei in the brain stem. So it's a very big big nerve.

[00:05:08]>> Well, it runs through a lot of organs in our bodies and as you say it can impact our ability to feel safe or if we feel threatened and to really understand that if our environments are safe or not. And I'm wondering if you can share what role the vagus nerve plays in our sense of safety, our emotions, and our minds.

[00:05:33]>> That's really good because we're kind of jumping right to the to the juicy part of it, which is, you know, the acquisition of safety. And I want to give an homage and a call out to Steven Porges because it's Steven Porges uh who developed what's called the poly veagal model, polyagal theory. and it started in 1990 and I happened to be exposed to it as it came out and so I've been able to study that for a long time. So in in the poly vagal theory just to start off with that and jumping right into safety is that his theory and and it's really been borne out through many many authors in in many clinical conditions is that there's a part of our brain that when we're with another person uh or we're in a certain situation that we're always unconsciously registering am I safe or am I not safe. Okay. And he coined the term neurosception. So the neurosception of safety. Am I safe in this social environment? Because if unconsciously emmy I don't feel safe, I have to do a lot of inward unconscious and conscious changes in my physiology. I might have to raise my heartbeat. I might go into fight flight and switch over into the sympathetic system. And I might go into fear, something like that. So it it's kind of got a hair trigger in the brain because we are constantly when we're in relationship with another person, we are constantly unconsciously evaluating am I safe with this person. So I think that's a very important thing to understand and that level of safety is registered in the vagus nerve as well as other structures in the brain. But it's the vagus nerve that's going to convey information then to the rest of the body how to respond to whether I feel safe or I don't feel safe. So that's the the first dynamic associated with that. And then we get to the heart because then the vagus nerve comes to the heart and and we know the vagus nerve and there's a lot of different ways in which the vagus nerve is discussed in the heart.

[00:07:44]veagal tone, veagal maneuvers, heart rate variability. But all of these terms relate to our heartbeat. I mean, it's as simple as our heartbeat because it's the vagus nerve that's regulating 70 beats a minute. So when that goes more than 70, then we're we're into that sympathetic, you know, possibly not safe, but also could be a very excited, you know, we could be excited, we could be in love, and we could have a really, you know, accelerated heart rate. So that really depends on how we're interpreting the situation. So to understand the vagus, we first have to understand the the the emotional safety that it's registering in the heart and then social safety as it's it's registering in the brain.

[00:08:30]>> My understanding is that it is Latin for wandering. So it's a wandering nerve because it moves throughout the body and it's is it the longest nerve in the body?

[00:08:41]>> Oh yeah, it and it wanders everywhere.

[00:08:44]And as a matter of fact, there was a big grant, I think, given to Duke University and Case Western University, and they're they're trying to map the entire Vegas nerve of of where it goes, every single intervation, and that might be coming out soon. But for the listener, I can tell you it goes everywhere and intervates everything. So, every organ, it knows everything about our body and it's sending that information up to the brain. As an occupational therapist, when I was in college, I had to take my anatomy and physiology classes, and my teacher would call the Vegas nerve that flashy nerve, right? Because of Las Vegas. So, I think that that was a a fun way for us to recall the Vegas nerve as well.

[00:09:30]>> I like that. And I frequently misspell it in my writings. And so, I've just put it I always put in sometimes Las Vegas just for that reason. So dovetailing on our last conversation, you mentioned that the vagus nerve is connected to the heart. How does it help us to feel safe or whole? What is that relationship >> when we are consciously aware of our heartbeat? So like sitting here because I get a little nervous before I do interviews like this, you know, and I can feel my heart rate, but in the middle of the night I feel my heart rate and but I've trained myself to feel my heart rate regularly because the other interesting research that dubtales with this is that when we can consciously feel our heartbeat, Emmy, it builds empathy. And and we Steven Porges has made the connection that this building of empathy through conscious awareness of our heartbeat is the foundation for in the ignition of compassion and directly related to how we respond with wisdom and compassion to the environment around us. So he makes the case of the connection of the Vegas really spiritually to the heart but through the science of empathy and compassion that we know is linked now to the Vegas nerve.

[00:10:52]>> I had the pleasure of interviewing a shaman from South Africa John Lachley. He wrote a book, Leopard Warrior, and he talked about a meditation of what you just described, of simply sitting and having a cup of tea, or a beverage of your preference, such as what you're drinking today, Michael, and and just simply maybe placing your hand on your heart or just feeling or listening to your own heartbeat as a form of meditation.

[00:11:28]until you finish your your warm beverage.

[00:11:33]>> Yes. Yes. Well, there's um it's very interesting that it's very popular to put your left hand over your heart and then the right hand over the abdomen because that's where the vagus nerve ends just below the umbilicus. So, you put your left hand over your heart and the palm of your right hand below your umbilicus. And then you simply allow your breath to drop into the lower hand.

[00:11:56]And that's that's very precise anatomical breathing. So when we're stressed out, we tend to breathe up higher and that that really puts pressure on the vagus nerve. So we we have this is a really wonderful veagal stimulation actually without electrodes.

[00:12:15]And we can we can do this type of breathing and just allow our breath to come into the lower abdomen and that creates better veagal tone. It it really registers in the heart. It can lower heart rate and and increase the feeling of safety in our whole body because we have the neurosception social safety system and we have the emotional safety system but in the abdomen the vagus nerve is registering metabolic safety and and because of we have so much food trauma from processed food that that we are traumatizing ourselves and the vagus nerve picks up on that because it's it it it's lining the gut. It it's lining and connecting to the immune system to the epithelium to the interic nervous system all the organs and it it sends these signals of not safe metabolic not safe and that creates an inflammatory condition because the immune system is creating inflammation and then what happens is the vagus nerve tries to fight that and it sends anti-inflammatory signaling. But if you're still traumatizing yourself with the same old food, you've got a war going on and it's out of control basically. And that's a problem because the vagus then cannot transmit proper signaling of metabolic safety to the heart and brain. And and it really it goes down. It doesn't terminate in the pelvis, but it it it synapses with the splantic nerves or what are called the sacral outflow of the parasympathetic nervous system in the pelvis. And so it's registering everything that's going on in the pelvis as well. So, and there's a lot of abuse and pelvic abuse and sexual abuse and the vagus nerve is also also sending that type of signaling of protection uh and lack of safety all the way from the pelvic floor and it goes to the heart and then it goes to the brain.

[00:14:23]>> Yes, there's a lot more awareness about trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, which I know we also talked about in our previous conversation. And it makes me think of Dr. Herbert Benson, the cardiologist who coined the term the relaxation response, which is the opposite of the stress response. So the stress response being the fight, flight, freeze, and there's kind of a newer term or fawn. And then the relaxation response of rest and digest. And it seems that the science of the vagus nerve has really taken his work and others deeper.

[00:14:58]>> Yes. And and I think it's important to understand that a lot of the conversations around the vagus nerve, just like we just kind of looped into trauma and we looped into stress, but when you really look at at the the neurology of this that the original function is the the sympathetic nervous system is designed to access joy and the parasympathetic nervous system its design capacity is to access happiness and bliss.

[00:15:29]And this is very very important that that we are in a culture now that is so much using the default of the stress response with this autonomic system and especially with the vagus nerve and it it's really I mean my work is about undoing that you know helping people to dissipate their trauma and to reaccess that that original function of joy happiness and bliss with the with the vagus nerve but with ourh behaviors and with our state of mind.

[00:16:01]>> Absolutely. And that's why I wanted to have a conversation with you and and why the title of safety and wholeness through the vagus nerve I thought would describe our conversation because I think many people are looking for ways to feel more joy and happiness. I mean, you don't have to look too far. I'm in Minnesota, you know, and we've had a very very tough winter here with uh how our community has been very challenged and and continues and you don't have to look very far to see a lot of challenges not only internally but also externally.

[00:16:35]So that's why I want to talk with you is to discuss the ways that people can understand what the vag nerve is and how they can connect with it in their own lives to experience more of that sense of safety versus threat and to feel more whole, complete and joy as you have been describing. my piece on that as I not only see what's going on in the world and I get asked to speak about it regularly because I'm ex-military but I think the the first thing is that you know we have to turn inward most people are not used to turning inward and having that inward journey you know of settling the mind and what happens when we turn inward is we have to face our fear you know because it's it's the fear that gets generated around let's say what's happening in the world or what was happening in Minnesota. But at at that really gut level, we have to go inside and we have to grapple with that fear ourself on our own. And we have to come into relationship with our organism, with how our nervous system works. But our nervous system is also linked to how our mind works, how our thoughts work. And I was shocked when I looked at the research in writing the the heart book that we think 186,000 thoughts a day approximately.

[00:18:00]I don't know how they counted that many, but I certainly seem to have that many from time to time. But what's interesting in the research, Emmy, is that 66% of our thoughts on a daily basis are negative. Negative. So we are doing ourselves in by the nature of our thoughts and we know from meditation we know from contemplative neuroscience that we can turn inward and we can stimulate let's say our vagus nerve through a wide variety of contemplative techniques in order to reduce fear. We have to reduce fear, come into relationship with fear so that we can see the substrate of that is openheartedness, openheartedness, light-heartedness, empathy and compassion. And we can build that continually. But we have to come into and and really grapple with our fear and make friends with our fear. You know, feed your demons is what Llama Sultra Malleion says in her Tara Mandelola community in Colorado. I love her book.

[00:19:03]you know feeding your demons. We have to really look at those demons that are gripping us which means our mind and our body and how it's relate.

[00:19:12]>> You mentioned the term poly vagal theory and can you share a little bit more about the physiology or the science of the poly vagal the how the vagus nerve has a vententral and dorsal and multi- neuronal or however you describe it component.

[00:19:32]Well, I'm going to have to give a thousand words to get an image, you know, because we're not doing PowerPoint right now, but I think it's important.

[00:19:38]We've already mentioned that it's a cranial nerve and it comes out both sides. So, we know that it's coming out both sides. And the poly vagal theory, it's it's very it's wonderful because I had to study the evolution of the human central nervous system in my doctoral work anyway. So it was very convenient that here's a theory that looks at the evolution of the autonomic nervous system. And it it would appear from from the evolutionary research that the sympathetic nervous system really develops first, you know, because we have to get to this protective dynamic, you know, in case we're threatened, which was very easily done in in in earlier times. And we're talking about the precamrian period. We're talking about 450 million years ago, 500 million years ago in terms of the evolution of of the human central nervous system. But the the idea here is that the theory is that because our nervous system and the vag nerve has gone through these evolutionary steps, the the first one being that fight flight, but then the second one being the older Vegas where we have strategies for dissociation and dissociation for death figning and this was what the early research was showing that when an animal is threatened sometimes they they just pass out.

[00:20:59]That's what some humans do.

[00:21:00]>> Play dead. Yeah.

[00:21:01]>> Yeah. Play dead. And and that's that's actually the older vagus creating vaso veagal syncopy and lowering heart rate and bingo you pass out. It's a wonderful protective mechanism. But then the polyagal theory says well wow you know that we socially we evolved you know and we don't have to get into social evolution right now but into communities in which safety was a of a bigger priority for longer periods of time in order to to grow crops and and have a community that could grow and develop and consequently the new Vegas. So, we have the old Vegas, the default Vegas, and then we have a newer Vegas that's much more socially oriented. And that's the one we were just talking about originally, the in the brain and heart.

[00:21:51]And the older vagus also comes down and has functions in terms of breathing and heart, but it primarily goes down into the gut. And that's the ancient system.

[00:22:02]I'm telling you, the gut is ancient history. And that's where the older vagus really shines in terms of its function down below the gut. So that's the evolutionary dynamic. And when we are threatened, when we are stressed, we tend to go through these these loops.

[00:22:24]We if we can, we'll get a green light and we'll manage the stress on the spot and not get too hyped up. But then if it's too much, too much trauma, too much stress, we will go to the deeper strategy which is dissociation and death feigning. And then if if that doesn't work, we'll go into full combat mode with was sympathetic and we'll go crazy.

[00:22:48]I my master's degree in contemplative psychotherapy.

[00:22:53]The man that was running the program, a brilliant psychiatrist, was a specialist in psychosis. So I became I did internships in in psychosis and became very familiar with when people really go crazy at that level. So and and when we default into that really really deep state and we see that on the planet now we see pe basically people going crazy. So that's that's putting it mildly.

[00:23:23]You mentioned four types of safety in your immune system book and I'm wondering if you can describe those and then maybe we can go a little bit more into what people can do to increase their veagal tone or to have a better relationship to feel more of that joy sense of safety and wholeness.

[00:23:44]>> Well, it's it's an inside job. you know, it's up to it's up to each individual and everybody's aptitude because we all have a different set point for how our nervous system is organized. So, it's going to be a little bit different for everybody. But one of the things I discovered and I just love the work of Sandra Bloom. She's a Harvard trained neurossychiatrist in Boston and she wrote a series of books called creating sanctuary and the sanctuary model and it dubtales very well with the poly vagel because she goes into the four types of safety and it's very similar to how porges parses it out and those four types of safety we've already mentioned but I'll mention them again. And so you've got social safety, emotional safety, metabolic safety, and the safety in the gut or in the pelvis she calls moral safety. She doesn't specifically aim for the for the pelvis, but it it just makes it easier to understand that some types of trauma are moral injuries and and that's that's defined in PTSD. And so a moral injury and moral safety and we see a lot of that with sexual abuse and and pelvic trauma both in men and in women.

[00:25:02]So those are the four types of safety moral, metabolic, emotional in the heart and the social safety in the brain.

[00:25:11]>> What can we do to feel more safe?

[00:25:15]The Daly Lama said that there's a thousand spiritual aptitudes and and I really think that you know we could there's a lot of books written about poly bagel theory and psychotherapy and and all of that and and I think it's it we really have to embody these principles and I think we we really it's so critically important in the world we live in right now that we adopt a spiritual attitude and we we look to see what is our spiritual formation and how am high maturing spiritually because I could give a formula. I've got my formula. I you know I've I I practiced meditation for 25 years shamata vapasa in the Tibetan Buddhist community and then for the last 16 years I've been doing tantric visualization practices and and many of them again to reduce fear in order to open up to a greater sense of freedom freedom from neurotic thinking freedom from this torrent of thoughts every day that the incredible amount of concepts that are polarizing and and just getting a sense of freedom for that. And that's a that's the ability to turn inward and to meditate.

[00:26:27]But what if someone doesn't have that aptitude and they they aren't able to turn inward and develop a a sense of coming into relationship with their body? let's say through hatha yoga, tai chi, chi kong that you know the the the basic practices that are being used now that are researchbased that are really really helpful to get grounded and embodied and less fearful. It's reducing fear. So there there's the whole dynamic of forest bathing and and moving our attention moving moving out into the world of nature. I say we have to move away from the corporate world, go inside in order to make a better connection with the natural world outside. So I live by the beach. I spend at least an hour a day, five days a week at the beach meditating, looking at the horizon and and finding that way. Before we did our talk this morning, I did a 15minute meditation practice and I have a guru yoga practice that I do with my teacher.

[00:27:32]I'm a Tibetan Buddhist teacher. So, I'm very engaged at that level. And that's what's important is whatever your spiritual practice is, it's got to be creative.

[00:27:44]If you think you have to meditate at 9:00 every morning on the dot, you might be missing something. you you're you're getting into a rigidity there that doesn't offer a great deal of freedom.

[00:27:55]It gives you discipline on the spot.

[00:27:57]Yes, I don't want to put that down. You sometimes we need that discipline, but I'm promoting a type of spiritual maturation and spiritual authority that gives us direct access to our own divinity as it lives in our heart. And we can do that a number of different ways. turning inward but also turning outward to the natural world or a combination of those two things.

[00:28:22]Yes, I went to the yoga studio for a couple years and in the second year I started to notice how disciplined I was and that I realized wait a minute I think the purpose of this is to also really feel joy and one of the yoga teachers there I think sub was a substitute teacher for my teacher one day and he made that point exactly and so I started approaching my yoga practice more with a sense of joy versus I have to do this or this is something I have to do to feel better. It was more of being being with the experience and the joy of it and not only what it can do for us but enjoying the process as well, >> right? And I I think with that, you know, what it gets down to is, you know, that when you hear somebody high level Tibetan lama say no meditation, basically what that means is that every moment we're in in our life is a meditative possibility. To sever that relationship with with negative thinking, to sever the relationship we have with polarizing concepts, to sever that relationship with negative emotions. Every moment is the supreme spiritual experience as one llama said and that's challenging to live in the moment because it takes practice to keep letting go of thoughts, concepts and emotions. But that's the work is every moment of our life is the spiritual possibility >> and the vagus nerve does help us with assessing discerning what is safe and what might be a threat. I mean, that's a basic human survival pattern or the a survival imperative, if you will, of being able to discern when we're walking down the street, is this person who's walking toward me, are they safe or unsafe? Is my environment safe or unsafe? I hear these planes overhead.

[00:30:24]Are they military planes that might cause harm? Or are they some, you know, transporting somebody medically or what have you?

[00:30:34]Right. And once we have those thoughts, see, here's the point. Once we have those thoughts, because I have them, I have them all day. Because of where I live, there's big military transport planes coming in. Just saying. And I understand that. But once the once we recognize, you see, spiritual practice from this perspective is recognizing when our thoughts are starting to head in a particular direction. If we can recognize, then we can head them off at the past. We can let go. So, we've got a wide variety of mindfulness practices that are out there that can be used and so forth. But we have to learn how to relax, but that means relaxing our thoughts. We've been told to relax our body forever. But that's that's so hard to do if you can't relax your mind first and relax the thoughts. But you have to recognize and once you do, the Vegas nerve is about agency. It's about sovereignty. It's about you taking control of your body and feeling your heartbeat. Because when you feel that your heartbeat is higher, you can stop immediately. You can go, whoa, wait a minute. What's going on here? Is this is what's happening here? It's not just a thought, but then it becomes the heartbeat. The heartbeat becomes the critical element of it's called cardioception of interosceptive awareness of our body. By feeling heartbeat we can increase empathy but we can also know whether we're safe or not.

[00:32:06]And by recognizing that it gives us choices. What can I do right now behaviorally to shift into safe mode?

[00:32:16]That's those are choices that we have to make all day long. Anyway, especially if we're eating a Big Mac and French fries, it's like, do I really want to, you know, do that level of food trauma right now? I'm kind of making a joke about it.

[00:32:30]I haven't had a Big Mac in a long time, but but people make really poor choices.

[00:32:36]And I remember when I was getting off of processed food and cuz I was morbidly obese. I mean, when I got out of the military and it took 10 years to deal with that. And it it's a it's a terrible addiction around food and and and really sugar and carbohydrates and processed food. And so many people have an addiction and are conditioned around their behaviors. And that's why it's very difficult sometimes. It's one easy for me to sit here for us to have this conversation and say, "Oh, recognize your thoughts and and then do something, feel your heartbeat." No, it's like, "Oh, you know, when you put your hand over your food and you bring it up to your mouth, is that what you really want to be eating?" And you feel how difficult it is sometimes. And even when we create identities around our concepts, this is one of the teachings I gave last year in one of my classes that that in order to die, we have to give up certain identities that we've established in life that we've been conditioned around. And we we have a lot of different identities that that we actually create over a lifetime to get through childhood and adolescence. And sometimes we have to give up these identities.

[00:33:48]I don't mind sharing, but I was a sneak thief for many years. I I love stealing stuff when I was a kid and then I loved stealing stuff when I was was even in the in high school and even in college.

[00:34:02]Um but then something happened in my 20s and it's just like it just kind of faded out. But I had an identity that of this excitation that everything around me was mine and I could take it and I you know I I could act unethically that way. But that was just I had my identity of a sneak thief. And we all have these these kind of hidden identities and those are tough ones to give up sometimes, you know, in terms of really letting go of these identities in order to relax. So it's bigger issue than just recognizing negative thinking.

[00:34:38]>> We have many attachments based on our temperament of being born, the environment we're raised in, >> right? the people who raise us, the people we associate with, the environments we live in, what we have access to. Some people have access to beaches, some people not so much. So, >> right, >> all of that impacts us. And I just want to mention too that fear while it can be debilitating, it can hinder us, it can impact our ability to connect with ourselves and others, it can also serve us at times. So, it's being able to discern when fear is really something to listen to versus what you're also suggesting that it can get in the way. And we can find ways to, as you say, relax the body, which can also relax the mind, or relax the mind, which can relax the body, so that we can perhaps have more and use more discernment and also listen to our own intuition.

[00:35:43]>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's right. You wrote a book about intuition.

[00:35:49]>> Yes, I did.

[00:35:50]>> I'm curious just to if we could do a side note here of how how you implement intuition in in terms of this conversation right now and this question about safety.

[00:36:03]>> We all have our inner knowing, our inner wisdom, a direct connection. We are our own souls and beings. But we can that can be clouded over by what you were talking about this thoughts, these attachments, our own limiting beliefs, fears that maybe we adopted from experiences we've had growing up or maybe transgressions or abuse that we've suffered from others which can make us question ourselves which can impact our sense of self, our sense of identity, our sense of our self-love. of self-acceptance and self-esteem.

[00:36:45]So many of the practices you're talking about can directly help us access that inner knowing, that inner truth and light that we all have that gets covered over. And the more that we trust that, listen to it, and are validated with experiences, the more that we can listen to it and trust it more, and it can be a great guide in our lives. I think it's a superpower we all have that's greatly underutilized, undertapped and people have glimpses of it through their days or their weeks maybe through dreams.

[00:37:19]They might get insights and that's a big you know this is a big topic we discuss on new thinking aloud related to parasychology if you will of having telepathy being able to receive precognitive information. And I believe that we all can access that. But because as you say, we have so many thoughts in a day. We can have judgments that are not serving ourselves or others that can get in the way of that. which is why I'm so grateful to talk with you because I think your great education and training and what you talk about, share, teach, and write about, I think can directly help people reconnect with themselves in a more deep, loving, full of wisdom fashion.

[00:38:09]>> I I completely agree. I I you know reducing fear really opens up this the whole paranormal experience because that that's who we are and and and I I think what the way I parse it out is we have necessary and then there's unnecessary fear and we're trying to balance that and I was thinking about it last night because I'm writing this book and it's has to do with the relationship of human embryology to creation mythology you know and really how different cultures and cosmology ologies talk about the formation of the universe in the human body and I always remember Joseph Campbell's work god what a brilliant brilliant man and in his work it was very clear that when we're engaged in a spiritual process and when we're about to you know make a cross over into a threshold of a greater understanding a greater intuitive knowledge of the world perhaps we could say that there will be that threshold experience, the gatekeeper at the entrance to the cave that that gatekeeper is fear.

[00:39:18]And it takes on different forms. It takes on different animal forms. It takes on different forms in different faiths in terms of the personification of the devil and evil and so forth. But it's fear and it gets personified in an animal form or in a sentient being, some sentient being form. And it's that confrontation with fear that we grapple with, you know, that identity that we have because we're trying to get through this identity that we have and get into this intuitive open world that has freedom associated with it, freedom from neurosis, freedom from our psychosis.

[00:39:56]And I think that's that's the key point as I said earlier, just, you know, befriending your fear and and then working with your fear. And it this is not a simple answer. I don't have there's a lot of different ways in which you know we work with that and come into relationship with that and that's up to each individual how they manage coming into relationship with our own fear. But it's the promise and we've all felt that that you you grapple with your fear and all of a sudden there's an openness. I write about that in my heart book. I I had debilitating fear. I mean, debilitating fear in the middle of the night. I I literally frozen frozen in fear. And I just I knew something wasn't wasn't right, but I knew something was right because I wasn't terrified, but I was close to being terrified. And I just sat with it and sat with it and it completely transformed into a color spectrum of various deities and and teachings that deeply deeply spiritual that I'm forever grateful for. And I had to go through that terror fear.

[00:41:09]>> How did you move through that debilitating fear and how long did it take you to do that?

[00:41:14]>> My wife and I flew to Italy. I was teaching in Italy at the time. And we decided we'd get a an apartment uh in Oia, which is the suburb of Rome, but it's right on the on the Mediterranean where the Tyber River starts and where all the everything came in for the great city of Rome. So, it's a beautiful city archaeologically to visit. And we got a an apartment there, but they didn't have our luggage. So, we were without luggage. I was without my luggage. So, I had no luggage. I was in a city that I'd never been in. And it was a very congested town. And that's when that the this terror thing in the night started for me. And it went on because I felt completely like cut off.

[00:41:57]I I was in a foreign land. I was I had no clothes and I was in this congested city with foreigners and then there was that fear of being robbed because we'd been robbed before in Italy before. So, and that's when it started. It's like it it was just compounded into this this nightly.

[00:42:19]It went on for like four or five nights, but each night it it would come and then and then the light would come. And this is really what I want to what I want to say to people because we are in the season of light. If we look at at at the New Testament right now and going into Lent and and Easter, we are in the season of light. And I think we can literalize that because for me when I approach my fear when I feel my fear at that level I know it's a doorway into light. Now I was given that gift that the light manifested for me. It it manifested as as a as sentient beings as different in the Buddhist tradition. It manifested as different taras tinis and various female goddesses with within that Tibetan tradition. So, but I I have Christian deities appear to me when I when I treat people. So, I'm I'm kind of a multiffaith open access kind of kind of guy. But but in that in that particular instance and the way it's continued because I have recurring nightmares because of PTSD from the military and really debilitating nightmares. So, you know, I wake up with a pounding heart and I wake up with these images and but I've trained myself now. Oh, okay.

[00:43:37]you had a nightmare. Let's just get with the Vegas nerve. Let's settle with the vagus nerve first. Get embodied. Get settled. And then let's close our eyes.

[00:43:46]Let's roll the eyes up to the middle of our forehead and see if we can spark a light from our brain and from our heart.

[00:43:54]And then from that allow that spark, that light to grow. And I just start visualizing and imagining different colored lights, the rainbow color basically filling the room, but filling my heart first. It's got to fill your heart first with light, the five colors, and then filling your body and then letting that light radiate and then inviting any any any being in the light that wants to come and offer me teachings because that's what I I receive different empowerments and different mind transmissions from these these beings in the night and during the day. There's kind of like, okay, I get it. It's it's 24/7 now, but mainly in the night.

[00:44:40]>> I know you talk a lot about in your books too about the immune system and metabolic dysfunction. And earlier you talked about eating food that isn't healthy.

[00:44:51]And I'm wondering if you can share a little bit about how food and the gut microbiome and gut health impacts the vagus nerve.

[00:45:02]>> That old Vegas nerve that we were talking about, remember the older guy?

[00:45:05]Um because the older guy when it leaves the heart, the newer guy just stays at the heart, but the older guy continues, goes back to the esophagus, comes down and it it goes into two branches and one of those branches lines the whole it goes along the lining of the entire intestinal tract all the way over to this flexure of the large intestine. So it it it lines and it goes what's it doing? Why is it in the middle of of the intestinal tract? Well, it's reading neurotransmitters that are being secreted by the immune system because 80% of our immune system is in the lining of the gut and the molecules that switch from acquired immunity to innate immunity are in the gut. So our ability to fight in uh infections and so forth for example for COVID part of that is because of the the disruption of the immune system in the gut and we didn't have the fighting power and but the vagus nerve is registering that it knows that it also is reading what's going on with the vascular system and the other parts of the autonomic nervous system in the in the blood vessels because it's the it's the blood then that has to be moved in order to get the metabolites for digestion going where they need to go to the liver and then to the heart and all of that that mechanism. So the the vagus nerve is reading the vascular system and it's also reading our glucose levels and ketone levels at the at the level of the liver so that it it can make changes and and and suggest changes to the brain and to the gut in order to balance and create more homeostasis and then it is also connecting to the interic nervous system. So I'm talking about three or four levels right now.

[00:47:02]And then the deeper or a deeper level would be the interic nervous system and that you know that was originally veagal nerve cells in the embryo and they came down the vagus nerve grew down but then these these veagal cells sloughed off and became the entic nervous system.

[00:47:20]That's why the interic system was considered to be the third part of the autonomic system. But now we know it's its own separate system. But it's derived from the vagus nerve. So it's still related. But the vagus nerve, I mean, goes up the middle of the body.

[00:47:35]It's like a super highway in the middle of the body. The entic nervous system goes back to the spinal cord and then goes up to the brain. So there's that pathway registering well, it registers pain, but it also registers irritation, inflammation, and homeostasis as well. So, we've got all these pathways going up to the brain and then back. And that's why the vagus nerve is so important because it's also connected to the microbiome. My wife is an expert in the microbiome. And it turns out that the microbiome, the vagus nerve is talking to these molecules in all the these bacteria. And every system of the body, Emmy, has has a microbiome.

[00:48:22]The heart has a microbiome. Our blood vessels have a microbiome. The the the blood has a microbiome. So all of these microbiomes are interrelated, but the most important one being the gut microbiome in terms of our psychology, in terms of our metabolism, in terms of our gut safety, and in terms of our originality. the the whole Chinese medicine is based on an originality, a a cosmology of of a universal creation of the human body that comes through the umbilicus. And until we have an appreciation of that and its association with the vagus nerve and this whole ancestral understanding and we've got to take care better care of our of our gut and especially the microbiome.

[00:49:10]Having provided many healing, therapy, spiritual, intuitive development sessions for people guiding them in meditation for a number of years.

[00:49:21]Myself, I've noticed that food, eating is one of the habits that is probably one of the most challenging for people to change. And even when I used to work and help manage a holistic health and wellness center nearly 30 years ago now, that that was the the area, the nutrition area where people had the most attachment. And I've noticed that, and I'm curious if you've noticed this too, that when people are more stressed, they have a more difficult time changing their diet, but at the same time, if they're not eating well, they can be more stressed. So, it's sort of this negative feedback loop. And I'm curious what you found to help break that cycle because for some people, they might just make a decision.

[00:50:10]Oh, I'm definitely going to change my eating habits and I'm motivated. And for some people, maybe it's getting their stress levels down first so that they can decrease those emotional cravings or stress eating patterns.

[00:50:24]>> Well, you you said it. Nobody wants to eat a sprout salad when they're sprout.

[00:50:31]you're going to go for comfort food.

[00:50:34]The way I look at that when I look at the the evolutionary information we have is that that as a species homo sapiens developed through through periods of time of feast or famine. We got a period of time in which we grew and developed when we had very little nutrient.

[00:50:54]We then went through a period of time when there was a lot of nutrient depending on what was available to eat, the hunting, all of these things that we've heard about in terms of the evolution. But it's the evolution of feast or famine. And Emmy, what's happening now is that it doesn't take even a couple of dollars where you can go feast every single day of your life all day long. You can feast, feast, feast. Every refrigerator I open when I visit people is full full.

[00:51:27]So is mine. So so is mine. And everywhere you go, you know, there's there's fast food, there's there's cookies, I got to have my chocolate, I got to have this, that we are in feast mode, and we have forgotten famine mode.

[00:51:42]So in my immune book, I promote what's called intermittent fasting or timerestricted eating. And when I was morbidly obese and I finally broke the addiction to sugar and carbohydrates, I went on a 40-day water fast. Emmy, I lost 100 pounds in 100 pounds in 40 days. And I just did water.

[00:52:06]Now, that was in my 20s. And the problem is, I mean, nowadays people are on so many medications, you can't tell people, oh, do a three or 4 day water fast, which would actually be wonderful for them because it generates the ability of the immune system and all the cells of the body to slough off all the negative stuff and to do a reset. This is how simple it is. And there's other things other than water, you know, that are legal for not activating your metabolism and doing an intermittent fast. The easiest intermittent fast, which is what I do, is 12 to 16 hours. And you've just giving your body an opportunity if you stop eating at 700 p.m. at night and not picking up the next meal until 9:00, 10:00 the next morning, seeing how long you can go. I sometimes will go till noon and I'll go out in the yard and I'll work for an hour or two and and work without the so-called nutrient and sustenance that we need. So, I'm not concerned about three square meals a day. I'm concerned about just restricting not only what I eat, but the time that I eat. And I think that's the critical thing right now. We have to give our metabolism time. And there's a beautiful chart that I created based on the research in the immune book on timerestricted eating and intermittent fasting. And it's it's a very very very good piece starting with the 12 to 14 16 and then going to 24 to 36 hours and then 36 to 54 hours. In the research, 54 hours on water and liquid and bone broth that doesn't have too much fat and almond milk that you make yourself that doesn't have added sugar.

[00:53:53]It 54 hours is a gold standard for resetting your immune system, resetting your gut, resetting everything.

[00:54:01]>> Yeah, that really flies in the face of what people have said about breakfast being the most important meal of the day. And I just want to add that of course people need to do what works best for them and to work with their own health care practitioners on finding what works best for them. And that's fascinating about that research.

[00:54:19]>> That's a good point, Emmy, because I don't believe in the breakfast is the most important meal, but I think we go through decades of of metabolic changes in our body. And there probably was a time maybe in my 30s where breakfast was the most important meal depending on the work I had to do that day. But the difference here I mean is it's being parsed out that that men have a different metabolism regarding intermittent fasting and women also have a different metabolism. Megan Ramos is is the leading authority on women's health regarding intermittent fasting and and Jason Fung is the leading authority on on men's intermittent fasting and and that. So I think it's very important for the listener to know that there are these differences and you have to find out your own metabolism.

[00:55:12]How does your metabolism work? And it works fundamentally by knowing when you're hungry because that's the hormone grin that's that's being expressed and when you're full and that's the hormone leptin that's being expressed. And most people nowadays don't know when they're hungry and they don't know when they're full. And until we can get to a balanced hormonal system where we can actually feel hungry and then know what to eat and then feel full and know when to stop, we're going to remain out of balance. And that's that's the way it works hormonally and with conscious awareness not only of heartbeat, but conscious awareness of hunger and satiety. extremely important for this conversation. Whether masculine, feminine, it's all the same.

[00:56:09]And that's going to mean that we have different choices that we'll make depending on our not only our sex, but our preferences, our metabolic preferences, which are going to be different for many people. I love raw food. My wife loves cooked food. You know, I love raw fruit in the morning. Kathy loves to have a cooked apple or cooked pear. So these kind of differences we have to appreciate and to stay healthy.

[00:56:38]>> Yes. And in regards to stress, some people undereat and some people overeat.

[00:56:45]And I'm curious what fasting does to the vag nerve. Because as you're talking, I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh, if I didn't eat for 2 days or ate very little, I feel like my vag nerve would tell me that I would need to have more food to feel safe."

[00:57:03]>> What the Vegas nerve gets to do in in a fast and again fasting primarily came out of of a spiritual religious context. So we have to understand that that when we fast like this we have to create an environment because it increases intuition. It create it creates really a a greater degree of clarity and and spiritual clarity and spiritual formation. So I I think that's that's really an important piece to to recognize. And within that it also resettles the heart and it resettles the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve right now is working overtime in a lot of people because of the way it's registering the inflammatory process and it's trying to create anti-inflammatory conditions and it's fighting its cell. So when we intermittently fast, we allow the vagus nerve to to reboot into its original function for pleasure, for happiness, for joy and and so forth. and and we get to regulate that protective mechanism that the heart has that's necessary and to rebalance it with with a formula that includes more pleasure and and certainly a reduction in fear and pain.

[00:58:17]>> You've mentioned a few of these. How can we increase our veagal tone, make our vag nerve and thus ourselves more happy?

[00:58:27]And of course, I also want to acknowledge that consciousness, there's been research that consciousness, not only does it reside maybe within the brain, but also it can be a filter for consciousness, the brain. And I had a had a few wonderful conversations with Thomas Verie, a psychiatrist who has done research showing that there's consciousness in in every cell of our bodies as well.

[00:58:49]>> Well, in terms of veagal strategies, they're in a category called veagal maneuvers. Now, now veagal maneuvers include a wide variety of haik yoga postures.

[00:59:01]So and then a lot of the the pranayyama a lot of the breathing exercises we did one at the very beginning where the simplest one with the left hand over the heart and then the right hand uh below the uh the umbilicus and we connect the vagus nerve from the heart to the lower abdomen and we breathe and we that anatomical breathing in in the orient is called embryionic breathing. So we breathe down into our embryo in that lower abdomen and that's where the vagus nerve ends and kind of gestates because it gestates pleasure coming from from the pelvis and that pleasure it carries those the neurotransmitters of pleasure up to the heart. So very very important that we rebalance with breathing ha yoga walking the regulation of of cardiovascular exercise is very important that can be controversial depending on on the person and if they're have a heart condition and so forth but we have to have some way to increase our heartbeat through exercise in order to strengthen our heart and thus to strengthen the the vagus nerve.

[01:00:12]So these are veagal maneuvers and then you have what are called veagal stimulation. So any stimulation of the earlobes in the ears and then in the back of the ears because this is where the vagus nerve is. And if you want to spend $600 on a veagal stem machine, you can spend $600 and you put the little electrodes here and you turn on the machine and you get these little electrical impulses. I think if you want to save $600, you can just do very light massage of the ear, which I was trained to do in massage school a long time ago.

[01:00:44]>> Yeah, there's a whole map of I'm I'm also trained in and taught for many years reflexology, which uh theorizes that the hands and the feet are a map and a hologram really of the rest of the body. And there's a whole uricular ear map for reflexology, but also for acupuncture as well, acupressure and ear beads and so forth that can be used for pressure points here. That's fascinating about stimulating the earlobes. Thank you for that.

[01:01:15]>> Oh yeah. And in and many, you know, I mean, stimulating the sides of the neck where the vagus nerve comes down, stimulating the sternum, and stimulating the abdomen in a in a circum uh in a round fashion here. All of these things do stimulate the vag nerve very positively and they're added in in in many of the manual therapeutic arts. So, so I'm very familiar with it at that level. But self stimulation is is very important. So, you've got veagal maneuvers and then you've got veagal stimulation or veagal stem or VS as it's called now in the research literature.

[01:01:51]But those are just a few things and and I think whatever we can do to lower our stress levels and uh become happier people and and we've already been talking about reduce fear become happy.

[01:02:04]One of the things I tell people I mean is that when you consciously are aware of your heartbeat and you can actually I can sit here and I can feel my heartbeat and if if you're if somebody's watching this right now and they can't feel their heartbeat but you can practice like in the night when you feel your heartbeat or you can take your pulse what you can do is you can recite nonverbally your favorite poem or prayer in the cadence of your heartbeat and that will increase empathy. It will really ignite compassion and it will really it will create a deep deep veagal satisfaction and a very deep sense of of veagal openness, non-inflammation, nonfear, nonfright because we we have to stay in the business of non-fright. I remember the Daly Lama said that one time. We have to offer other people non fright.

[01:03:07]And that means our Vegas nerve needs to be balanced as best as possible along with everything else we talked about that's connected to the Vegas nerve.

[01:03:16]There's no perfect moment where we're in balance for the rest of our life. We could and out of balance. I get that.

[01:03:24]>> Right. Because if we came into this conversation where I was highly stressed or fearful of you for some reason and you felt the same way about me or one of us felt that way, we could be bouncing off of each other or triggering each other. We can harm ourselves with our own thoughts. People even physically harm themselves.

[01:03:42]>> Yep. Yep.

[01:03:43]>> Whether they do it consciously or unconsciously. And of course, people harm each other. Domestic violence, wars, and so forth. I think you mentioned some time ago that you had interviewed Robert Thurman.

[01:03:57]>> Yes.

[01:03:58]>> Robert Thurman went to a lecture of his last year. He said something brilliant that really moved me and he said homo sapiens is the trauma species.

[01:04:07]>> Oh yes.

[01:04:08]>> Human beings are the only species, the only mammals that when we get to the embryionic period, we've not developed a survival skill within our body.

[01:04:19]All other animals develop survival skills necessary for killing, for maming, for gathering food, whether that's claws, teeth, all that kind. We don't do that as human beings. And it consequently we as human beings are very susceptible to trauma. And consequently, that's why it's probably the most popular topic right now on the planet because we see it everywhere. So if we're the trauma species, then culturally there has to be a solution.

[01:04:51]There has to be an antidote because we know historically that in every culture where there's been this level of trauma that there's a natural arising of the antidote. And this is what we're talking about. But we're talking about the antidote of being able to go within, confront our fear, and stabilize our autonomic nervous system, especially with the vagus nerve and everything else we've talked about. But we have to take control of our body and our mind and and stop this conceptualization and polarizing in order to get a clear view of life and happiness rather than fear.

[01:05:30]The vagus nerve is also connected to sexuality as well.

[01:05:36]>> That's correct.

[01:05:37]>> Is there anything you want to share about how people can be more improve their vag nerve with sexuality or anything you've come across with your research that might be helpful for our viewers and listeners?

[01:05:52]I was mentored for all all my adult life or my adult career by one of the premier sex educators in New York City, Betty Dodson. She died about four or five years ago. My sister was her business partner.

[01:06:06]And Betty, I don't know if you're familiar with Betty Dodson's work, but Betty uh was a classically trained fine artist, Renaissance artist, and then got involved in the women's movement in the in the 70s and and got in involved in helping other women that were pre-orggasmic to have orgasm. And so the Rutgers University is where a lot of the research comes out about sexuality and orgasm as well as the University of Indiana and the uh Kinsey Institute. And actually Steven Pores's wife was in charge of the Kinsey Institute. She's an expert in sexuality. So the point here is that from in terms of the vagus nerve, as I mentioned earlier, it carries pleasure. But during female orgasm and likely male orgasm, but the research was done with female orgasm that neurotransmitters, the vasoactive intestinal peptide is released and the orgasm and it travels in the vagus nerve. So the vagus nerve is the carrier of the orgasm reflex and the pleasure reflex associated with sexuality to the heart. And so the heart can feel this this tremendous bliss and this tremendous openness. And you see that because of we have that whole history with the Kama Sutra and the traditions within India in terms of sexuality and tantric sexuality of of bringing that pleasure up to the heart. But in terms of actual sexuality that pleasure reflex is carried by the vagus. So, and again, this can be controversial in terms of who's watching because a lot of times it's felt that our sexuality is just for reproduction, but there's also tremendous Betty's orientation was not just for reproduction, but just for pleasure. And she was very successful in being able to teach women who were unccapable, incapable of having orgasm, likely because of of a history of trauma to the pelvis, sexual or otherwise, to have orgasm. And and my sister was an intimate part of that. And so I was very fortunate to be around that millu at the time and I learned a lot. So really the question is pleasure and how are we pleasuring oursel not just sexually that can be controversial depending on many faith-based traditions and I don't want to run into that minefield right now but really the issue is pleasure and it's not just sexual pleasure but what are we doing for pleasure that's non-addictive and nonharmful to other people. A lot of sexual pleasuring can be harmful to self and to other people.

[01:08:53]So, but the main idea here is how can we pleasure ourselves to allow the vagus nerve to operate fully in its optimal functioning of registering happiness and bliss in the heart. So I that's what I offer around this conversation and and to have and like I'm very fortunate to be married now for 35 years and and my wife and I have a very healthy sexual relationship and that's I feel fortunate because we we counsel a lot of couples and a lot of people that struggle with their sexuality that struggle with their relationship around sex in their marriage and so forth. Yeah, it's very important for people to have a healthy relationship with their sexuality because all sorts of perversions can happen either toward the self or toward others and of course abuse like you were sharing of how important it is for people to be able to feel pleasure and to do that in a safe way as well.

[01:09:57]>> Right.

[01:09:59]Sexuality is also creative energy. You know, there'll be periods of time where I I don't feel like I I'm in the mood.

[01:10:07]It's not even being in the mood where I need to have a fast for a month. And I did it for a year one time in my 20s where I had no sexual contact. I didn't I didn't masturbate. I didn't have any contact with with anyone around sexuality. And I think we need to do that fast because I think when we look at these tantric principles that there's an energy there. There's an energy of sexuality. There's an energy and it's a very powerful energy that drives human behavior.

[01:10:36]And we we can learn to transform that energy and bring it up to our body. And as I said earlier, a lot of the tantric visualizations that I do are also associated with the transformation of sexual energy and bringing it up to the heart and then to the brain and transforming it into light and becoming a light. But I mean literally becoming a light and a rainbow light and it's a rainbow light of happiness and well-being and we can offer that to other people and we can become that.

[01:11:11]>> You've mentioned compassion a few times in our conversation today and I'm wondering if you can share the relationship between the vagus nerve and a sense of wholeness. You mentioned that light, happiness and also love. this conversation we've been having about turning inward, reducing fear and stress, all the things that people already know. But I think it requires some sense of concentration and some sense of of discipline. And I don't mean, you know, this ownerous discipline, you know, where people are sweating, you know, just to get through their day, but that we have some discipline around our state of mind and around our body because that's what it requires in order to ignite compassion.

[01:11:53]We have to listen to our heart and and you know when I say listen to our heart I mean heartbeat because when you feel your heartbeat you are more truly emotionally responsive in the moment.

[01:12:06]For example the three Zen tenants say that when we are in relationship we have to go through our fear first and then settle with that and then bear witness and become a spiritual accompaniment as we accompany other people. And then within that, as we settle in our vagus nerve, spontaneous compassion and wisdom comes forth. Emmy, the point here is that a lot of people feel, "Oh, I I've got to dig up compassion and I've got to get it by its roots and and then I've got to offer it to other people." That's not the way it works. It is a spontaneous activity that's innate in our behavior and in and in the human heart. And we achieve that by moving through the veil of our fear. And we achieve that by being willing to sit without judgment with oursel and other people. And then to know the correct and appropriate responsiveness rather than a reactivity.

[01:13:09]So compassion is actually an appropriate response after we've done a little bit of homework and really settling within oursel.

[01:13:20]letting the vagus nerve reset.

[01:13:23]Compassion then is can be associated with love because compassionate action is loving action and we can we can be in that however we want whichever metaphor we want to use whether it's compassion or whether it's love. But the key point here spiritually is that we have to be able to be compassionate and loving to ourself first.

[01:13:48]When we develop as human beings, we develop a metabolism of autonomy first.

[01:13:53]I'm I study a lot of human embryology and we have to develop this metabolism of taking care of oursel first and then we come into a metabolism of relationship with other people and we come into this balance of back and forth. So compassion and love must begin with our self with our self first. And 10 years ago all the books on self-compassion came out. I bought them all. So but but that's that's the bottom line. But but the bottom line within that is we have some work to do before we can manifest self-love and self-compassion. And we have a lot of work to do before we can manifest a more accurate, clear, loving kindness and compassion for other people. That it it takes some work and and those stages that I've talked about, we've talked about for the last hour are critically important. We have to wait and allow it to spontaneously manifest.

[01:14:57]Michael, is there anything else you want to share today about safety and wholeness through the Vegas nerve?

[01:15:03]>> You know, I mean, one of the things I wanted to say is I don't want to come across as a holy person. I mean, we're all holy people, okay? And um and I make it sound like, you know, I've got a lot of knowledge and information because I love to read and I love to study and I love to write. So, and I also I want to write an autobiography.

[01:15:24]And I was on a show a couple of years ago called the No BS Spiritual Book Club in which I had to list the 10 top spiritual books and then my most favorite book. And my one of my most favorite books is Betty Dodson's autobiography because it's a deeply spiritual piece. And the point I'm trying to make here is that my everybody had on their list and the interviewer said, "Oh yes, everybody has it on their list, the autobiography of a yogi. I read that when I was young and I ever since I read that book I've had a lifestyle where my book would be called autobiography of a bogey. Now bogey is a Sanskrit term for an indulgent yogi.

[01:16:08]So I am an indulgent yogi. I seek pleasure when I can and I know how to how to partition myself with discipline when it's necessary. I've got a wife that lets me know when I'm in that that edge of addiction and when I really need to take a break from drinking my wine or having my shot of tequila or whatever it is. But again, I think it needs spirituality needs to be a creative piece. And I'm not saying you need to go out and buy a bottle of tequila right now. I'm I'm just saying that I have a particular indulgent side of myself. It could be that I'm Irish, but I also have a wicked sense of humor. And I think it's vitally important that we have a sense of humor and that we relax around these spiritual disciplines that we sometimes self flagagillate with. You know, I have to go to mass at 10:00. I have to meditate at 9. I have to do this. It have to have to have to we have to be in the present moment and we have to be creative with our spiritual process and stop harming our mind and stop harming our body and consequently harming other people. So I'm not suggesting you be indulgent but just so you know that your interview the person you're interviewing right now has an indulgent side to himself and I really love myself and that part of myself. So thank you.

[01:17:36]>> I think we all have those tendencies within ourselves and that's why I'm so grateful to talk with you today. So once again, Dr. Michael Sheay, thank you so much for being with me. It has been a great pleasure and I appreciate everything you have shared and also sharing not only your spiritual self and being but also your own human self as well. Thank you for being with me today.

[01:18:00]>> Great pleasure. Great pleasure, Emmy. I hope we can do it again. And for those of you watching or listening, thank you for being with us because you are the reason that we are here.

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