Dying With Dignity- When You Can't Cure- Heal- Dr. Brad Stuart EP 372

You know you need something, you're just not sure what. You've been listening, you're doing the work, but there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place, like you're waiting for the thing that finally moves you. Now maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back, the timing, the money, or you're just not sure you're ready yet. I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you. I built a resource for exactly this moment, guided meditations for when the waves hit and you just need to breathe. Workbooks to help you get out of your head and onto the page, ebooks on what near-death experiences tell us about the people we've lost, and whether they're really gone, a full course for widows and widowers who are ready to find their way back to living, and a full course for the evidence of the afterlife. And all of it is available for pay what you want. Nobody gets turned away because of money. I think these resources are valuable, but I don't want to hold them back because you don't have the money to pay for them. You don't have to wait until you're ready for coaching. The next step might be a lot smaller than you think. To find out, go to grief2growth.com/store. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/store. And check out the resources I've made for you. Close your eyes and imagine. What if the things in life that cause us the greatest pain, the things that bring us grief, are challenges, challenges designed to help us grow to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we've been buried, but what if, like a seed, we've been planted? And having been planted, we grow to become a mighty tree. Now, open your eyes. Open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature. This is Grief 2 Growth. And I am your host, Brian D Smith. Welcome to Grief to Growth, where we dive into the depths of who we are, where we came from, and where we're headed. Whether you're joining us for the first time or you're a returning listener, I want to let you know I'm Brian D Smith, your guide in this journey of understanding and growth. And today we're privileged to have with us Dr. Brad Stewart. And Dr. Stewart is a seasoned physician whose career spans nearly half a century. He's navigated the intense environments of the emergency room, the hospital and the ICU, and he spent 25 years as a hospice medical director. His experiences have taught him that healing is just as crucial as curing, and we're going to talk about the differences between healing and curing. And it's especially important, of course, when the prospects for a cure are no longer on the table. We'll explore a spectrum of thought-provoking topics with Dr. Stewart, from the interplay, as I said, between curing, dying, and healing, to profound questions surrounding spirituality versus religion and the essence of our true selves versus our constructed selves. We're going to go into discussion on the intersection of meditation, psychedelics, near-death experiences, scientific research, and how these experiences relate to our understanding of the brain, of consciousness, and expanded awareness. Now, Dr. Stewart's insights are grounded in both medical science and a deep empathetic connection to the spiritual and mystical aspects of human experience. His website, brettstewartmd.com, offers a deeper look into his philosophy and contributions to the field. So after listening, don't forget to head over to brieftogrowth.com/community to continue the conversation there. And with that, I'd like to welcome Dr. Brad Stewart.

Thank you, Brian. It's great to be here.

It's, uh, wonderful to have you here. I'm looking forward to our conversation today, and I want to start off with this question: the difference between healing and curing, because some people might think those two things are the same. So could you help us break that down?

Yeah, uh, sure. The, the, uh, I discovered the difference between curing and healing when I was in medical school. My first patient, when I went on to the wards after getting out of the classroom, had very late-stage cancer. He was an older man. He had come to the place where I was training, which is one of the eminent academic institutions on the West Coast. I had been so excited to be there, but I was very distressed by the way he was treated. You know, he came there and his wife as well to see if he could be cured. It was obvious to me, even as a third-year student, that that was not going to happen. And not only that, the drug on a research protocol that we were going to give him was investigational chemo, a very potent drug. And I, I called a meeting of everyone as a timid third-year student and said, should we be doing this? He— it looks to me— what do I know— but it looks to me like he's going to die. And if we treat him with this drug, I believe he's going to die sooner. And they decided to go ahead anyway. And sure enough, we treated him. I gave him the drug myself. And the next day, uh, came in and the bed was empty. He had bled into his brain and died. And that experience changed me forever, taught me that Curing is what we try to do when we want to make a disease go away so we can get back to what we think is normal. We may talk about what is normal, what we think is normal, where we want to get back to. Healing is more reconciling with where— who and where you actually are, especially as you become ill. Healing to me is a process of reconciliation and becoming whole as your, your real self, who you actually are, which can occur and which often occurs when people are so ill that they're losing function in their body and even in their mind. Healing is becoming whole no matter what is going on in your environment and with your body. It's a tall order, but I believe spiritually it became my mission to help people with that. And I think ultimately Our mission here on this planet is to heal ourselves and our relationships with people who are close to us and even with strangers. Healing is the center of what I think we all are here to do. And that first experience woke me up to, uh, how important healing is, especially when we can't cure the illness.

That's a very interesting perspective because, uh, as I've talked to people in the medical field, you know, I think a lot of times in in medical school, it's a very, let's say, materialistic point of view. And doctors especially are taught, okay, we are, we're here to cure, you know, it's, and so they see death, I think, as the enemy. And correct me if I'm wrong here. And it's interesting that you as a third-year medical student came to this realization that maybe we can't always cure.

Yeah. I mean, as a physician, I mean, I don't see patients actively in a practice at this point or in hospice, but All the years that I did it, even in hospice, I think curing is our job. The question is, what happens when we can no longer do that? What's left? And, you know, the words that no doctor should ever say, and I hope you and your loved ones have never heard these words, but a lot of you may have, a doctor will say, there's nothing more we can do. And that is so not true. There is so much to do beyond the point when you can no longer cure. And those are the patients in my practice. I did internal medicine for years in the hospital, in the ICU, and a lot of work in the emergency department. And, uh, you know, you, you need to— as a physician, I think you need to find a way to deal with people eye to eye on the level when you can no longer cure. You need to stay there and be present and just through your own personal presence help the healing to happen as people go through that transition from I've got to beat this to okay, I understand now where I'm headed and, you know, help people get oriented on that journey because that amazing things happen on the journey to the end of life once you're aware that you are not going to be here forever. None of us are going to be here forever, so you can realize that right now if, if you want. That's another part of the spiritual journey that isn't necessarily medical.

Yeah, exactly. As you said, none of us are going to be here forever. But again, I think that our society and even, even our medical society tries to pretend that way sometimes. I forgot where I saw the statistic about the amount of money that we spend at the end of life to extend life, whether it's days, weeks, months, whatever, because we don't want to let go. We don't want to— the word surrender has a negative connotation.

Well, that's, you know, if it's okay, I wrote a book about this. If you don't mind, I'd like to talk about that a little bit because my book is called Facing Death: Spirituality, Science, and Surrender at the End of Life. And I— you just used the word surrender, and I, you know, in my own spiritual journey as a physician and, and as a person, the surrender part I think is really important. We in medicine, you know, it is our job to halt the disease or the illness in its tracks if we can, you know, people in auto accidents. We— I've spent my time helping people come back from terrible trauma. And, you know, that, that's our job. But all of us in the back of our minds might benefit from understanding that our time isn't limitless here. There might be a place, especially once we may experience what lies on the other side of dying, there might be a place where time is not so much of an issue. But here, uh, it pays to keep that in mind and, and live your life accordingly.

Yeah, I think the word surrender implies that it's the end and that it's a, it's a, it's a negative outcome, that death is a negative outcome. And if that's your perspective, then we're— then we would all fail, right? Because the death rate's 100%. Yep.

Yeah, the mortality rate's very stubborn around the world. It's still 100%, as you say. And, uh, you know, it's just that we— if we didn't live our lives as if tomorrow was going to be roughly the same as today, it would be tough to go on. So what we call denial when we're dealing with people who have a really serious illness like end-stage cancer, there's a— I've seen lots of people who never really surrender to the fact that their time is coming and maybe soon. There are lots of people who really want to hold on. And you get to the point where I used to get impatient with that. And then I realized I was not being kind to that person. I was looking at my own interest. It was almost like I was saying to myself, look, you know, I have to deal with your illness and with all your problems. Can't you be realistic so we can make plans? When I was younger, I thought that way. And then as I went on, I realized, wait a second, you know, people need to be where they are, and that's where you need to meet them. And, and sometimes you need to meet them. I have a chapter or two in my book about this. Sometimes you need to meet people where you don't yourself necessarily want to go. But it's your role to go there anyway and leave yourself and your own interests and prejudices behind and meet that person heart to heart or as close as you can get and find your way through it together. And that's, I think, in medicine, that's what the healing journey could be about.

Sure. Yeah, I think you made a really important point there. As a doctor, we go to doctors because we want to be cured. We want We want our disease to be taken away if possible, or at least treated, you know, to some extent. That's, that's definitely part— that is the role of a medical doctor. But, um, there is this idea, as we talked about it, but it's like life is finite. And, you know, especially as we get to things like, let's say, dementia, or we get to, um, you know, terminal cancer, etc., we, we know not only is our time limited, we have kind of an idea of when it's going to end. And at that point, to not surrender is just a denial of reality.

That is true. It's a denial of reality. But the question always is, whose reality is the most important? And again, I, I've worked with lots of people where it was so obvious to me and everyone around that this person's time was very short. Mm-hmm. But that wasn't their reality. And so there, there are ways, and I go, I go into this in, in the book, um, there are ways to ask questions of people so that you get the message across that you think is important, not by telling them what you think the facts are, but asking them questions that lead them to understand and realize what's going on, you know. And again, there's, there's the whole first part of of my book is stories of people that I've worked with. And this— there was one young man I met in the emergency room, never seen him before. Turned out he had lymphoma and it was progressing. He didn't really understand that or want to. We spent probably half an hour. I just asked him a series of questions and I kind of detailed them in the book. And he came to say to me at the end of the conversation that he, he understood what was going on. And he told me what he thought was happening. And at that point, you know, my job there was done. He came from out of town, he had to leave, and I told him, you might want to go back and talk to your oncologist and the other specialists. He had 5 different specialists. I said, talk to them about what you just came up with yourself and see what they say back to you. And I'm hoping that's what he did because he was equipped at that point to come from a healthy place, a whole place in himself regarding his illness with his own physicians. Whereas before that, I— they were telling him everything was fine and he was going to be— he was going to do well. I'm sure a lot of them didn't believe that, but they said that to him because they didn't want to pierce his armor. They didn't— they didn't want to hurt him. And what's important to realize is coming to understand where you really are and, uh, and where you want to be and where you want to go. Understanding all that, that's all inside your defenses and the doctor's defenses too. And getting behind that, those walls, into where we really live, I think, is, uh, is a great way to go about the healing process.

Yeah, I, I'm always curious. I, I work with people who have been, who are chaplains Um, I've taken some classes and I work with a woman. She and I co-teach some things together, and a lot of chaplains involved. And what I— from what I hear is like chaplains or hospice, they're not supposed to like influence other people in terms of their, their religion. Um, so we're not there to tell people like, you know, whatever. But when you're in a situation where a patient thinks— and it's just, I'd say it's distressing to them that this is the end or that they're going to hell or something. How do you deal with that as someone dealing with someone in hospice?

Oh, I wish I could say that was an easy one. It's not at all. I, you know, I've— back when HIV was a deadly disease, before we had any drugs or medications to bring it under control, we went through a period in the early and mid-'80s where people were just dying all around us. I live— we were talking before we started— I live in Sonoma County, California. And we're up in the Redwoods, and there's a town close to us that has a lot of folks come up from San Francisco and live there, and many of them are gay. And so we had all kinds of people dying of AIDS. And, you know, the most difficult situations are where people would have fixed beliefs that say, God is punishing me for my— for what I've done. And when a person believes that, you can't— I mean, I think of an approach that doesn't work because I've tried it and failed is to tell them that what they believe is wrong. You have to get in there with them and you have to— they have to know that you're really seeing them inside all the things that they're saying. Who they really are, that the part of you that's who you really are is right in there with them. And only then can you sometimes work on the pain and the sorrow and the anger that often is masked over and comes out as statements like, I'm going to hell, or, you know, God is punishing me. There are feelings buried down behind those statements that sometimes, if you can get there, and it doesn't take forever usually, you can sometimes may have some movement, but not always. Those, as we can see all around us, people's beliefs that they strongly hold are very tough to change sometimes. And sometimes all you can do is just be there with them and at least if nothing else, they're not isolated and lonely as much, and that, that's often a step in the right direction.

Yeah. So I'm curious about how you came to the conclusions that you've come to, but because I know you talk about the real self, the real you versus yourself, and I know you, you mentioned like what lies beyond death. So what, what is, what is your spiritual background?

Well, I don't have one, honestly. I was raised in a household where my mother was, uh, she wasn't really religious, but she really wanted my brother and me— I was an older brother— wanted us to go to church. My father was an engineer and a very strict disciplinarian kind of person, very wounded person actually, and he would not allow us. We probably went to church twice, if that. My mother wasn't able to really stand up to him, and he wouldn't let us use the word God in the house. He was anti-religion. And so I came out after high school and into college with no religious background at all. Um, you know, that, that changed when I went away and went to college. And again, this— it's in my book. I mean, Facing Death, Spirituality, Science, and Surrender at the End of Life. The spirituality and science part came out of my exposure to psychedelics in the '60s, late '60s, early '70s, before— back when research was just beginning on psilocybin and LSD. It progressed, you know, a fair ways before, during the Nixon administration, all those substances were outlawed. They were put on the same level as heroin and nobody could touch them. Research stopped. But before that, you know, being interested in science and heading for medicine, And having experienced psilocybin and LSD myself, and I tell stories on myself in the book of my own experiences, I believed I knew beyond any doubt that there was real benefit, spiritual benefit, in finding what lay behind the doors that were opened by those experiences. And I directly used some of that same knowledge and experience when I later worked with patients. I think the spirituality and the science of what happens in our brains when we meditate, when we're in the presence of psilocybin or LSD, And because of stories that people bring back when they're revived from near-death experiences, those three classes of experience all, I think, shed light on the difference between who we think we are as we're walking around in ourselves, buried in our own personal world every day versus who we really are, which is underneath all that. And spiritually, I, I do believe that all of the major religions, not just the Western ones, are— were all founded by people, by visionaries who experienced a level of who they actually are underneath this veneer or this level that we put on top of that with all our experience faces, all our thoughts, the, the world that our mind builds to get by and succeed in the world— none of that is who you really are. Who you really are is underneath all that. And I think we've been looking at that spiritually for thousands of years. It's called occult knowledge because you cannot explain it or even understand it using your mind. And yet And again, I go into this in the book. The spirituality and the science are coming together because we're beginning to see that it's not just your physical brain that manufactures these experiences. There's something about consciousness that may be wider, deeper, and beyond what our brains can detect and process. There's something else going on. I don't think there— I don't think it helps to put a label on it, although if you're religious, you could call it God. Um, the Buddhists have no concept of God, but they do say that yourself is not really who you are. They say the same thing. Even though I'm not religious, I'm fascinated by the New Testament and the Old Testament, but especially some of the things that Jesus said. I mean, when, when he said the kingdom of heaven is within, uh, and not necessarily in the church of his day, I think he was talking about the same thing. We— the, the, the work you do spiritually that matters, I think, is the letting go of who you think you are bit by bit until you can get down and experience that level of who you really are. And that's the homework that I think it may come in handy to do before you find that you have an illness or you're headed for the end. I think it may help cushion the blow, or if you've lost someone that you're close to, it may help to find that deep central essence of who you are deep inside. Because if anything does survive death, and I think it's very possible that, uh, when our brain dies, some element of us goes on, that's the part I'm guessing, and science might begin to agree, that if anything goes on, that's what goes on, is that part of you who is your own real basic conscious awareness without any contents or baggage, that part of you may move on. And so I think that's just wonderful to contemplate. And I've been with enough people as they died to watch what happens. And boy, it certainly looks like something like that is maybe taking place.

Yeah, I know you're very cautious with your language, might be. And yeah, it's interesting. I think that again, in our society, we're almost afraid to assert. But I think there is so much evidence that I say to people, it's not proven to a certainty, I think it's proven beyond a reasonable doubt, if we were going to use courtroom language. But when you, when you talked about science and spirituality, I think a lot of people see those two as being at odds with each other. I personally don't. I'm an engineer by training. I've been researching the afterlife for, conservatively, I'm going to say 40 years. And I've seen a lot of evidence. And I see where science and spirituality, it's starting to come together. And scientists are starting to at least admit, we don't even understand consciousness. So maybe we can't explain it materially. Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

You know, one of the hardest things about grief Most of the people in your life just don't get it. They want you to be further along than you are. They get uncomfortable when you bring it up, so you stop bringing it up. And that's why I started writing. My Substack is where I go deeper. Thoughts I don't always get to in the podcast. Essays on consciousness, on continuing bonds, on what it actually means to carry a loss and still build a life. The stuff that used to keep me up at night, written out in a way that I hope meets you in the morning. But here's what I didn't expect when I started it: the community that showed up. People who are doing exactly what you're doing— listening, learning, trying to find their footing. Readers who comment, who share their own stories, who remind each other that none of us are as alone in this as we feel. And that's what the Substack has become— a place to go deeper with me and to find your people. It's free to subscribe. Find me at grief2growth.com/substack. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/substack. Or just go to Substack and search for Grief to Growth. I hope to see you there.

Yeah, explaining consciousness is one of those dilemmas that science has. Science has not been able to explain what consciousness is or where it comes from. And even if we do succeed in explaining what part of the brain turns on when you're conscious, I don't believe that's going to explain what consciousness is. I, I think consciousness is experience. And what's ironic is that all science is based on empirical observation. And so when you look at— I mean, look at near-death experiences or, or REDS, R-E-D, recalled experiences of death is what researchers now are calling them. You know, near-death experiences have always been interesting, but they were always considered kind of odd, and who knows when they were, it could happen. Now, since the '60s, we have resuscitation science and critical care have just exploded. And so we now routinely bring people back. From cardiac arrest. And from, again, I have a story in my book about a woman who had to have her heart stopped and her blood completely drained from her body in order to repair a large aneurysm, a ballooning out of one of the arteries in the back of her head. They had to go all the way around to the back to get rid of this thing because it was going to kill her. And she was completely— they were monitoring her brain function. Her brain was completely off. No brain activity whatsoever. No blood pressure. No heartbeat for quite a period of time. And not only was she not unconscious, she was profoundly conscious. And I'd encourage you to read the story because it was documented on the BBC. She's maybe the most eminent, you know, near-death experience story that's been told. The details are really impressive. And, you know, it's just one more piece of evidence of empirical experience that put together with what we're learning from brain imaging studies starts to make it look as though in meditation, on psychedelics, and in near-death experiences, you know, something bigger and deeper is going on all the time, but we're starting to be able to begin to measure what it might be, looking at the fact that in meditation there's a, there's a part of your brain that controls your sense of yourself, who you are. That's in experienced meditators, that, that brain center is really turned down. On psilocybin or LSD, at adquate doses and that we now use in psilocybin therapy for people who have horrible fear of death, who have cancer and are just debilitated by, you know, disabled by their fear. In 80% or so of cases and studies, those people lose their fear of death after a psilocybin session. The trick is you have to have a large enough dose of psilocybin that it dissolves your sense of self. And it's, and it's only when yourself is out of the way that you have the mystical experience that allows you to begin to see what, how the universe is actually made, what it's made of, what holds everything together, who you are, which is not a disconnected individual person, You are all of that. And, you know, I could go on, but I won't, because trying to portray mystical experience in words is ultimately— you just can't do it. You can hint at it or point toward it like your finger might point at the moon, but you can't really describe it. It's the experience that matters. And on brain imaging, on psilocybin, that center that mediates your sense of yourself, who you are, is turned way down. Then of course, near-death experiences, it's turned totally off, and people have experiences that are even more profound than you might see on psychedelics. Those experiences happen to people all over the world, regardless of what religion or no religion, what culture you come from. Those stories come from every part of the world, and they're remarkably similar in nature and in even a lot of the details. So it's looking like something is happening with that. And what seems to be happening is you can begin to experience what is actually real the more you're able to let go of yourself. And be in that place that of, of pure awareness that's at the core of who you actually are.

Yeah, I was going to ask you to explain the connection between psychedelics and near-death experiences, but I think you already kind of did. Um, it's this, it's this, and I see the brain as like a, like a reducing valve or like a filter, and it seems like when we're able to turn those, that part of it off or whatever it is that that presents us as masks, we kind of see beyond the mask and see what's reality. And I've heard people that have had, you know, psychedelic experiences and people who've had NDEs also say, kind of like Paul said in the Bible, I can't explain it to you. You know, the things that I saw, the things that I experienced, you have to experience. It's not something that we can even put into words.

Yeah, I think that Once you experience who you really are, and it doesn't require you to take psilocybin, I open the second part of my book telling a story of something that happened to me when I was in a very rural emergency room with no backup delivering a baby. And, uh, the, the head came out and the cord was wrapped twice around the neck. The face was blue. And when that happens, you have to act fast. So I, I— the baby was delivered. I put my left hand under her neck and shoulders and my right hand under her butt, swiveled her around so she was sitting in my lap, and I was about to unwrapped the cord from her neck, when she opened her eyes and she looked me right square in my eyes, which babies, newborn babies, will do that later on. Even hours after that, they start becoming less focused, and it takes a long time to get that focus back for many newborns. But often when they're born, they look right at you. And, uh, I had the most profound experience of meeting a human being in their first moments on Earth. And in that experience— this is, again, very tough to talk about what this means, but when she looked at me, she looked right down into the core of me, and she woke me up. That was one of a number of wake-up experiences I've had dealing with both ends of life. And I, all I could attribute it to is she had just come from that other place that we come from before we come here. I don't want to, again, I'm very cautious about this because I don't want to get into things that seem way too controversial because I want doctors to hear this too. You know, that place that we come from is where truth is real, um, which psychedelic experiences will teach you the same thing. But when she looked at me and woke me up, there we were for a second, you know, eyes locked, connected, uh, you could say maybe soul to soul, I, I don't know. And I realized after maybe two thousandths of a second that, hey, wait a second, I've got a job to do here. And I Came back and took the cord off. She pinked up and got nice and healthy. Put her back on her mom's breast and the experience was over. It probably took 2 or 3 milliseconds of looking at each other. And, you know, in that little tiny amount of time, I felt like I had experienced eternity. And, you know, you can— anyone can experience that same feeling where you lose yourself when you're walking through the woods and you come out into a clearing and there's a huge redwood tree. I mean, I've had the same experiences in redwood groves or Yosemite National. I mean, there are many places where you experience awe, A-W-E. And, uh, and since there are people, uh, watching this who may be experiencing grief and loss, I, I can't tell you how many times I've been with people who were dying and their families where tragedy was heavy in the air. And I realized as we were together in that place that The word awful, which is what many of those experiences feel like and what grief feels like when it comes back at you again and again and again over time after a loss. Those are awful experiences. At the same time, they are full of awe. It takes a moment to breathe into them and realize how deep they are. They're dark. They're deep and dark. But there's truth in life that comes through darkness and depth. It's not all about light and transcendence, although that's important too. And maybe, for all I know, they're the same thing.

Yeah, you know, I was just listening to a podcast this morning and they were saying something that I'd say all the time. It's like suffering is built into this world. It's built into the experience that we have when we're here. There's pain here, and the pain often can— I should say, lead to growth. It doesn't necessarily lead to growth, but it can. And we were talking before, when— before we started recording, you asked me if this picture behind me is my daughter, and it is. And she passed away, uh, 9 years ago at the age of 15. And when I tell people that, you know, the natural response is— the human response is empathy. And people tell me I'm sorry, it's such a tragic thing. And of course, it was for me at the time when it happened. But it's also led to a tremendous amount of growth for me and a lot of other people around me. And my daughter is the reason why I do what I do. And I don't see my daughter's physical passing as the end. I, I really want to get this message out to the world. And I appreciate people like you that want to speak to those scientists, those doctors, those kind of people. I would like to as well, but a lot of times they get very turned off just, just by the language that we use. Um, I was dealing with someone and they said there's no evidence for what you believe, and I said there's lots of evidence. So I sent them to Dr. Julie Beischel, the research she's done in mediumship, and I sent them to Dr. Gary Schwartz. I said go look these people up and look up the work they've done. And they came back to me immediately and said, oh, you didn't tell me this was about mediumship. And they totally rejected everything I had to say. My argument, that is not a scientific approach. And we've, we've kind of ceded the high ground to the materialists. And we're very cautious by saying their worldview is, is the predominant worldview. Let me kind of tease you with this, but the worldview that I think you and I share predates all of that. It goes back tens of thousands of years.

Yes, it does. And I, I think we're in a period now where science and technology have had such an impact on our world that, uh, we've become convinced that that materialistic, uh, view of things is all-powerful because it has such power in the world. And you can't deny that. I mean, I, I'm a scientist myself. I— you can't deny. In fact, I think we're on the cusp of, you know, everything in life that changes starts out pretty low rate of change, then begins to go, and then, like Malcolm Gladwell might say, there's an inflection point, and then it really really takes off, right? We're there in science. The, the discoveries that we're making every day and the ones that we're about to make in artificial intelligence and other branches of computer science— and I, I'm not going to detail them— uh, you can't deny that in, in the progress in the world, the material world, science is the way it works. I used to be in a place where I thought that's all there was. But then I spent more time with people who were suffering and people who were dying, and I got interested in spirituality and brought— tried to bring the science with it. And I just think we're in a sort of an interlude here where science has really won out in everybody's mind because of all its successes. But as you say, for thousands of years in the past, there's been this knowing. I mean, being a scientist myself, having done research, science never pretends to know everything. Now, when you're a doctor applying science, you feel like you know. I mean, you can't go about your work as a physician without feeling that you know how to diagnose illnesses. Once you hit on a diagnosis, which you can do really fast once you have some experience and a lot of knowledge, you nail down the diagnosis and you come up with a treatment plan in your head. That whole experience may take seconds, and you know that you're right, and you better know that you're right, because if you doubt, you can't do anybody any good, right? So But science, if you step back, science never will say that it knows the truth. Science will just say, hey, our experiments, our research results have brought us closer to what we think is the best way to explain whatever phenomenon we're studying. We are not going to tell you that we're certain of anything. That's honestly one big difference between religion and science right now.

Sure.

Because religion, people who really, really are believers, and I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but one of the appeals that religion has is it gives you certainty. You know, there are people out there who just know that they know the truth. Science will never say that. Science will just say we're getting closer, but we'll never actually be there. And I think where spirituality and science come together now is, like you say, there's more and more empiric evidence, people's experience, that lies outside what science tells us is true. And we've already talked about it. I mean, if you experience psychadelics, or if you have a near-death experience, or in my case, I was diagnosed with cancer myself and had surgery. So far it hasn't returned, but I've been through being told, you know, you have cancer. That stopped my world pretty fast. And I actually, I talk about it in the book. I really descended into a very, very dark place.

Sure.

I tell that story, and I think I found the bottom of it. So when you say there may be benefit in these dark times and in this grief, I think one of the bigger mistakes you can make as a healer is to say to someone, you know, you will find your way through this, or things will— this will be better for you if you just give it time. I mean, that can be a mistake because when you're really in a dark, dark place and someone tells you that there's something else, you know inside, or you— if your place is as dark as it can be You know they're wrong. You just— you are not capable of feeling any light when you're in a really dark place. That's why I say it's very important to be there the best you can and not try to say there's something out other than this. That's like saying, I know that you don't really know what's going on. You, yeah, you think things are terrible. I'm here to tell you that you're wrong, right? That's, that's not healing. I think science now is in this position where we think we have the truth, we have the approach that works, even if we don't know everything, we're on track. Doctors in particular, I think, really believe that the materialistic way of analyzing, doing experiments, and and coming up with new theories is the way we will find the truth. What those people, I don't think, realize is there's all kinds of evidence now coming in that if you let it in, you realize we're in the same place that scientists were in a century ago when we first learned about electricity. You know, we knew nothing about the forces, and when they started to be discovered, Many of the scientists who discovered those things were poo-pooed out of the room because they agree with people's theories. And that's where I think we are now. Physics is already telling us that we can't describe reality. We can't know ultimate— what ultimate reality is. It's uncertain. All we can do, the best we can do, is get close with probabilities. And that's the right attitude. But I think applied scientists and medicine, we have a ways to go to soften up our attitudes before we can really accept that. But I think at some point, I think it's already starting to happen.

I think it's important whenever we have these conversations, I always like to throw it in there, is to differentiate between science and materialism, because science is a methodology. As you said, it's based upon empirical, uh, it's based upon observation, which is interesting because that's all based on consciousness. And that's a whole nother, nother good whole nother conversation. But people will claim they're taking a scientific approach, when they're really taking a materialistic approach. And I would say materialism is just another ism. It's just another belief system. And people don't understand that that is a belief system. So when someone tells me, for example, that mediumship is impossible, it's just like the guy that discovered bacteria, that they ended up throwing in an asylum eventually, because he kept trying to tell people there are these little invisible things that are causing people to get sick. And scientists said, no, that's impossible. That doesn't, that doesn't exist. If we said to someone a couple hundred years ago, there are these things called radio waves that are invisible, and they can travel around the world. And, you know, instantaneously, scientists would have said, that's impossible. So I like to differentiate between being scientific and being materialistic.

I think that's a great approach. I think where we are right now is, you know, materialism and the scientific method that applies it and applies only that is so successful that in this world, on this planet, it rules. The evidence that's coming in though is that people's— people, some people have experiences that there is a world or, you know, a range of experience beyond that. And I think once that experience continues to accumulate and once we get more brain scan evidence of what that's about, we'll begin to ask more questions. And I think physics may take us to a different place with that too. But, you know, we'll just have to see how that goes. Meanwhile, what I have to say about materialism is I used to be a devout materialist until I started working with people who I had to help them understand that they were approaching the end of their lives so we could make plans together that were realistic and made sense and that were compassionate and merciful and not continuing to attack the disease and the person, uh, you know, until the moment that they died. I, I have seen a lot of people, uh, die in the ICU, and it's, it's not pretty. I think that Um, once we are able to understand that the materialistic outlook holds water and really matters until you start to understand that you're not going to be here forever, or maybe even that long, then there are other ways of seeing things and relaxing into things that you can trust when you can no longer trust materialism. Because if your body is failing you— that was my experience when I was diagnosed with cancer— my body is manufacturing something that's going to kill me unless we do something about it. I— that really threw me for a loop. I had to take time off for a couple of weeks because I was so floored by that. I, I think once we get to where We understand that if you rely on materialism, you're not really surrendering, you're not really letting go. There comes a point where you have to find a way to let go regardless of what is happening in your material world. And that's where in meditation and with psychedelics, the letting go process, it gets real. You, you're able to understand that whatever you're thinking, whatever your beliefs are, whatever is going through your mind, you can let go of it. And oh, by the way, uh, you can either learn to let go of it now, or you will have to let the dying process do it for you, because that's what happens in the dying process. Particularly with chronic illness. I mean, you lose parts of yourself little by little, and adapting to that is so hard unless you have some way of trusting and being able to let go little by little until when you reach the time when you're really ready to leave, uh, you have let go of everything because you're going to anyway. So might as well get some practice before, before dying does it for you.

Yeah. Well, Dr. Stewart, after having worked in the ER, the ICU, um, and, um, in the hospital, and also working in hospice, which is kind of the other, other end of that, because, you know, one where you're, you're fighting like hell to keep people here, and the other one where you're saying, okay, it's time to let people go, how would you like to see our medical system change? What kind of changes would you like to see in either the training or the implementation?

Well, that's, that's a great question. And I, you know, the stories I tell in my book— when I, when I, when I wrote this book and decided to call it Facing Death: Spirituality, Science, and Surrender at the End of Life, uh, you know, I was really thinking about who I was 50 years ago when I got so upset and so actually angry at how my first patient was treated. I was, I was trying to understand what is it that got me so angry, because nobody else around me, none of the other students or house staff or doctors, seemed to have any of the upset that I did. Where did that come from? And why was it that I wound up dedicating my life to working with people who were dying? What brought me in that direction? Because I had never sat down and thought about it until I wrote the book. And so that has to do with what I would like to see happen in medicine. I think things are changing. Changing. If, if you read the book, you'll read stories about what happened to me back, well, 40, 40 to 50 years ago. And things are changing even now. Uh, you know, we have more attention to at least listening to people's spirituality and asking about their religious preference. The doctors are now being taught to be more open to people's beliefs. And, and that's a step toward, uh, doctors being trained to open up inside themselves and be closer with people where they actually are. So I think we're partway there. We're, we're beginning to train physicians to inquire and not just run over, you know, what, what people believe. What I think would be a great next step would be to begin to train doctors to find who they really are inside themselves, because my experience is that, uh, you can become more than a curer as a physician. You can become a healer. But that doesn't really happen as, as effectively as it could until you find that place in yourself. Then when you're coming from there, and it's so much easier to find that place in another person, and then you're, then you're together and you're no longer separate. I, I think physicians currently are still too separate from their patients. And the, the odd thing about that, and maybe the paradox, is, um, if you say to doctors, hey, you got to become closer with your patients, they'll go, are you crazy? I'm half burned out already. How do you expect me to— I already have compassion fatigue. And I— but that's not what I'm talking about. You don't have compassion fatigue when you find that place deep inside, below your thoughts, where you are aware of who you actually are, then you zero in through just a couple or three questions to that place in another person, and you're there together. Then your energy is coming from another place. It's not you, man, I didn't get enough sleep last night, I don't have the energy for this. You're beginning to bring energy in from whatever lies beyond just who we are in our physical bodies. And there's nothing woo-woo about that. It's a fact that that can be done. And I think people in hospice have learned how to do that. Even in hospice, we don't talk about it that much, but there are hospice nurses who all day, every day work with people who are dying. And never get burned out. In fact, they're invigorated by it. And I think they've learned how to make that deep connection, not just with people who are suffering, but with who they really are inside. And that's what I wish we could focus on more in medicine, because it can be kind of off-putting to see doctors who dart in and out of the room And it's ironic because it doesn't take more than a few minutes to meet people where they really are and who they really are. And you all have experienced, I hope, doctors who can do that. It's just I don't think we spend much time teaching it. And that's— that'd be the, the spiritual part of healing that we could impart, I think, better to doctors in training than we do. Nurses are much better at it. But a lot of them could still learn more too.

Yeah, I didn't, I didn't want to presume to say that, but that's what I've heard, that nurses tend to be better. Uh, doctors go to medical school. I think, I think some of that's trained out of them, that you can't be too empathetic, you have to compartmentalize, you can't— don't get too attached, that's not your business, just deal with, with the body. But the nurses are the ones that are there often in the room when the patients are passing, and they're there when the patients actually make their transition. And they actually experience some of this crazy stuff that you and I know exists, uh, shared death experiences, uh, loved ones coming to visit, you know, all kinds of stuff that happens at that, at that transition moment. And they come to realize there's a lot more going on here than just this body stopping the function.

Yeah, no question. And I, I think there are— I've known a number of physicians who have really learned what I see as the spiritual side of healing. I don't want to say that all doctors are, you know, really are behind on this, but I just think a lot of physicians have— could open themselves to a place where their lives and their patients' lives and everyone around them would be better off and fuller and more whole, uh, the more of this that they learned. Nurses— I think part of nursing is compassion and being close to people. Doctors are taught empathy, but I think there's a difference between teaching the principle of it and helping to promote and foster the experience of it. And I think that's kind of— would be where it would be great if we could go toward that.

Awesome. Well, Dr. Stewart, we're coming to the end of our time. You mentioned the name of the book a couple of times. If you could just say it again so people can pick it up and tell people where they can reach you.

Yeah, it's called Facing Death: Spirituality, Science, and Surrender at the End of Life. I might even have a copy here. Looks like that. I got some bookmarks in there at places that I like. Yeah, it's available on Amazon and everywhere books are sold.

Yeah. And your website is brianstuartmd.com, is that correct?

brianstuartmd.com, S-T-U-A-R-T. Dr.

Stuart, thank you very much for being here this afternoon and enjoy the rest of your day.

Well, thank you, Brian. I really appreciate it.

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