The Power Of Finding A Purpose Bigger Than Yourself with Lynne Twist

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Week'S episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy. Welcome to the Doctor's Pharmacy. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman. That's Pharmacy within A Place for Conversations that Matter. And today, if you've ever wondered about what your life is about, how to have meaning, how to be happy, how to live a life that's fulfilled, this is going to be a very important conversation because it's with an extraordinary woman, somebody I've known for many years, Lynn Twist. She's the founder of the Soul of Money Institute, and she's the author of the bestselling award-winning book called the Soul of Money, transforming your relationship with money and life. And over the last 40 years, she's had almost a storybook life from the looks of it. She's worked with over 100,000 people in 50 countries in doing all sorts of amazing things, looking at how we can live with integrity through conscious philanthropy, strategic visioning, and having a healthy relationship with money. Her clients have ranged from Procter & Gamble and Microsoft and the International Unity Church, Charles Swabb United Way, the Black Theatre of Harlem, at Harvard University, and many more you'd be surprised to hear, including working with groups like the United Nations Beijing Women's Conference, the State of the World Forum, Synthesis Dialogues for this Holiness, the Dalai Lama, the Governor's Conference on California Women, and lots of other things. She's a visionary leader. She's been advisor to the Desmond Tutu Foundation, the Nobel Women's Initiative, and the recipient of many, many awards. She's the co-founder also of the Pachamama Alliance, a nonprofit whose mission is to empower the indigenous peoples of the Amazon rainforest to preserve their lands and their culture. She serves on a number of nonprofit boards, and she's gone from working with Mother Teresa in Calcutta to refugee camps in Ethiopia, to the threatened rainforest of Amazon, and being on the ground, getting her hands dirty, and being in the real thick of it has brought Lynn a deep sense of understanding of the social tapestry of the world and historical landscape of the times we're living in. And her new book, A Living, A Committed Life: Finding Freedom and Fulfillment in a Purpose Larger Than Yourself, is out. And if you want to learn how to be really fulfilled and happy, I think the first thing you need to do is go get this book. So welcome, Lynn.

Thank you. Wow, that makes me tired listening to you.

I know, right? I hate when people do me too, it's long bios, but I know. Well, it's pretty, you've had a pretty amazing life.

I mean, from with Microsoft to the.

Indigenous peoples of the Amazon, to the Dalai Lama, to Desmond Tutu. I mean, it's pretty amazing what you've done and where you've been and what you've seen. And I think, you know, most of us live lives that somehow are grasping for more and knowing there's more, longing for more, wanting more, craving more, and not knowing quite how to get there. And you know, I really found that in my own life, and I think the more that I do this, the happier I am, the more that I serve, the more that I give, the more that I don't just think about myself and what I want and what I need, the happier I am. You know, I remember just a quick story to kind of illustrate a little bit about what you're talking about in your book was I went to Haiti after the earthquake, and it was just a scene of absolute Devastation with 300, 000 people killed, 300, 000 people wounded. We were the first medical team in the hospital. in the main hospital in Port-au-Prince, and it was just a scene of utter devastation and suffering. And I, you know, worked 20 hours a day, barely ate. Just, you know, it was so grueling. But I don't remember a time when I felt more fulfilled. I wouldn't say happy, but in a sense, I was kind of full of happiness and joy in a weird way. Being in that situation, it's hard to describe. It's a paradox, but the more I, I. I helped others, the more I felt better. And I think there's a quote in the book from Howard Thurman that says, Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. So tell us from that context, what does it mean to have a purpose larger than yourself?

Well, I think we get a little bit bamboozled by this wanting more of everything, more, more, more, more, more. We kind of translate that into consumerism. when what we want is more fulfillment in our heart and soul. And it just doesn't get filled up by buying more stuff or having a bigger house or making more money or trying to raise your status, even though that's kind of what the culture we live in points us toward. But what we actually, you know, Howard Thurman's quote is so great because really what we want is we want our hearts to sing. We want to feel great about ourselves. We want to be filled with joy. And that comes from making a big difference with your life. It comes from living the way you live. I mean, it comes from realizing like when you were in Haiti that this opportunity of the life we've been given, that if you think about life as given to you like a gift you received, then you want to give that life as a gift to something that's bigger than yourself. And when we do that, it's so amazing because we think that's sacrificial and giving things up, it's kind of the opposite. I found that when you make a commitment that's larger than your own life, it gets you out of this life starring me. And the life starring me is never fulfilling because you're always worried about, am I too young or too old or too fat or too... am I pretty enough or am I smart enough? A life starring me is all about measuring up or trying to fit in. But when you realize that you can dedicate your life to something larger than yourself, something you probably can't even accomplish in your own lifetime, it starts to shape you into the person you need to be to fulfill that. And so an ordinary person, people ask me, Gandhi was so extraordinary probably when he was born. Mother Teresa was probably extraordinary when she was born. Jane Goodall was probably extraordinary when she was born. Mark Hyman was probably extraordinary when he was born. I can't live up to that. But the truth is, I think we're all born the way we're born with gifts and treasures and talents, of course. But what made those people, including you, extraordinary is creating a purpose larger than themselves, which reaches back into your life and shapes you into someone capable of fulfilling it. So when you were in Haiti, for example, the situation, the circumstances being so dire, shaped you into someone who could move quickly and respond accurately and be of service rather than try to fix or help, but really be of service to the people that were there and use the wholeness of yourself to make a difference. So it's incredible how it's sort of backwards from what we think, but it really works.

It's totally true. And I think we all come to who we are in different ways. you share a story about how when you were 14, your, your, the night before your 14th birthday, actually, your father died of a heart attack in the middle of the night. And when that die, that death happened, it was, it was like something stopped in your life. The music stopped and you thought your life was over. But in a sense, it, it catalyzed something in you. It, it, you know, it changed the way you viewed your life. And, and how did it inform the rest of your life? What did it do to inspire you to live differently than you would have as a normal 14-year-old kid just being a teenager.

Well, the circumstances of my dad's death, first of all, he died very suddenly with no warning. So he died in his sleep with a heart attack, but he was age 50. So he was really young. And he was a musician and he was a bandleader. And our life was filled with music. He had an orchestra of 36 pieces, 36 men and a girl singer. And it was in the big band days. And when my dad died, my mother, there are four of us, four children, She was overwhelmed because she was 46, there was no warning. Suddenly her 50 year old husband was dead with four kids. She had press and, you know, she didn't know where the insurance papers were and she didn't know where the trust was and the safe deposit box, you know, she was just completely overwhelmed. So she couldn't really do a lot of caring for us because she was overwhelmed with the public persona of my dad. And so I turned to my Sunday school teacher, a nun named Sister Benjamin. And it was so incredible because she was like a container for me to realize that I could go within, that I had an inner life. Because at age 14, young girls are often kind of in love with their dad. I mean, you know, that's when you're starting to, you know, feel those changes in your body and your dad is your be all end all. And it was like my world ended. And I was also coming into high school and I was a you know, popular kid, I was a cheerleader, I was, you know, I was on all the different teams and stuff. So I had a very rich and kind of visible outer life, but very little inner life. And when my father died, I kind of thought it was my fault as children do often when a parent dies. So I went into a kind of, I was, at that time we were Catholic, so I would call it, I thought it was religious. I thought it was being religious, which maybe I was, that was the context I lived in. but I think what I was doing was developing my inner life, my inner strengths, my inner self, my inner knowing, my soul. And that has served me so well that I, you know, as much as I love my father and the loss of him was this huge trauma in my life, the outcome, the way that breakdown turned into what I'll call a breakthrough was I became aware of the inner life. I became aware of the deepest part of who I was. And in that way it was a gift. And then I wanted to succeed in his name almost. It was almost in tribute to him. So it gave me a kind of a motivation, a catalytic moment that I don't know if I would have had. It ignited me. Where high school sometimes can take you off into all kinds of directions. I was really in high school, I was I continued to be, you know, I was homecoming queen. I was president of everything. I was that kind of a kid. But at the same time, I wasn't doing it. It wasn't about me. It was about earning the right to have a life that was worthy of my dad. And so I think that's where it all kind of started. And I was so fortunate with the counseling of this wonderful nun, Sister Benjamin. I loved her so much. I thought, maybe I should be a nun, except that it didn't work out because My boyfriend was a high school football star and I was homecoming queen. Being a nun didn't fit. But she gave me a lot of the gifts that that world has.

Yeah, it's amazing. It seems like an anchor in a very tough time. But it seems to have led you to live a life that's quite unusual and has led you to be in the inner circles of people like Buckminster Fuller, who was a revolutionary thinker about how we live in the world quite differently. Mother Teresa, who was, you know, many think was a saint, Oprah Winfrey, who, you know, is a real cultural leader. And you, if you raised hundreds of millions of dollars for all kinds of causes, environmental, social causes, you, you're full of wisdom and you do all sorts of things to make the world a better place. So can you just talk about a little bit about your experience as an activist from ending world hunger to Amazon to empowering women to kind of make the world a better place. And how did you, how did you sort of you find your way on that path?

Well, I was very fortunate as a young woman, a young mother, I had three little kids. And my husband Bill was very involved in, he went to business school. And then he started working for a big company, you know, so he was all about succeeding. And I was kind of caught in the being the wife that looked good and wore the right stuff and tried to learn about wine and art because he was starting to be successful. And I thought, ah, I got to know about these things. And then I took the EST training the old S training, which is now, it's antecedited or what do you call it? That's ancestor. Yeah, it's now Landmark. And the S training was a little bit more harsh, probably a lot harsher than Landmark is. But I guess we all needed it. That was in the 70s. It was like being hit by a two by four of your head. It woke me up to living a different kind of life because I was all about what I looked like and what I, whether people liked me, I was all caught in all that. The S-Training really, you know, people, a lot of people have their thing. It's either meditation or it's a religious experience or something happens like the death of a person or divorce. But for me, the S-Training was a huge wake-up call that I could actually take this life and make a difference with it. And then I met Buckminster Fuller and Buckminster Fuller was like the be-all end-all. I mean, maybe you say like who.

He was in context, as many people listening may not know who he was. He was an influential figure for me, but he's been dead a long time, so people forget.

Yeah, a lot of people don't even know he was younger people than me. So Buckminster Fuller lived in the 20th century. He was trained as an architect and an engineer. And when he was 27, he contemplated suicide because he thought he was a failure as a father, as a producer of financial resources for his family. And instead of taking his life, he made a commitment to make his life an experiment. He said, if this is a throwaway life, if I can throw this away, maybe I can take it, this throwaway life, and see if one little ordinary human being can make a difference with their life that will impact all humanity. And that commitment he made, instead of killing himself, he made that commitment to have his life make a difference. And he coined the phrase, A little individual can make a difference that impacts all humanity by living that way. Bucky became just an extraordinary, it was often called the grandfather of the future. He invented the geodesic dome, he invented an electric car in 1949, saw the end of fossil fuels. He was just way ahead of his time. And I heard about Bucky and went, and I couldn't really understand his books, they were way over my head, but I went to see him speak. And when I saw him standing on the stage, he was in his 80s, he did a tour of the world called the Integrity Days when he's 80 years old. When I saw him standing on the stage, he was bald, thick glasses, little short man, like kind of a grandpa type. I just loved him. And I remember there's a wonderful quote from Emerson that says, who you are speaks so loudly I can't hear the words you're saying. And that was my experience of Buckminster Fuller. I did not understand anything he was talking about. But who he was spoke so loudly, his love for the universe. The talk he was giving was how the intellectual, how to tap into the intellectual integrity of the universe, which is grounded in love. And I just love this guy. And I ended up being able to know him and have him come to our home and meet my kids. And he was a mentor to me. he coined the phrase, a little individual can make a difference that impacts all humanity. And that's when it really kicked in for me. I'm going to make a difference with my life. And then the kind of key thing that happened next is that I was instrumental in introducing Buckminster Fuller to Werner Erhard, who was the founder of EST and the Landmark Movement. And when these two characters met, I knew a miracle would occur, and it did. That was the founding of the Hunger Project. a commitment to end world hunger. And then I got totally engaged and involved in that. So that's kind of the, the background story.

Amazing, amazing, amazing. And you also work with Mother Teresa. How did that happen?

Well, when you work on hunger and poverty and you end up, you end up in India. And I spent a lot of time, 25 years, going back and forth to Sub-Saharan Africa and India, Bangladesh, places like that. And when I was first in India in 1981, a long time ago, I remember thinking, my God, I'm in India. And as a raised as a Catholic, I wasn't Catholic anymore, exactly. But that kind of deep Catholic upbringing, I'd always really admired her and loved her like anybody. She was so extraordinary. I thought to myself, I'm working on hunger. I'm in India. Maybe I'll meet Mother Teresa. And I mentioned to a friend, her name is Indira Coitrye, I owe her so much. And I mentioned that to her and she said, oh, I know Mother Teresa. I said, you do? My God. You know Mother Teresa? She said, I'd love to introduce you. She'd love to meet you. I thought, you,'re kidding. And then it was two years before I was back in Delhi where that conversation took place. And I called Indira and said, I'm back in Delhi. I was working in other parts of the country at the time. And she said, Perfect. Mother Teresa is here at her orphanage in Delhi. And so I was immediately, I went to confession. I practically bathed myself in holy water. I had been to church in like 20 years. I thought I'm gonna see Mother Teresa, my God. So I had to recover my Catholicism, at least for the moment. Canceled everything and got myself ready and went to see her. And it was an extraordinary first meeting. I'll never ever, ever, ever forget it. And I cried the whole time. I just had no agenda. It was just to be in her presence, which was life changing for me. And then I became engaged with her. I went to visit her whenever I could. I went to with her to the leprosy center. I would accompany her to Kalighat, where it's the home of the death and dying. I just couldn't get enough of her. And she was everything you would want her to be. She was a humble servant of God and she never talked about herself and she didn't talk much, but she was her work and that really, really impacted my life. I'm so privileged to have known her.

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Of the Doctor's Pharmacy.

And then how is your life different afterwards? What are the things that you changed about how you live and how you thought about the world and yourself?

Well, can I tell you a story about that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.

Well, when I first went to see her, I, oh, God, probably cry here. So I went to her orphanage in Delhi, which was a home for girls under two. And in India at that time, many baby girls were given up just because they were girls. But often if they had a missing finger or they were blind or there was something wrong with them, they were for sure given up. And when I arrived at the orphanage in Old Delhi, I was walking up the steps to the door and there was a crumpled newspaper on the step and I picked it up because I'm a sort of a trash picker-upper. And when I picked it up to throw it away, there was a baby inside. And the baby was a little girl, the size, this is the size of my hand. She was so, so small. She was like a puppy. She was so tiny. She was very, very premature and she was alive and breathing. And so I wrapped her up in a shawl and knocked on the door and a nun opened the door and I presented this little being and they took her right away and I said she was on the doorstep and I said, I'm here for my appointment with Mother Teresa. And the woman who answered the door, she said, well, Mother Teresa is not here. She's at the jail bailing out prostitutes because we need so much help here. We have so many children. And so she said, can you help us while you're waiting? And so I said, okay. So they put me to work. I put on an apron. There were 39 little girls under two little babies. And they put me to work in a series of sinks bathing deformed little girls, blind little girls, little babies. And I don't remember, I know this is impossible to believe, but I do not remember anybody crying, any child crying, and that's impossible. But it was so beautiful. And I remember thinking, this is my meeting with Mother Teresa. If she never comes back, this is it. I was in absolute bliss with these little babies and the nuns and the scene and the love. And then someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, She's here. and met with her in a dark little hall, a wooden table and two chairs, and I cried all the way through. But here's the thing I want to tell you. In a certain moment in the meeting, there was a scuffle behind me and a loud series of voices, sort of angry, loud, demanding voices, and a strong aroma. And then this huge, I mean, huge, Indian couple arrived in our hallway, in our meeting. The woman was very large, very tall, and also very, very wide. And she had a very opulent sari and lots of bangles and a diamond in her nose and diamonds that went all the way to her ears. They were extremely opulent looking and kind of over the top people and over perfumed, over made up, overweight, over everything. And her husband was even bigger. He was this giant Sikh and he had a big Topaz on his, his, what do you call those things? He had, he had rings on every finger, including his thumb. And they came bursting in and they said to Mother Teresa, we didn't get a picture. We didn't get the picture. And I, I didn't understand what they were doing, but she stood up and they handed me an Instamatic camera, if you remember those little. Sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they stood on the other side of the wall and they put her in the middle. and demanded in a kind of boisterous and bullyish way, take the picture, take the picture. So I took a picture and then the woman did, they were huge. So this man over here and this one over here and little Mother Teresa in the middle of the room, she had osteoporosis, she was all bent over. Then the woman did this, what I thought was unforgivable thing. She went like this, Mother Teresa, put your chin up. And she went and pulled up her chin and held it up for the picture. and then she demanded I take another picture.

Oh my God.

And I did. And then they grabbed the camera and they left. They didn't thank us. They didn't kiss her. They didn't do anything. They just left. And they were awful, rich, ugly, entitled people. And I sat down again. And Mother Teresa sat down. We continued our meeting, but my blood was boiling. I hated these people. How could they treat her that way? How could they interrupt my meeting? But I tried to calm myself down. And Mother Teresa was totally fine, but I was not. We completed our meeting and then I rode back to my hotel in Delhi, which took 45 minutes. And during the time, I realized, oh my God, I felt the most profound love I've ever felt in my life, sitting with her. And then this enormous surge of hate for these wealthy entitled people. boisterous, rude people. And she was fine. I was not fine. Yeah. So when I got back to the hotel, I wrote a letter to her, thanking her for this profound teaching. And here's what she told me. And this is what changed my life. She wrote me back and she said, you will. You are. We'll always be drawn. You will always be drawn, Lynn, to the underprivileged, the less fortunate, the people who are. or marginalized and need your support and your love. But you need to expand your circle of love and compassion to include the rich, the entitled, the wealthy, the... Everybody's suffering. Of the righteous. And she said this incredible thing. She said the vicious cycle of wealth can be as intractable and as painful as the vicious cycle of poverty. And your karma is to open your heart to the wealthy and expand your circle of compassion to include them. And after that, my fundraising, which I was doing anyway, became completely transformed. And I started to see people caught in the climbing of the ladder, trying to accumulate more, another plane, another helicopter, another island, as people that were part of what my dharma was, my karma was. And it has been incredible ever since then. That's really how I could write the book, the Soul of Money. Because I started to see we're all suffering, and many of us in our relationship with money, whether we have it or we don't have it, we, we, it's a, it's a place where we're not ourselves all, all often, where we're, where we become somebody we don't want to be, where we become greedy, where we become entitled, where we become righteous, where we become victims. Um, and so that's when I really started to working with, work with people and money. And that was that meeting with Mother Teresa. So that's the answer. Incredible story.

That's a beautiful story. And I think it's true. We, we, we create judgments around people who who don't fit our idea of who we should be loving or serving or be kind to. And it's created increasing divisiveness in the world and righteousness and separation and disconnection. And we're seeing it increasingly in America. We're seeing it globally. And it breaks my heart because, you know, often it's interesting. Yeah. People, I even notice on Instagram, for example, people, when I, you know, meet with a Republican or a Democrat, like, I mean, whoever I'm meeting with, it's like I'm first meeting with a human being, and I'm first meeting with a person who has a soul and a heart and who, underneath whatever their beliefs or ideas or ideology or pain or suffering is, there's a beautiful soul under there. And it really hurts me to see how much we've gone away from being human beings together to being our identity. And I think that's something that has to shift and change. And I think your book, your new book, is really about how do we break that down? How do we actually live a life that is not just all about our identities and our personal beliefs and needs and wants, but actually dedicated to helping each other? And that's where really the magic comes. And the teachings can be complicated and there's all these esoteric religions and ideologies and philosophies, but I think the most poignant and the simplest and the most beautiful beautiful rendition of, I think, what it is to be human and how to live a good life was Neem Karoli Baba's philosophy, which he was the guru of Ram Dass and the author of Emotional Intelligence. Daniel Goldman is a good friend and Larry Brilliant who helped in Smallpox and just all these incredible people. And Krishna Das, the musician, who we like to listen to. And his philosophy was really simple. love everybody, serve everybody, feed everybody. And that's like, that's pretty much all you need to know. Right.

And when it comes right down to it, it's simple. We put these labels on each other. Even the label poor and rich, I realized it's so devastating to nobody's poor. There's no such thing. People are whole and complete people living in poor circumstances. They're not poor. The circumstances are poor. But they're whole and complete people with dreams and hopes. People who are rich live in sometimes the tyranny of wealthy circumstances.

Oh my goodness, yeah.

They're human beings and we're all kind of strong and I really appreciate what you said because when I watch the news and it says under somebody's name that they're a Democrat or a Republican, right away I have to undo that. I don't want to know that yet. I don't want to know that ever maybe. I just want to know this is Mark. This is then. Exactly. You know, once we label people, then we can't hear them anymore. We hear only the point of views that we don't agree with or the point of view we do. And the algorithms that are now deepening and deepening and deepening and deepening our ideology by feeding us our own stuff over and over and over again in a deeper and deeper way are making it, you know, hard to get out of your own swim lane and see that there's other points of view, there's other ways to see the world. It's really, ah, yeah, pretty sure.

It's pretty sure. And America is weird because, you know, I don't know exactly the number, but it's somewhere around half or more of all Americans don't even have a passport. And so if we don't get out of our little worlds to just meet other people, see other ways of thinking and being and living, we get so locked in our worldview. And I think, you know, part of the beauty of living a life of service is you get to see things through other people's eyes, through other people's perspectives to understand their world a little bit better. and I think it makes us happier. It's kind of a trick. I think the, the, the thing that most people don't realize is that, that altruism is medicine. It actually is good for us, not just good for the people we're serving or caring for. And the biology of altruism is fascinating because it actually activates the same pleasure centers as most of the addictive drugs, like heroin or cocaine or nicotine. And so the, the dopamine we get from giving and serving. And I, it's strange to say this, Lynn, but I actually felt high when I was in Haiti. I often feel high when I'm doing the work I do because I feel like I'm doing something to just help others and make the world a better place and not focus on myself on something in that. I don't know what that is. I think it's, you know, I think E. O. Wilson wrote about it. He called the Social Conquest of the Earth. This is a book he wrote, you know, not too long ago about the way we've evolved to help each other, whether we're ants or whether we're humans. to the whole almost world of nature and evolution, we've evolved to be in community to serve and help each other as a way of surviving. You put a human being in the woods by herself. I mean, they don't have this chance, right? So I think we forget that. So, Lynn, I know you've heard so many stories. You've been all over the world. You've heard so many wise people share about who they are and what they do. You work with incredible humans who are doing things to bring so much peace and goodness and healing and miracles to the world. So what have you learned about what makes ordinary people extraordinary? And what are the tools and teachings that help people create transformation and cause these miracles?

Well, it is this exactly the title of the book, really. Living a committed life, finding freedom and fulfillment in a purpose larger than yourself. When you were in Haiti or when, you know, just your whole career, you could say. But being with like Jane Goodall, for example, I mean, Jane, obviously everybody loves Jane Goodall. How could you not love her? She's so incredible. Yeah. And I've known her for years and years and years. But when she went to Gombe Stream, you know, when she was a teenager before she even was a scientist, something called to her and she paid attention to it. And it was larger than her life. And so she put her life in service of that. And as you say, you know, this thing about Alzheimer's mind, I love hearing that. I know that to be true in my own body, you know, when I'm really serving, when I'm really truly serving, it's, you get high. I mean, it's really, it's weird to say it, but it's true. But you can't do it for that reason. That's the thing. It's sort of a trap. You can't do it to be happy. You need to do it because you really want to serve. You know, there's a wonderful quote from Rachel Remen, who I know you know. She says, when you're helping, you're really acknowledging that someone or something is weak. When you're fixing, you're acknowledging or saying that something's broken. When you're serving, you're acknowledging and affirming that what you're serving is whole. and that's the experience of service which is different than fixing or helping. It's really from your own wholeness to the wholeness of those that are in your path. And I feel like I've been so blessed, my God. Holy moly, I can't even believe my life sometimes. And it came that I didn't even know Jane Goodall or Desmond Tutu or know you. comes from the commitments I've made, not from my personality or not from any of that that I used to think was so important. It comes from that I've made commitments larger than myself that have given me a life I could never planned or dreamed of. And now working in the Amazon with indigenous people who, you know, they. They don't need to get a passport and see the world to understand their responsibilities. for the next seven generations or the next 500 years. They are living not on the earth and they're not fighting for the earth. They are of the earth. It's almost like the earth is speaking through them and through us really. And if we realize that and we surrender to that, then we become the instrument of something greater than ourselves. And it moves through us rather than we determine I'm going to end world hunger, or I'm going to save the Amazon, or I'm going to heal the people in Haiti. No, it comes from something other than us and we become the instruments of something. And that's, there's a surrender there. There's a courage in surrendering, but there's also a relief. I mean, it's, you know, it's my commitment. I don't have to worry what I'm going to, whether I'm going to do this or that or what I'm going to wear. My commitments wake me up in the morning. my commitments tell me where to go, what to do. So it's, it's a, it's a Liberation. It's strange. Making a commitment that's larger than yourself liberates you rather than traps you. And trying to keep your options open, that traps you. You're, you're kind of lateral. You can't move forward. But once you choose, or it chooses you, which is sometimes really what happens, you're free. you're free. And there's a sense of enormous fulfillment and joy.

Yeah, that's true. We always think that fulfillment, happiness and joy come from things that don't usually bring them. And we ignore the things that actually are available to all of us all the time. And I think your story in India with those little children, those little babies, and what an ecstatic experience that was for you and how it really shaped your view, and the juxtaposition of that with sort of the rage and hatred you felt at the same time, it sort of seems like a little bit of a crucible that formed who you were and helped shape how you have lived your whole life and led you to the amazing work you've done. I think, yeah, I remember Jane Goodall, I had the privilege to meet her and I was sort of struck by her and I asked if I could have a picture with her and she said, Let's look in each other's eyes. I was like, whoa, okay. What an unusual woman, you know? just to, okay, we're not just gonna look at the camera, we're gonna look at each other. And I had this beautiful photo of us just gazing at each other's eyes and she had such a deep, deep well of love and humanity. And it was just, it was really a privilege to be with her even for a short moment. Yeah. And who else have you kind of met that's kind of inspired you in that way? And maybe you could share another story?

Oh, well, I'm going to pick an indigenous man named Manari Ushigua, who's not famous to you and most of the people that are listening to this, but he is very, very important to me and to many people. He's the leader of the Zapatista people in the Ecuadorian Amazon. And the Zapatista people are facing extinction. There's about 500 of them left. He's their leader and he's the primary shaman. When I was with him in the rainforest in the Amazon, we were hiking and, you know, in the Amazon indigenous people, they know it like you and I would know our home. And, you know, one foot away from him or 10 feet away from him, I'd be lost forever and never know my way back to anywhere. But for him, it was his home. And we were walking through this very, very thick forest and a sacred forest for him. And He had a machete and he was cutting the trail as we go. Maybe there was a trail for him, but I certainly didn't see one. And I'm walking carefully behind him and I was a little scared. He was bare chested, had a kind of a sarong like thing on. He was barefoot. There was all kinds of stuff, brambles and mud and branches. And he was barefoot and had painted his face. And I had every possible thing on myself, mosquito repellent. I was covered with I was long sleeves and to protect myself in high boots. And we're going through the forest. And I'm going behind him. And he's very silent the way he walked. Couldn't hear his footsteps, but I'm on my boots, you know, behind him. And then he stopped and he said, can you feel them? And it was in Spanish. And I thought, well, maybe I didn't understand. So I asked him to repeat, can can you feel them? Can you feel them? And I didn't know what he was talking about, but I looked around and then he said the millions and millions of souls. And suddenly everything had a soul. For me too, the caterpillars, the bugs, the leaves, the branches, the massive trees, the butterflies, the snakes, Everything had a soul. For him, that was always the case, but it never occurred to me that way. Can you feel the millions and millions of souls? And for him, we were walking through a community of souls. For me, I was walking through brambles and bugs and trying to keep myself separate from them. He was absolutely connected to them. He was one of them. and from that moment on, my experience of the natural world in particular trees and branches and vines, and I have such a transformed relationship with the natural world as a community of life of which I'm a part. And then I met Suzanne Simard, who I think you probably have interviewed yours, Dr. Suzanne Simard. Oh my God, you should put her on your list. She's the scientist that has been the primary scientist to discover that the trees are communicating with each other all over the world through the mycorrhizal network and the mycelium and that there's a real communication structure and there's mothers and father trees and there's all kinds of stuff going on that has been going on for thousands of years that we're not not aware of. So now my relationship with the forest outside my window, just everything, it has a soul. And that gives me a kind of reverence that I didn't know was possible for everything.

I think it's a beautiful story because it's true. We've sort of so disconnected ourselves from nature and have lost our relationship to things that sustained us throughout most of our evolution. And the Native Americans also have a similar saying, it's to all my relations, all my relations, right? It means to everything, to everyone, to everybody. And it's all the birds and the insects and the plants and the animals. And it's, you know, when you see everything as in relationship with as opposed to control over, it's very, very different. And it changes your framework for how you think about your life and how you live. so it's really clear you've had some really extraordinary encounters with extraordinary people that have left these little nuggets of wisdom that seem to have guided your life, which is so beautiful.

Well, I think everybody has that, you know, they just need to listen, I think, you know?

Yeah.

It's really available everywhere.

It's true. And I kind of read a book during COVID which really impacted me called the Soul of America: the Search for Our Better Angels.

And.

In that book, it talked about moments in history when we were in crisis points, when Civil War and Reconstruction and women's suffrage and civil rights and all these moments in history where they were really the Cold War, where there were real threats to our survival and to our survival as a nation, to our survival as a species even. It seems that we're in one of those moments now with the rise of autocracies, the divisiveness of our society, the climate change, the existential threats we're facing. The question I always ask myself is, where are we? Are we really at the end or are we another moment of inflection where we will find our better angels? You talk about how living a committed life is really crucial to our human future. and I am very intrigued by that because, you know, in searching for the question, the answer to the question of how do we imagine our future? How do we navigate our way out of the predicament we're in now? How do we get back to being connected and a world where there's deeper understanding and compassion, humanity and trust and safety? You know, how does a committed life play a role in that? What does that mean?

Well, I'll just say I think it gives me a perspective, a way of seeing things where I can look at a larger context than the content itself. And so, for example, the pandemic and the climate crisis are two huge things that impact every living thing, but particularly the human journey. And I started to realize the pandemic as horrible as it is, as it has been and continues to be. And the people who have died and lost loved ones and been sick, I've been sick myself. The indigenous people of the Amazon have said to us that humanity in some primordial way has been waiting for something powerful and sacred enough to disrupt our way of living that we couldn't disrupt on our own. and help us to rethink and reimagine and renew and resource the way we're living. And that everything comes from the earth, everything. This computer I'm looking at, the ear pods I've got on, you know, everything, you and me, we all come from the earth. The virus came from the earth too. And in many ways, you know, as Paul Hawken says, things are not happening to us, they're happening for us. They're happening for us. If we hold it that way, then we receive the teaching and I I think that the pandemic and the climate crisis, if you look at it this way, it could be one way of looking at it, is that the pandemic is a kind of morning sickness. And when I had morning sickness, when I was pregnant, I didn't know I was pregnant. I thought I was sick. I really did. And I was throwing up in the morning and I was tired all the time and I wanted weird things. And then I found I was pregnant and then it changed completely. I had a context for my illness. And so I kind of like to think of the pandemic as morning sickness for a species that is pregnant with a new kind of human being. And the pregnancy might be long and painful and not every pregnancy produces a baby. And labor might be really, really tough. but the climate crisis is major feedback from the mother that we need to rethink. You know, it's huge feedback from the mother, the mother, that we need to re recreate what we mean as what we consider being a human being. So I think we're in an epic evolutionary leap, and it's painful and it hurts, and some people aren't going to make it, and it there's a depth to it that's beyond what we've ever identified before, I think. I think it's not just multiple crises. I think the whole thing is up for grabs. And I think that's like when, you know, you're a doctor, so I know you've treated people who've been facing end of life illnesses and then when they don't die, they say the cancer diagnosis changed their life and they're so grateful for it. You know, that's kind of what I think is going on. And living a committed life gives you that kind of a way of holding things that are difficult, looking at them as breakdowns that have the seeds of a breakthrough in them and looking for the seeds of the breakthrough. Because you've got a commitment that's bigger than your own life and you are always looking to reframe, recontextualize, recreate in a way that you fulfill the destiny that you've chosen for yourself or that you've been given. So maybe we're pregnant. Maybe we're really pregnant with something glorious if we're willing to be open to that. Yeah.

And sort of in your book you said, you know, any situation of breakdown holds the seeds of a breakthrough that's greater than the breakdown itself. And if you know that, that you're going to look for those seeds and water them, and then life gives you exactly what you need to evolve to grow to make the difference you want to make in the world. And it seems like we're as a planet, as a species, as nations, we're all in the middle of it right now where this maybe this breakdown is planting the seeds for something different. Maybe you can share something from your own life that a personal story, something you've seen or witnessed that was a breakdown that actually helped you break through to something else that was, you know, giving birth to something different. It was something you couldn't imagine in the darkness.

Well, I was one of the early leaders of the Hunger Project, which became a huge global movement and still exists and is really a glorious organizational commitment and millions and millions of people are involved in it. And I was one of the early people. So I over and over again. And I became sort of a, I became the leader of the volunteer network worldwide, which was millions of people. And I would say all the time, I've been here since the beginning, or I'll be here till the end of hunger or the end of my life, whatever comes first. I'm here. You can count on me. And other people would come and go in the Hunger Project, but everybody knew Lyn TwyS was going to be there till the end of hunger, the end of her life. And then I had this whole, this beautiful story that I I won't tell here, but I think it's in the book, about being called through a series of visions and dreams to the Amazon rainforest. And I had never been to South America. I didn't speak Spanish. It was very strange to me. But ultimately, I followed that call and with John Perkins and my husband Bill went to the Ecuadorian Amazon and we started the Pachamama Alliance. But I was still in charge of this massive 57 countries of the Hunger Project. I was responsible for fundraising and volunteer participation and operations. And I had no band, and I had three kids, no bandwidth to suddenly take on preserving the Amazon rainforest. But we had started Pachamama Alliance and I was being pulled in these two directions. And then I got malaria. So this is the breakdown. I got really, well, the malaria came from, I was still doing the Hunger Project. So I got it from, I got VVAVs and OVALI at the same time. VVAVs, I think, from Tana in Ethiopia. an Ovalli from India. I didn't get it from Amazon. But I got really sick and it wasn't diagnosed early on. It was diagnosed in all other ways inaccurately. So I was super sick and I couldn't do anything for anyone. And I was sick for nine months. So it was a long time. Long time. And so I had to be in bed, you know, and before that I was traveling all over the world. Like, you know, I consider myself a pro activist, activist for not against, but I'm definitely an activist. and so I staying home and in bed was like unthinkable for me, especially with all the responsibilities I held. But I had to because I was so sick. And by the end of that nine month period, I realized I'm not meant to continue the Hunger Project till the end, at least in that form. And I learned from my colleagues in Senegal when I went to Senegal to do a meeting with some elders. I was sitting on a dry piece of land near the ocean. It wasn't a beach, it was just like a desert. And I was with men who were 70 and 80 that were leaders of a Muslim village. And they told me they had grown up in a rainforest right where we were sitting. And then they had gone for 40 years. And I suddenly realized, oh my God, I'm going to work in the Amazon to prevent what's happened across all of Africa that's ended up with poverty and hunger and slavery and all the horrible things that have happened to that continent.

Yeah.

Really was the exploitation and the destruction of the massive rainforests that were part of the African continent. And I realized I'm going to from ending world hunger in the situations I've been in in Sub-Saharan Africa and subcontinent India. I'm going to prevent that in South America. So I made it work for myself.

Yeah, yeah.

To leave the Hunger Project and to become deeply engaged in the Pachamama Alliance. And I had to find my way through that breakdown because I had told everybody I was going to stay with Agartha forever, and I. And I'm still there in so many ways, but now I'm working in a different way. in the same context to preserve the Amazon rainforest, which is critical to the future of life. So, yeah, that's my story, too. That's beautiful.

Yeah, no, it's true. I mean, we all have those stories. And we look at those things that happen in our life that seem like they're cataclysmic events. And, you know, I had gotten very sick when I was younger in my 30s, and. And that's what led me to discover the value of. Of rethinking medicine and. And coming upon functional medicine as a. healing myself and healing my patients and ultimately is a way of understanding us as part of a larger ecosystem that we live in, in the earth. So it's really all connected. And that really has informed my work. And it wasn't something I chose, but it was something that chose me. And those little transformational moments helped direct the course of our life and led me to be so passionate about actually making this come to fruition, and to relieve suffering where it doesn't need to be. I mean, there's some things that just you can't avoid. I mean, hurricanes and natural disasters, I mean, yes, they're maybe part of climate change, but they're often unavoidable, but the things that can be relieved, like hunger, that's not a difficult problem to solve. There's enough food in the world for over 10 billion people, and you can throw more than a third of it out. And so it's like, this is a solvable problem. And I think we all have to find out what for us actually is is our North Star, the thing that keeps us going. And you talked about in your book, Living a Committed Life, it's not really about sacrifice. It's about how to live a life of service that actually leads to abundance and magic for yourself and everything and everyone in your life. So what are the kinds of lessons and teachings and things that you've accumulated through your life that are in the book?

I used to sacrifice myself for other people. I used to think that was the right thing to do. And you get completely exhausted or, you know, leave myself out of the transformation I was trying to produce for other people. And I realized that that doesn't work and it's out integrity actually. There's an arrogance actually in that. It seems so modest and humble, but it's there's something arrogant about it. committed to transforming everything, you think you're somehow some magician rather than, you know, part of the pictures is being able to include yourself in all of it. There's a quote from the, I think from the Bible, I'm not really sure where it comes from, called Drink as you pour. And for some reason that really got to me. Yeah. I realized that, you know, I got into sacrifice, which is because charity has a wonderful name and Mother Teresa really taught the world about charity in the 20th century. She was an icon for that. But I actually don't think charity is useful any longer and I think what we need is solidarity, not charity. Something about charity is sacrificial in a way that's unhealthy and it's like looking at someone as less or I don't know, there's something about it that I I want to kind of reboot and talk about solidarity. That's why that quote from Rachel Remen, you know, we help, we help where we're saying something is weak, when we fix, we're saying something is broken, when we serve, we're being whole ourselves and serving the whole. And that's where you're not in sacrifice. In fact, you're fulfilled by it the way you were in Haiti. And I once was interviewed by a a women's magazine called, it was the name of the magazine called Balance. And the lady who called me was the editor and she said, We want to put you on the COVID and do an interview. And I said, you,'ve got the wrong person. I can't, like, I don't even want balance. I don't understand it. I don't know how to do it. And I don't seek it, but I think it's a wonderful thing for others. And she said, well, why not? And I said, well, I seek integrity. Like if I need to stay up all night to complete something that I promised, that that really is important to the person I promised to do, I will. But where I look is do I have integrity? And when I have integrity and I feel complete and whole, I'm healthy also. And I say to people who say they're burned out and that I don't think you can get burned out unless you get disconnected from Source. I think that's what burnout comes from. I know you work hard. I know you stay up late. I know you travel the world. I do that, too. But I love it. And then, you know, I do have my moments when I crash, but, yeah, I don't. I don't want balance. And so I. I said all this stuff, and they still put me on the COVID of the magazine and. you know, it's just a different way of looking at life. But I do feel like I have learned to drink as I pour, and that has made my life so fulfilling. It's just like ridiculous how much joy I have been privy to and have been allowed to express in my life through really being a pro activist, being an activist for not against. I just want to say I know that there's stuff in between the vision I have for the world and me, but I'm not against it. I want to dismantle it with honor and respect. I often say we need to hospice the death of the old cultures and structures that don't serve us rather than attack them or try to kill them. They're dying and that's why they're making so much noise. If we hospice them, they'll die at a more dignified death and won't be so obnoxious about it. But when we hospice and when we midwife the birth of the new structures and systems that we now know will serve us, hospicing and midwifing we are so familiar with are really acts of witness and love and allowing dignity to be in the process, you know. So I don't know, that's where I am. Yeah.

So people listening are probably wondering, gee, how do I find this in my old life? You've had an extraordinary life, and Dr. Hyman, you maybe had a also a life of serendipity and incredible opportunities. How do I, as someone listening, navigate my own life toward a committed life that is engaged in service and being in service of something greater than yourself that brings more joy and love and healing into the world?

Well, it's really kind of going back to the quote from Howard Thurman in the beginning that you cited. It's what makes your heart sing. And what is the call of the world that's a match for you? What upsets you so much that you want to passionately address it? What strikes a chord in your heart? It doesn't just make you upset and angry, but it reaches your heart. It breaks your heart. where is that in your life? And what have you, you know, people, I believe that anybody who's alive today is here to make a difference, to make a contribution. I mean, the times are so epic. My God, I'm so grateful I'm alive right now. There's so much to contribute to. There's so much need. There's so much going on. So there's room, plenty of room for everybody to get, and it's an all hands on deck time anyway. It just is. So what calls to you? What makes your heart sing? What makes you feel worthy? What makes you feel useful? And go and do that. And look all the way through your life at what you've been called to do. You know, when you were a little kid on the playground, were you were you somebody who defended against the bully? Maybe you're a person who's all about justice. Maybe you're one of these people who's who when you were in third grade and they picked teams for kickball, you always picked the person who wasn't so good because you want to include. Maybe that's your thing. So we're called to take a stand for something. Take a stand for something. Not take a position against or for but a stand for something that's worth giving your life to. And it doesn't need to be big. and it doesn't need to be small. I say you don't have a big girl or small, there's just your role. And if you play it, you'll find the meaning that you've been looking for. You can be a kindergarten teacher who's just going to do it for two years. But those two years, you're going to make such a difference with those little ones. You're going to have them see who they are. You're going to have them never, ever doubt that they're worthy of the world that they're living in. So it doesn't need to be ending world hunger like I or, you know, healing world like you. It can be, it can be, you know, making your, your town a little bit greener. So I think there's just everybody's, if you listen deeply, you're being called right now. Everybody is because it's an all hands-on deck world. Yeah. And we all get to play our part.

So true. It kind of reminds me of one beautiful nuggets of wisdom. Then my favorite nuggets from Mother Teresa, she said, there are no acts of great love, only small acts done with great love. And I think that's exactly what you're saying. Doesn't it be ending world hunger or healing the planet or saving the rainforest? It can be just as simple as being kind to that person you see on the street or your neighbor or doing something for your community. It doesn't have to be big, but those small things add up and they change our world.

Yeah, yeah, I love Brother David Steindl-Ross, you probably know him, you know Brother David. So he's such a teacher for me and sometimes just being around him, which I've been privileged to do, he will wake up in the morning and he'll say, sometimes he used to stay with me, he'd say, Today, I'm going to be grateful for yellow. Yellow. Everything yellow. I love these yellow pads. I love The color of that house next door, I love the sunshine. I love that woman's blonde hair. I love this banana. You know, he would just find something to be grateful for for the whole day. And just being in the presence of that is life changing. So that's an example of a commitment to really make a difference with one's life. He's such a wonderful teacher for me.

So beautiful. So, you know, we've been talking about the state of the world. and how we live our lives and how we, and maybe reimagine our relationship to ourselves, to service, to our communities, to our families, to the earth. And, you know, I spent a lot of time now thinking about the future. My children are, you know, gonna have children, hopefully soon, and their children. And I kind of, I'm at that stage of life where I'm thinking about this and I'm wondering about the future, and it feels like a fraught moment. And I'm curious about how you think about it. And given what you've seen with being in some of the worst suffering in the world and places where hunger is rampant and where there's just devastation and human suffering beyond what most of us ever seen or can imagine, how do you reflect on what's happening now? And what do you think we most need to emerge out of this hole?

Well, I have grandchildren and I have children and grandchildren. And I have the same, you know, concerns as you do, and we all do. Like, what kind of world are we leaving for them? What, what are they going to have on their plate? And at the same time, I also know that they're up to it. You know, it's incredible. One, this is a Buckminster Fuller quote. One time he had dinner at our house, and he wanted to eat in the kitchen with the kids. That's what he was. And the kids were six, eight and ten. and I thought, well, that's great for them. So we'll eat in the kitchen. Bucky wants to eat in the kitchen with the kids. So we did. And my daughter, who's in the middle one, she was eight, and she did, she said one of those kind of kid things that are really profound that, you know, out of the mouth of babes come these amazing things sometimes. And Bucky turned to Bill, my husband and myself, and he said, Never forget your children are your elders in universe time. They've come into a more complete, more evolved universe than you can ever understand except through their eyes. And that really, that just like rearranged my molecules. I'll never forget that day. And now I look at the young people that I work with, the young people that I know, their competencies, they're deeply engaged in the environmental crisis in a good way. they're on the job, you know, they're, they're, I can barely turn on my TV without my grandkids, you know, they understand this whole digital thing that's happening. And I, you know, I worry about that too. It seems so different than books and the way we were raised. But at the same time, I have so much trust in the universe, you know, the universe story, if you know that wonderful work by Thomas Thomas Berry, which really says that, you know, that we're all children of the universe and the universe, the grace and guidance that has guided the universe to evolve to what it is now is still here. It's still here. And we're collaborators, yes. We're very powerful as a species, yes. And we've made terrible mistakes, but we're getting the feedback we need to course correct. And and, you know, we are, we are, we are love. We are loved by the universe. We are part of it. We're, maybe we're, we're, we made mistakes, but we're not flawed. We're, we're part of the creation. And so we will find our way. And, and I feel like, you know, Joanna Macy is another mentor of mine, and she's 93. And I went to see her when I was writing this book, and she said, I'm so glad to still be alive during the transition. We're in the great transition. And I'm seeing it, I'm feeling it. And then she said, Souls are waiting in line to incarnate so that they can be part of this awesome, amazing transition, this transformation, this epic evolutionary leap. Isn't it exciting, Lynn? I thought, oh yeah. You're right. And so really it's all how we hold it. Everything's challenging, everything's hard. The news is just like, oh my God, can you even watch it? But at the same time, it wouldn't be here, I think, if we weren't up to it. And we say in our programs at Pachamama Alliance, the choices we make impact the future of life for 1,000 years. and that could show up like a burden, but actually what it does in another way, it ennobles your life. It ennobles the choices you make. It gives you the opportunity to stand tall and be responsible for the choices you make, realizing they're not just for you, they're for the long-term future of life. And how exciting is that? I mean, that's pretty cool. And I think young people know that, and I think they know that in a way that we we didn't know it. And they do. And that's a consciousness that's really deepening.

The hope is in our children and their ability to imagine a different world and actually bring it into reality. So that's beautiful. Wow, Lynn, well thank you so much for what you're doing, for what you've done, for what you're going to do, for the light you bring in the world. for writing this book, Living a Committed Life: Finding Freedom and Fulfillment in a Purpose Larger Than Yourself. It's a very important book in a time that's fraught. And I think it's something we should all be thinking about and how each can be helping to be part of creating a different world than we live in now, which is really full of suffering and hatred and division and destruction. And how do we create a more regenerative world and a healing world? And I think, you know, you've been guided through such an extraordinary life with people who've really shaped our world, our thinking, our culture, our earth. And you've been such a vessel for all of it. And I thank you for what you've done and I'm really grateful to know you.

Well, Mark, thank you for what you've done. And thank you for your big, beautiful heart and your amazing brain and taking care of all of our bodies at the same time and our souls. And I'm just grateful to know that we're both and everybody alive today are ancestors of an age to come. as wonderful people have said, and how lucky for us to know each other. Thank you for having me on this program and thank you for the work you're doing and thank you for your love for the world. Thank you, Lynn. I hope I get to see you.

In person soon and everybody listening, I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. It's inspired you, it's inspired me and maybe to reimagine your life and what you're doing and how to be part of the solution to the world we live in right now. Definitely check out the book, Living a Committed Life: Finding Freedom and Fulfillment in a Purchased purpose larger than yourself. We'd love to hear from you. Leave a comment. How have you found purpose in your life and how has a life of service changed you? And share this with everybody because I think you need to hear it. And we'll see you next week on the Doctor's Pharmacy.

Hey, everybody, it's Dr. Hyman.

Thanks for tuning into the Doctor's Pharmacy. I hope you're loving this podcast. It's one of my favorite things to do and introducing you all the experts that I know and I love and that learned so much from. And I want to tell you about something else I'm doing, which is called Mark's Picks. It's my weekly newsletter. And in it, I share my favorite stuff from foods to supplements to gadgets to tools to enhance your health. It's all the cool stuff that I use and that my team uses to optimize and enhance our health. And I'd love you to sign up for the weekly newsletter. I'll only send it to you once a week on Fridays. Nothing else, I promise. And all you have to do is go to go to drhyman.com/picks to sign up. That's drhyman.com/picks, P-I-C-K-S, and sign up for the newsletter and I'll share with you my favorite stuff that I use to enhance my health and get healthier and better and live younger longer.

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