When Everything Falls Apart: Fleet Maull and Dawson Church in Conversation

Welcome to High Energy Health where together we explore the leading edge of wellness and happiness. I'm your host, Dawson Church. By choosing this time together, you're declaring your commitment to a positive mindset, elevated emotions and a great life. Thanks for joining. Joining me for today's episode.

Dawson Church's award winning book Mind to Matter has been hailed as one of the best science and health books of the decade. Over 400 studies show that your brain has the ability to turn thoughts to things and that when you use this superpower deliberately, you can create an extraordinary life. Mind to Matter is the science and practice of how our brains create reality and Dawson is so committed to helping people transform that he's giving copies of the book away free@mindtomatter.com claim your free copy@mindtomatter.com now.

Have you heard the buzz about emotional freedom techniques, also called EFT or tapping? Millions of people have experienced breakthroughs in their mental, emotional and physical health with EFT. Over 100 scientific studies show that EFT relieves pain, anxiety and depression. If you or a loved one is suffering, Download the free EFT Mini Manual at www.tappinggift.com today. That's tappingift.com get your free manual at tappingift.com today.

Imagine having a certified wellness professional at your service 247 whenever you're stressed, anxious, angry, sleepless or depressed, you get help the moment you need it. You can talk to a compassionate practitioner anytime you want@mystresssolution.com in the stress solution app. Trained experts are standing by when you need them most. Experience a free introductory session@mystresssolution.com youm never have to face your problems alone. Get instant help@mystresssolution.com.

There's a completely natural method to help boost your immune system, maybe even up to 113% in a week. If you're interested in saving money without supplements and other expensive remedies, then explore the seven Day Immunity Booster Program. It includes seven powerful audio programs. Two clinical trials even show that these methods can help increase your body's immunity naturally. So visit stressdump.com and find out how you can boost your immune system. That's stressdump.com stressdump.com.

Imagine your love life, your health, your money, your career, your spiritual path. If you had the ability to turn your dreams into reality, the people who have discovered how to do this are master manifestors. Now you can learn their secrets@mastermanifester.com they'll give you a 21 day crash course in intuition, synchronicity and manifestation. In just 7 minutes each day, the experts@mastermanifestor.com will train your brain to be like theirs. Mastermanifestor.com.

Helping other people heal is deeply satisfying. Watching a child's pain disappear before your eyes, a loved one calming down after a panic attack, or a veteran recovering from PTSD is a wonderful feeling. Imagine yourself with the skills and confidence to help people every single day and a rewarding career in energy healing taught by expert faculty. You'll become skilled in techniques validated in over 1000 scientific studies. So get certified as an Energy Psychology professional today@www.newhealer.com. your first course is free at www.newhealer.com.

Hello and welcome to High Energy Health. My name is Dawson Church and each week on this show I am privileged and excited to share with you some of the remarkable breakthroughs being made in wellness, in spirituality, and in all the things that really make a difference in your life. So I'm so delighted you're here. I'm also aware as I browse the media landscape myself that there are so many distractions we can focus on and that can take us out of our own well being. When I go into Google News, for example, there are lots of interesting stories there. And of course social media and AI being what it is, all those stories are tailored to me. I see stories about antique cars which I happen to be interested in. I see stories about snowboarding, I see stories, all kinds of things that are tailored to me and so these things can easily distract me from real focus in life. And what you've done by tuning in to High Energy Health is you have said I am so important and my consciousness is so important that I'm going to direct myself in a place that can really make a difference, a positive difference in my life. And you've tuned out those distractions.

So I'm so grateful you've given yourself this gift. I want you to make a habit of this. Come back to the show over and over and over again. You'll see me have thousands of people who just love doing that and also sharing the show. I encourage you to share. Find an episode that is about grief and send it to anyone you know is grieving. Find an episode about stress, send it to a person you know who's stressed out. Find an episode about children or about addictions or about any of the things that really compromise people's well being and post it on your social media channels, share it with your friends, text it, email it get the word out there about these solutions. You never know when that small compassionate act of yours of sharing a link is going to make a difference in someone's life. So I'm glad you're here and thank you also for the people you'll bring in and share the wealth of both information and inspiration we have at High Energy Health. My guest today is Fleet Mole. Fleet Mole is a consultant, motivational speaker, social entrepreneur, and authorized teacher in both the Zen and Tibetan Buddhist traditions. He's also the founder of the Prison Mindfulness Institute and we'll hear a lot about that in the next little while. And also of the Heart Mind Institute. Go to his website, Heart Mind.

Heartmind Co. And I was there a few minutes ago and there are so many wonderful resources there. You can also sign up for his newsletter@heartmind.co. he is the author of the books Radical Responsibility. Let me read the subtitle. I normally don't read the subtitles, but I love. I love the subtitle of this book. How to move beyond blame. Fearlessly live your highest purpose and become an unstoppable force for good. Wow. Okay. That's your mission. The subtitle of Fleet's book, Radical Responsibility. How to move beyond blame. Fearlessly live your highest purpose and become an unstoppable force for good. One of his other books is called Dharma in Hell. The Prison Writings of Fleet Mole. Fleet, it is beyond a joy to welcome you to High Energy Health.

Oh, it's always a joy to have a conversation with you, Dawson. So thank you for inviting me.

So let's start with your early life because I've only known you for a few years and I know Fleet Mole 2.0.

Fleet Mole 1.0 is a very different human being.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I'll try to encapsulate it as best I can. So I grew up in the Midwest, middle class, Roman Catholic family. You know, I born 1949. So growing up through the 1950s, kind of sort of middle class, working class, suburban. I don't know if anybody's old enough to remember shows like Father Knows Best or Leave it to Beaver, but that was kind of my world. That kind of. My family were small business owners and. But it was all very small back then and that's kind of the world we lived in and Roman Catholic family. And I think I was always a seeker from an early age. My family even had this thing about I was probably going to become a priest and so forth. I did eventually become a Zen priest, but that took quite a long time. And I didn't end up becoming a Catholic priest, but. But. So it was good upbringing that I had and a good family. But tragically, our family was also beset with alcoholism. My mother, my beloved mother, suffered from kind of episodic alcoholism where once or twice a week get home from school and you could tell she'd been drinking. And things would just go downhill from there and things would erupt in the chaos. Dinner would go into chaos and things being broken and destroyed, things being thrown around. You're just ducking. And if my father was away on business or and my brother was away, she come after me. So she turned from this beatific, wonderful, artistic, intelligent mother who was like my best friend to this very scary, rageaholic, colic, rage aholic. And you never knew when it was going to happen, but it happened frequently enough on a regular basis. This created a real psychic splitting in my being and consciousness as I understand it today. And I arrived in adolescence with a big hole in my gut that I was just trying to fill up with everything I could. You know, substances and experiences, drug, sex and rock and roll and all the rest of it. And that coincided with the whole counterculture taking off in the 1960s. So I graduated from high school in 1968, very tumultuous year in US society with the assassinations and the Kent State killings. And I had already pretty much lost faith in the world that it was being presented. Even when, with the first Ken, when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I just didn't believe anything I was being told anymore. I was presented this vision of America growing up, and I just lost faith in the whole thing. Became very sort of socially, culturally alienated. And I was just kind of a classic angry young man. And so I just went headlong into the counterculture at that time, actually, while still in high school in 1966, the classic summer of Love. I wanted to sit in San Francisco. So where I grew up in Missouri, the Summer of Love hadn't reached Missouri yet.

But nonetheless, I discovered lsd, marijuana and Buddhism all that very same summer. So it kind of continued on from there. And I was always a seeker, but got caught up in all the craziness of the counterculture, kind of to an extreme. It went from the. The really kind of beauty, inspirational joy and possibility and vision of the psychedelic era. It started 70s, it started to move into kind of a darker time and. And I even fell into hard drug use myself. And I knew I needed to get out of this and. And somehow I got this idea about going to South America. And I would discover something genuine there because I was just looking to plug back into something real. Because my early childhood I felt like I was in this magical world. I felt plugged into reality. Everything was awesome. And that just completely went away around that, you know, five or six years old. Maybe that's a normal developmental process. Or maybe it was starting school, maybe it was my mother's alcoholism. But I wasn't happy about it. I wanted it back. And you know, I found glimpses of it in the pre Vatican II Roman Catholic Church with the kind of more mystical side of the Mass back in those days. And. But then I found that, you know, at least in a mirage like form in the drug section, rock and roll, the counterculture. And so, you know, very tumultuous times, a lot of misgivings. I really, you know, those of us in that era, you know, we really left home, I mean, from our, you know, we had to basically abandon our culture, abandon our parents and you know, with no, I mean, with complete more than disapproval, with complete disdain and confusion, leaving a trail of often tears and consternation behind. And so it was really tumultuous years like that and. But I did take off for South America and eventually I did find something. I made my way to Peru. It was a long journey. Spent time living on a sailboat. A lot of times I was really interested in the archeology and the ancient cultures, indigenous cultures, as well as the current indigenous cultures. So I was exploring all that. The drugs kind of went in the background mostly, but there was still a bit of involvement with that. And I was headed for Peru, not having anything to do with drugs, but I just got some notion I would discover something there. And I did discover there was kind of an environmental magic there. I felt plugged back into that world of my childhood. Just waking up in the morning in the sacred valley of the Inca with no substances involved. But the first time I came back to the US I wasn't able to bring that with me. So I realized that, you know, it still wasn't mine. I hadn't really plugged back into it. Later I discovered my first spiritual teacher, Chogyam Chung Phram Che, who you mentioned, who founded naropa University in 1974. I was living high in the Andes mountains in a very remote valley. And some travelers found me, brought a copy of Rolling Stone magazine and had a big feature story about this summer, first summer session at Naropa. And I had zeroed in by then with my studies and my. What I was exploring on The Tibetan Buddhist tradition, the few books that were available back then. And so I saw this, I just knew I had to go there. I saw my teacher's name, I saw his picture, I just knew I had to go there. So I did go there and I ended up getting doing a very deep three year clinical training program that was an integration of Buddhist and Western psychology and current psychotherapies. It was an amazing journey. I mainly went there to get a meditation practice to deepen my practice. And in the process I became a close student of his. So it continued like that in my shadow life. I was facilitating that economically with being a part time smuggler. I would disappear to South America, do a smuggling run and come back. I kept that all secret from my teacher in the world. I wasn't trying to get wealthy. I was just doing it to continue to live outside the system. I knew I had to stop. I knew it was going to catch up with me before I could manage to untangle all that karma myself. It did catch up with me and I earned my way into a 14 year federal prison sentence which initially was going to be 30 years, no parole sentence. I pretty much thought my life was over. The paper the next morning said I'd be 65 before I have any chance of release. And what was absolutely devastating at that time was that my son was then 9 years old and he was now going to grow up without a dad. I had to face what I'd done to he and his mom and the incredible selfish decisions I'd been making for so long, putting his life at risk. So that was a real dark night of the soul for me and that 14 years in prison. I was lucky that I had this multiple count sentence. And on appeal they knocked off one that reduced it to 20 and I mean from 30 to 25. And under the old law you got a lot of good time if you stayed out of trouble, which managed to do these days on a sentence like that, you would serve almost all of it. There is very little good time available in the federal system anymore. Fortunately, I was sentenced prior to 1987 under what they call the old law. So at any rate, I spent 14 years in prison and that was my ashram time, my monastery time. I lived the life of deep practice, practicing two, three, four hours a day, studying two, three hours a day and serving. I taught. School was my day job. Regular Monday through Friday day job, helping other prisoners get their GD learn to read. Very involved in my own substance recovery work and 12 step programming. Started a meditation program in the chapel and was in the right place at the right time with another prisoner to start the first hospice program in a prison anywhere in the world that we know of. Because this was the US Medical center for Federal Prisoners, which was the maximum security federal prison hospital. The patients were from all the high security federal penitentiaries. And this was. Right. The AIDS epidemic was just starting to go into full swing. So that became a huge part of my life. And while there, I started two national organizations. One to promote meditation and mindfulness and the Dharma. And eventually it became, all across all traditions, four prisoners, and the other to promote the prison hospice model. So, you know, I lived this very dedicated life of disciplined service. I knew I'd be broke, in debt at least 50 when I got out. I mean, that's once I, you know, realized how the good time worked. And once on appeal, they knocked off one count. But I realized, you know, getting a life started with a serious record, major debt to the IRS at 50 is not easy. So I knew I really had to work and train myself. And that paid off. And since I got out in 1999, I've had nothing but opportunity to serve and teach and travel the world. And the nonprofit organizations that I started, Prison Dharma Network, which also goes under Prison Mindfulness Institute and the center for Mindfulness and Public Safety, is a flourishing nonprofit today that's bringing mindfulness to the criminal justice and public safety spheres around the world. I'm still involved with that. The prison work, I mean, the hospice work. There's now probably 75 hospices in state and federal prisons as a result of the work we started. So that's something that helps me sleep at night. And we're just resuscitating that organization because that field really needs more support. There's a film being done about that history, so still have a big involvement there. But also out of my other work, which I've been doing since I got out of prison, which has been consulting, executive coaching, being a transformational workshop leader out of that grew Heart Mind Institute, which is a flourishing company today, and through which, you know, I'm synthesizing everything I've learned over all this period, studying every meditation tradition you can think of, being deeply trained in both the Tibetan bhajan tradition and in the Zen tradition, but studying everything else, including miracle meditation and synthesizing that into what we offer today, which is kind of at the intersection of ancestral wisdom, classic ancient yogic wisdom, and current neuroscience, positive psychology, even quantum theory, and synthesizing that in an evidence based way and getting that out to as many people as I possibly can. So that's kind of what my life is about today.

And if you were to recommend to somebody who is today, what would you recommend they do? And in fact what I'm going to do is I'm going to invite those listening to grab your journal, grab a piece of paper, grab something to write with. And I want you to pick an area of your life that you feel is.

Just flawed, broken, beyond being fixed. It might be your body, it might be your relationships, it might be money, it might be work or career, it might be childhood trauma, it might be a diagnosis. But I want you to pick one thing. So you may not be in prison, but you have something that is seemingly immutable. You can't change it and it sucks. I'll just put it that bluntly. So fleet, what is the first thing you're going to ask that person in that situation to do?

I have a dear friend who's no longer with us, who One of the really pioneers of meditation based prison work, Bull Ozoff, he wrote a classic book, We're All Doing Time. So whether we're in prison or out of prison, we live in our self created prisons until we don't. And so it's a very pertinent question. And I think the first thing is to realize that wherever we are in life, no matter how much we're struggling, no matter how much pain we're in, or how dark things seem, we are all in the midst of our own hero's journey. And I don't say that lightly or glibly, but we really are. And that classic framework that Joseph Campbell and others elucidated from the world's wisdom traditions, when things fall apart in some way, that's actually the beginning of path of transformation. Now to be able to walk that path and have it not continue to be self destructive or re traumatizing. The place we all need to start, I believe anyway is developing some capacity for self regulation. We're all on a path of healing and awakening and we can't do the work unless we can regulate our own autonomic nervous system. Otherwise we're just going to be victimized by the world around us and our own childhood conditioning. And we're just going to be living in a reactive state of automaticity, just coping and doing the best we can. And until we get in the driver's seat of our life through regulating our autonomic nervous system, there's not much hope for healing and progress. So I think that's the first step is learn simple self regulation techniques, breath regulation techniques, posture, voice, ways that we can regulate our autonomic nervous system. So when we're getting too upregulated and into fight or flight, which is mostly what we have to do deal with, we know how to down regulate. If we are shutting down or disassociated, we can upregulate, but we can regulate our own autonomic nervous system, which means we can regulate our own emotions, which means we can regulate our own behaviors and get in a self leadership position in our life. And it can start with just a moment. You know, our life may feel very dark, out of control, full of pain. But if we can just find and dominate by whatever, you know, traumas from our childhood, ancestral trauma, adult traumas, if we can just find a moment or two where we can feel okay, however that is, whether it's, you know, being with our young, playing with our child, or playing with our pet, or being out for a walk in nature or dancing or something, just find a moment where at least we have respite for a moment, that little nugget of time where we actually feel okay and we're not in the narrative and the feeling of our trauma and our suffering, we can then build on that, we can expand that from a minute to two minutes, to five minutes, to 10 minutes. And we can gradually grow that capacity within ourselves through basic body, mind, self regulation techniques.

So maybe you are in this situation where you feel as though the darkness is impenetrable, you're in such a dark place you can't see a way out. What Fleet is recommending here is that you practice whatever it takes to regulate yourself. And again, you can experiment with lots of different techniques and see which one works for you. There are many different styles of meditation. For example, one is going to work better for you than others. So play around with a few of them. Find one that works for you. Maybe it's something else. Maybe it's breath work, maybe it's yoga, maybe it's qigong, maybe it's time in nature. But find that thing that regulates you. That's the first recommendation Peter's making here. And I want you just to write in your journal or on the piece of paper now what your favorite self regulation method is right now. Maybe they're ones we'll explore later on, but right now, you know, there's something you can do that really helps you. 250 years ago, Benjamin Franklin said, if you're triggered, count to 10. If you're already triggered, count to 100300 year old advice from personal Growth Master. So find your thing right now. Make a note of that. The second thing Fleet is saying here, which I want you to make a note of in your journal, find a nugget, practice it and go from there. He mentioned holding your child, playing with your child. It could be taking a walk. There is something you do now that gives you that respite from the dark place. And again, he's saying it may be tiny, but you celebrate that, you affirm that and you build on that. So I want you to make a note of what that nugget is in your life and what you can build on. We're going to go to a break right now, but please stay tuned. You're listening to High Energy Health. My name is Dawson Church. For more on Fleet's work, go to his website, heartmind Co. Heartmind Co. You'll find all kinds of inspiring resources there. Please stay tuned. We'll be right back after a break.

Dawson Church's award winning book Mind to Matter has been hailed as one of the best science and health books of the decade. Over 400 studies show that your brain has the ability to turn thoughts to things and that when you use the superpower deliberately, you can create an extraordinary life. Mind to Matter is the science and practice of how our brains create reality. And Dawson is so committed to helping people transform that he's giving copies of the book away free@mindtomatter.com claim your free copy@mindtomatter.com now.

Have you heard the buzz about emotional freedom techniques, also called EFT or tapping? Millions of people have experienced breakthroughs in their mental, emotional and physical health with EFT. Over 100 scientific studies show that EFT relieves pain, anxiety and depression. If you or a loved one is suffering. Download the free EFT Mini Manual at www.tappinggift.com today that's tappingift.com get your free manual at tappinggift.com today.

Imagine having a certified wellness professional at your service 24. 7. Whenever you're stressed, anxious, angry, sleepless or depressed, you get help the moment you need it. You can talk to a compassionate practitioner anytime you want@mystresssolution.com in the stress solution app, trained experts are standing by when you need them most. Experience a free introductory session@mystresssolution.com youm never have to face your problems alone. Get instant help@mystresssolution.com.

There's a completely natural method to help boost your immune system, maybe even up to 113% in a week. If you're interested in saving money without supplements and other expenses remedies, then explore the seven Day Immunity Booster program. It includes seven powerful audio programs. Two clinical trials even show that these methods can help increase your body's immunity naturally. So visit stressdump.com and find out how you can boost your immune system. That's stressdump.com stressdump.com.

Imagine your love life, your health, your money, your career, your spiritual path. If you have the ability to turn your dreams into reality. The people who have discovered how to do this are master manifestors. Now you can learn their secrets@mastermanifestor.com they'll give you a 21 day crash course in intuition, synchronicity and manifestation. In just 7 minutes each day, the experts@mastermanifester.com will train your brain to be like theirs. Mastermanifester.com.

Helping other people heal is deeply satisfying. Watching a child's pain disappear before your eyes, a loved one calming down after a panic attack, or a veteran recovering from PTSD is a wonderful feeling. Imagine yourself with the skills and confidence to help people every single day. And a rewarding career in energy healing taught by expert faculty. You'll become skilled in techniques validated in over 1000 scientific studies. So get smart. Certified as an energy psychology professional today@www.newhealer.com. your first course is free at www.newhealer.com.

Hello and welcome back to High Energy Health. I'm your host, Dawson Church. Delightedly welcoming you to this wonderful community and these inspirational ideas. For more on Fleet Moll's books and his work, go to his website, heartmind.co. so Fleet, using these practices you've experienced. I've experienced. Millions of people have experienced. We can literally reshape our lives. We can lift that heavy burden of trauma that's been weighing us down and sapping our inner peace, sapping our full potential. And we can then move into that full potential that we were born to live, serve and express. What relationship does this personal healing have to collective group, social, planetary healing?

Yeah, thank you for that question. I've been involved in the kind of collective work for a long time. Going to Auschwitz several years with the Zen peacemakers to do healing retreats at the Pulmanazzi death camp there and other places, Rwanda and around the world, and doing a lot of collective work. But it really comes down to begin with, to our individual work. I think one of the greatest gifts we can offer to our children, our grandchildren, future generations, is to Heal ourselves. And when we heal ourselves, we're already doing collective healing because we are all really one body and we are a matrix of energy nested in a greater matrix of energy. And the healing work we do, even really focused on ourselves, is extending the healing energy into the group field, the collective field. And then of course, we can do that in intentional ways. But it begins with our own healing. And it's not just a one time effort. Even though we may feel like we really got through something, there are layers after layers after layers of trauma. You know, the first thing I think we all work with is just how to deal with this life and the stresses of modern living and all this stress and anxiety and the uncertainty. So we have to develop some self regulation skills to be able to navigate that without being this constant, reactive, kind of just mechanical, conditioned way of being. To actually be present, be open and be experiencing all the challenges and so forth. But in a responsive, awake way. We have to develop that. And then having developed that, then things will begin to surface in our own life and we'll start dealing with some of our adult traumas, some of our childhood traumas. We may even drop down. We never know when these things are going to arise in our practice, in our life. Could be ancestral traumas, could be epigenetic traumas that we see from our parents and from earlier generations. I mean, genetically, we've all inherited the trauma of human history. And for most of us here in Europe and North America, we've inherited the trauma of two world wars from the last 20th century. So, you know, there's layer after layer after layer. But whenever we're doing that, both if we can have this consciousness that we are the one body, and that our healing becomes motivated not just to heal myself, not just to become free of my own suffering, which is a laudable motivation, there's nothing wrong with that. But also realize that I'm doing this to heal all beings. I'm practicing meditation, I'm doing my body, mind, disciplines, I'm doing my therapy, I'm doing whatever healing work and awakening work I'm doing. I'm doing this to liberate all being. And when we have that intentionality, then our own healing work is naturally rippling out into the collective field. And then from that place, the deeper our healing goes, the greater capacity we have to hold space for others and to be involved in collective processes that can heal on a collective level and do small, large and even very large group work creating healing fields. But our ability to participate in that and hold space for that has to do with doing our own work and really sitting in the fire of our own trauma, of our own karma. And we're really willing to be with that, which takes skills and self regulation to do that in a workable way, a safe way. So it's not re traumatizing ourselves, but we actually develop the skills to really go into the fire of our own life, our own karma, our own trauma. And doing that is burning away that which is not necessary. And eventually what's left is this quality of authentic presence, which is the space that we bring to others. It's what we bring to the world. It's the greatest gift we can bring to others is that ability of our presence and our ability just to hold space so they can find their own feet and do their own work. They can find their own feet seat, they can get their sea legs and they can be doing their own work because we're holding that kind of space in a very neutral but very powerful way. And that's simply the result of every layer we peel back, every layer we acknowledge, every layer we befriend, every layer we bring into awareness and allow to resolve itself over time creates this more and more powerful authentic presence that we have to offer to the world. And as we're doing that, if we have this intentionality that we're not just doing this as a personal project, but we're doing it as part of the collective of humanity, to heal all beings, even beyond humanity, to heal all of life in all beings, in all dimensions, then this makes our motivation faster, it makes our practice faster. We have to tap into greater fields of energy to do that which actually helps our own healing. So I think the two are really, if we have that intentionality, that mindset, the two are naturally linked. Self healing and collective healing.

I'm just reminded of a story about Raman Maharshi, the great non dualist teacher of the early part of the 20th century. And when World War II was raging, a disciple came to him and said, bhagavan, there's this conflagration world war happening. And here you are, you're just sitting on top of the mountain here, Arunachala, and meditating. Shouldn't you be out there actively promoting peace and traveling and really sharing with other people the possibility of a different way? Why are you sitting here on the mountaintop and doing nothing? And Ramana Maharshi replied, how do you know that while I'm sitting here, I'm doing nothing?

He was very aware. And a lot of masters are Meyer Baba also used to talk about this. He said that there are 64 great souls on Earth at any given time. And they're like anchoring the possibility of peace by the quality of their vibrational presence on the planet. There is this thing that Theater Chardin called the cyphosphere, the noosphere, the. The sum total of all consciousness on Earth. And when we are able to participate consciously in that. And then like when I meditate in the morning symptoms, I just feel all this energy pouring into the psychosphere. Can I fix Darfur and the massacres going on there? Can I fix Ukraine? Can I fix Gaza? I can't fix any of this. But I know that when I do that there's this energy that's going into the psychosphere and that energy is powerful. So I want you to know and what Pete's saying here is really important. Know that when you are doing your spiritual practices, you are contributing to the shifts happening globally in human consciousness. Don't think that as an individual person in your practice that that's all you are. You are far more. You are a point of light. And there are millions of people who are those points of light. And collectively they are making a difference, even though there may seem to be a lot of chaos in the world. Sophie, thank you for reminding us of that. We're going to a break right now. I am so grateful. You're listening to High Energy Health. Please stay tuned. We'll be right back.

Hello and welcome back to High Energy Health. I'm your host, Dawson Church, delightedly welcoming you to this wonderful community and these inspirational ideas. For more on Fried Moll's books and his work, go to his website, heartmind.co. how do you personally experience that? I know that my personal experience is that when I'm meditating, I feel this. When I know my individual consciousness has hooked up with collective consciousness and I'm out there with universal consciousness. I feel this radiant light pouring through. I mean, it's just going. It's just like this, lighting up a conflagration. It's so powerful. And I'm just curious as to when you're in that space, what do you personally feel?

I think there's two dimensions of that. In my Tibetan Buddhist tradition, we have a compassion practice called Kan Lin, which is exchanging self brev on the medium of the breath. And in that practice we're really reversing the logic of ego. And on the in breath, we're taking on the suffering of the world. And sometimes you even visualize it like you're breathing in through every pore of your skin, dark soot. And your whole body's just taking on all this and it's going into the vast empty space of the heart where it's transformed. And on the out breath you're breathing out goodness and light and the kind of radiant light you were just talking about. So that's one practice. And it's said that the great Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, the avatars, the great beings who are alive on earth and who are maybe in other dimensions of life, that that's what they're doing. They're acting like these cosmic air conditioners, taking on the suffering and giving out the goodness. And if it wasn't for that, we wouldn't even be be able to turn our mind away from confusion to the path of life. So then the other aspect of that is when I am able to really self regulate my way into deep states of flow and what the Eastern traditions call samadhi. But with the eyes open and awareness, there's a resting into a field in which everything resolves itself. Everything resolves itself. And it's not separate from anything else. It's not like a spirit, you know, a compartmentalized place you go to. It is the ultimate nature of things. And everything resolves within that. And everything else being we experience, our life is coming out of that. And the more in touch with that you are, then you begin to see that in everything. Both in the more enlightened manifestations of our phenomenal world and the darkest manifestations of our phenomenal world, you see is pervaded still. It is all consciousness and it is all imbued. You know, it's that question we have to ask ourselves that Einstein said it's the most important question whether we believe this is a benevolent universe, whether we believe life and consciousness is ultimately benevolent, which I do, or do we believe we're just coping, you know, with a, you know, under assault. And you know, even though our relative existence, the world is full of darkness and light, ultimately the ground of being, that through contemplative practices we can relax into in a deeper and deeper way. We realize it is all resolved in the pure light and pure consciousness. And then when we re arise, it's not that we're living in some bubble of something. We're very much in the real world. We see all the suffering, but we see it in a different way. And it doesn't mean we're any less disturbed by it or we feel any less. In fact, we're able to feel more compassion but it's a different way of being with it because we're connected with it in a more universal, participatory way, rather than shrinking back into this, where it's either for or against me or I got to save it or not save it. It's more like we're just in this participatory field of energy and light with it. And we realize that as a point of light, as you were describing, we can do our work to do our work as a point of light and be adding as much light to that energetic field as we can, because we've been gifted with teachings from others and the example of others and done some of our own work. So we have the capacity to do that, and we take on that in whatever small way we can. Maybe we're not doing it at the level of the great avatars and Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Not yet, anyway. I think that's all of our destiny. But even in small ways, you know, we can be adding more light to the overall field and less darkness.

In fact, we're adding light to the field just by being here. Right here, right now, you and I and everyone in this experience, right here now, we are adding light. It's wonderful to see people shifting as they listen to a talk like this. And you see them initially, if you're watching your audience, they're, like, thinking and observing and not very engaged. And then they start to smile, they start to listen up. And finally we find ourselves being those radiant points of light. And as Fiend is saying, we're all destined to be that one day. So why not start right now? Think of yourself as that. As you're doing a meditative practice. Think of yourself that way. Leah, I'm also really curious about this one question, which is the research shows, really interesting research, shows that meditators who meditate in groups like meditation retreats make faster progress in terms of brain development and rewiring their brains than those that meditate in solitary settings where they're alone. And I'm wondering, you know, we know about that research, but I'm wondering what is going on with things like zoom groups and virtual groups and Google groups and Facebook groups and YouTube groups, all these other ways of us collecting, connecting virtually. There are meditation apps that many of us are using. There hasn't been any research, as far as I know, showing the effect of this, but I wonder if there's some kind of group coherence that might be kicking in through these other electronic and virtual media.

Absolutely. You know, I'VE had conversations with Stephen Porges, the developer Polyvagal Theory, for, you know, podcasts and summits like this. And we've, we've had a conversation while we're on zoom with each other and attempting to co regulate with each other, while we're talking with each other and describing what we're experiencing, right. And the ability to co regulate. Now I've gotten myself a teleprompter so I can look right at you now and see you at the same time. So I'm not having to look down, you know, at you on the, in the screen and look up at my camera.

Right.

So it makes a lot easier. But I definitely feel we can. And you know, I'm really loving one of Dr. Deepak Chopra's recent books. He puts out so many books, I don't know how he does it. He's got almost like 100 books. But Quantum Body is an amazing book and really connecting a lot of current science with quantum theory. And Quantum theory is not some woo woo stuff. It's hardcore science that was developed way back in the 1920s and 30s to begin with. And mainstream science kind of just pretends it's not there most of the time, but it's very much there. And you know, so a lot of what we're, you know, all the problems we're dealing with, I mean, this external world that we experience, right? The relative world of this and that and objects, our body and the rest of it is the outermost layer of reality manifesting from the deep quantum field. Or in Buddhist terms, you know, emptiness or dharmakaya or whatever comes from various traditions. For some people it might be God, but, or the unknown, the unmanifest, pure potentiality. This is all arising from that. And as we get further and further into materiality, things start to break down. You get crosswires, there's mistakes, there's kind of things. So but to for healing, we really just need to plug back into that quantum field. And one of the ways we plug back into that quantum field, there's all kinds of contemplative means to do that through the body. I really believe the vehicle, the body is the vehicle. Because when we go deep into the body with interoceptive awareness, we're going into the body mind field and into being and it gets subtler and solar and ultimately we're going into the depth of being and into that quantum field. Otherwise the body arises to begin with, but we can also do it with others. We can be co regulating with others. And I think we can do this anytime we're with others collectively. You know, human beings have known this forever. They get together, they come together in fellowship at churches, and they sway together and they moan together and they hum together and they sing together and they move together. And there's tremendous healing and power in that. Right. And so human beings have known this forever. And I think we've all learned a lot since the pandemic began about how to do this online. And I think it's completely possible to co regulate with each other online. And they're capping it because in each other's eyes, we can see into the very depth of that quantum field. We can see God in each other's eyes. And so I think that's another way that we can co regulate into deep possibilities for healing and awakening.

Yeah, these new media that have become available to us, that allow virtual connection and then the pandemic pretty much forcing everybody to have to use them, have been a real game changer. And humankind is far more connected now than it ever has been before. And that paradoxically, can make the change challenges seem bigger because we're more aware of them, but it also can make the opportunities for growth really, really powerful. I know just this morning before interviewing you, I was up early because it was early morning on the west coast of California where I am, but it was late afternoon in Ukraine. And I was able to train a group of schoolteachers in Ukraine today, you know, via Zoom. Could I have done that by any other means 10, 20 years ago? Really, really, really hard. So it is opening our opportunities for shift, change, growth and collective experience in a whole new way. We're going to a break right now. I am so grateful. You're listening to High Energy Health. Please stay tuned. We'll be right back.

Foreign.

Hello and welcome back to High Energy Health. I'm your host, Dawson Church. Delightedly welcoming you to this wonderful community and these inspirational ideas. For more on Fried Moll's books and his work, go to his website, heartmind.co. so, as we are moving toward the end of our time together Fleet, what is your burning message for the world, for people as individuals, and also what is your vision for the future? Where do you see humankind going next?

Well, at Heart Mind Institute, we have what they call a big, hairy, audacious goal, right? A bhag. And that is to introduce a billion people to experiences that increase their faith and confidence in the innate goodness of themselves and everyone else. The innate goodness of human beings, of life altogether, which is contrary to many of the, I think Theologies that have been influenced by the human condition and the negativity bias that in their original form probably validated human goodness, but have gotten into these ideas of the flawed nature of humanity and so forth. But if you study cross culturally and historically, the dominant view, there's three basic views of human nature. One is flawed human nature or even total depravity, original sin and so forth. The other is blank slate, come whatever we're exposed to. And the other is that of innate goodness, innate wholeness. And that's what I ascribe to and developed a powerful experiential faith in. And that faith was really challenged during my prison years. I had a participatory experiment to do over 14 years because there were a lot of characters in there, both among my fellow prisoners and the guards where pretty tough to see their basic goodness. And I used to keep a list which eventually I stopped doing because every time the people on that list would eventually reveal their humanity and their goodness to me, it happened every time. So I finally gave up the project. I was convinced. So we want to introduce people to that context then we want to introduce people to effective evidence based trauma, informed mindfulness, based self regulation skills and co regulation skills. And we feel if we could introduce a billion people to that directly and indirectly, that could be transformational on a global level. Because really, and most of us don't learn these things growing up. It's not introduced in schools, it's starting to be introduced in some schools. But you know, job one, to be an adult human being is to be able to self regulate, to regulate autonomic nervous system, to regulate our own emotions, our own behaviors and so forth. And then to be able to co regulate with others. And then we get into the whole cycle of everything that can promote healing and wakefulness and compassion and altruism and everything and the best of humanity. So to me, I think that's my passion and inspired by people like yourself and the work you're doing and integrating the ancient traditions with current neuroscience to where we understand that we can do all that with a lot more precision and we can teach it in ways that people can learn it much more quickly and reap the benefits of self regulation and co regulation more quickly. So they become believers more quickly and they're going to do the practice and do it because it's making a difference in their lives. Not in 20 years or 40 years or your next lifetime, but right now it's making a difference in your life. And so we live in such an interesting time where we have access to the best psychological and spiritual technologies.

From the ancient traditions and the modern traditions, and it's all available to us right now. And people like yourself are integrating and synthesizing it into very practical strategies in which we can, all right now, improve the quality of our life for ourselves and with each other. That's what I'm passionate about.

Absolutely. And you're right, we are able to learn these things and derive these great insights and practices from the ancient traditions, and we're able to filter them through the lens of modern science, see which ones really work, and spread them to huge numbers of people. And my personal take, and in fact this is borne out by some big data, is that those millions of people are waking up. People are shifting in a big way. Now, the data also shows, like, for example, the Gallup annual happiness survey shows that the bottom roughly one fifth of people are actually becoming more miserable. Like, about double the number of Americans were reporting in the most recent happiness surveys the lowest level of happiness than were reporting the lowest level of happiness in 2020. So since 2022 today, the number of Americans saying that I'm really unhappy has doubled. So that's what's happening to that lowest percentile. People are becoming more affected by things going on around them. But what we see in those surveys of the upper percentile is people who are meditating, people who have learned that emotional regulation you're recommending are finding themselves having dramatically better lives. And part of it's because of that access to all of these exciting new techniques and our ability to filter them through the lens of neuroscience and see what really, really, really works. So I want to end fleet, I think, with less have you give people the three, like, fundamental basic practices you think should be taught in elementary school, certainly in prison, in workplaces, in schools, in other places that people gather. But what is the. Where do you start? What's the starting point? What is so fundamental that every human being should begin this as they start their personal healing journey?

I think I would say the simplest and most direct, most foundational is breath awareness, which is also body awareness. We can talk about them separately. But breath awareness, very important. And then some really simple tools, like, for example, straw breathing that emphasizes the out breath, where you can very quickly bring yourself down to a regulated state when you find yourself too upregulated or triggered, or fire breathing, where you can upregulate yourself if you're feeling dissociated or shut down. So just learning simple breath regulation techniques that anybody can learn in five or 10 minutes and have an experience with. So that's one. The second one would be some kind of awareness practice, some kind of mindfulness awareness practice that starts to give you access to what you might call the Witness mind, where you can observe what's going on with yourself and in the world rather than just being lost in it. Like we're lost in this river of sensate experience without a lot of self awareness. If we step out of that river and look back and observe the river from that observer, we have a lot more freedom to choose how we're responding to everything that's going on. So developing just the beginnings of that witness consciousness through some kind of mindfulness awareness practice. And then I would say the third thing that can bring all those together is some kind of body work that's awareness body work, whether it's Qigong or Tai chi or yoga, or it could be bringing awareness into sports, but some kind of something that involves the body, involves movement, which increases our body awareness, our breath awareness, and also can increase our self awareness as we're doing all that together. So I think those are the three fundamental things as basic human tools and abilities to live with awareness and live an embodied life and be able to show up in the world instead of just kind of being back in this coping reactive state that we get conditioned into.

So write these in your journal. As our first final exercise today, I want you to write in your journal those three things. The first is breath work, especially breath work that regulates emotion. What is the breath work that you know right now that regulates emotion? Millions of people know about the boxed breath. Breathe in, pause, breathe out, pause. That's one simple way. Another is heart coherence breathing. Breathing in for five or six seconds, breathing out for five or six seconds. You mentioned the fire breath. So there are all these breathing techniques. You know one or maybe more than one already. So in your journal, what breath technique can you use, especially when it comes to regulating emotion? Number two is the Witness perspective.

How do you slip into the Witness perspective? Slip out of immersion in your regular reality and into the perspective of the Witness. How can you do that? I know some of the Great Eastern teachings say a few times a day, just look down from above and imagine you're in a dream. Just see yourself as being a dream. That's one great way to get into Witness perspective. Another one is just to simply imagine you're up in the corner of the room looking down on your body. Anything like that, that gives you a sense of separation from the enmeshment in Your daily reality and enables you to shift and see yourself in perspective is powerful. So the third thing that Theta is recommending here is body work. Conscious bodywork, whether it's spiritual practice like yoga or qigong, whether it's playing a sport, whether it's going out and shooting hoops consciously, whatever you do bring it into the body, it could be time in nature, it could be your daily walk, whatever it is. Again, that embodied spirituality that Pete was stressing from the very beginning is one way to do this. So make note of these things in your journal and then commit to them daily. You can do all three of those daily. You can think of your life as a dream just for a few moments every day, multiple times a day will take you no time at all. You can regulate yourself with breathwork whenever you feel emotionally triggered and your physical activities, you can bring your spiritual practice and your consciousness mindfulness into those physical practices. So now you've got things in your journal. You can meditate and contemplate how best to actualize them and make a habit of them. And again, what Fleet and I are recommending here isn't complicated. We're not saying go to Tibet, find a cave, find a master, join a monastery, take vows. We're just saying breathe, take witness, perspective, and move consciously. So begin there and things are highly likely to begin to shift for you. I am so grateful to you for who you are, how you have embodied your teachings so profoundly in your own life and that vision for a billion people. I share that. And let's just see those people becoming aware of the potential of this work and an awakening. We know this is our moment as humankind to do that. And I'm so glad we're all in this same practice and sharing the same vision together. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Dawson. Thank you so much.

So, till we meet again. You have your practices, you have your journaling. Thanks for being here. See you on the next episode.

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