#1 Neuroscientist: MANIFEST Love & Abundance in Your Life!

Ten months after I lost my husband, I just had this absolute knowing that I had to go to the bottom of the hole of grief if I was ever going to truly heal. For a long while, I felt like everything I believed in, like manifestation and love and abundance, was just shattered. I didn't believe I've never heard from any of my lost loved ones. But I specifically asked for a sign, and it came.

Renowned neuroscientist, subject matter expert on all things manifestation, our guest today. You know her, you love her. Dr. Tara Swart. It's such a pleasure to have you back in.

Sometimes I ask for sign, but sometimes I just get ones I couldn't expect.

So he sends you signs?

Yeah.

Your husband?

Yes.

Who's no longer with us.

Yes.

I've had one recently. That is so crazy I haven't shared this before. I was with a really good friend who unfortunately never got to meet Robin. He matches on a dating app with somebody called Robin Bieber.

What? Wow. Is there a meditation or a process that people can do? Maybe it only takes a few seconds that you can guide us with.

Yeah, there are a few. And then this is the one that is going to blow your mind.

So I had Dr. Tara on, what was it, two, three years ago? The first time that I had you on 2022. I had you on the first time I met Dr. Tara. I don't think really many people knew who you were back then. I think it was one of the first kind of interviews that you did. But you've been a neuroscientist for a long time. You've been extremely helpful in the world of moving the world forward, of understanding our minds, understanding our brains, understanding how it all connects so that we can accomplish our goals, so we can manifest better and live a better life. And when I met you, you were in an interesting moment in your life. You were in an interesting moment, and you're a completely different person now than when I first met you. You've continued to grow. You continue to heal. I remember you were a little nervous the first time. Now you're like this rock star all over the world, doing big interviews and doing all these things. You've got a new book also called the Signs, which is the new science of how to trust your instincts. And for me, signs have always been a powerful thing. Signs, symbols, synchronicities. And I'm always trying to look for the signs and the synchronicities in my life. I don't know if anyone else likes to look for signs and say, oh, this person you know, someone said this thing to me multiple times in one week about a book. Maybe I should read this thing. Or my wife is telling me I need to come to someone of greatness for weeks. Maybe I should come, whatever it is. Like, you keep hearing these signs, you see certain things over and over again. You're like, huh, Maybe I should pay attention. Maybe I should listen more. Maybe I should lean into what that sign is. And I know when we first met, you were going through a lot personally and you were going through some grief in your life, and I want you to share what that was. But before you do, if anyone is going through grief or sadness or loss in their life, what would you say is one of the first things they can do to start healing from that grief? And then maybe you can share some of what you've been through as well.

Okay. So I believe that the most dangerous thing that people can do is suppress their grief and their pain and cover it up with something else. And I think that all of my friends thought that I would just throw myself back into work and that would be the way that I would sort of avoid having to deal with my loss, which I will share in a minute. But I just had this absolute knowing that I had to go to the bottom of the hole of grief and feel all the pain if I was ever going to truly heal. And so 10 months after I lost my husband, I had the opportunity to come on Lyris's podcast. So I think you'd invited me before the pandemic, but then we couldn't fly and it had to be live. So this opportunity that I'd been waiting for for so long, the first big podcast that I was ever to do, I. At 10 months, usually people are doing quite well after a grief or a loss, but then the anniversary is really hard, so I thought I could do it. I came to la. I didn't know if I was going to tell you or not. I was crying on zoom to a colleague the week before, saying, I can't trust myself to perform. I've lost all of my confidence. And like you said, I was nervous, which I'm not normally. And so you sat me down and kind of like gave me a bit of a pep talk before. And then we finally got into the room and the cameras were rolling, and you said, are there any off limits topics? And I think I just blurted it out because I hadn't, you know, I wasn't mentally prepared for what I do in a professional situation. And you were like, oh, my goodness, are you going to be okay?

Yeah.

And I said, well, as long as we don't talk about it, I'll be okay. But I always had it in my mind that I wanted to come back on your show and show you what I was really capable of, because I felt like I hadn't performed that well. So I think it was a couple of years later I came back on the show and we still didn't talk about, you know, the thing that you knew about, but I hadn't been public with yet.

Yeah.

So here I am for the third time.

So you. And you had lost your. So now it's been three years since you lost your husband.

It'll be four in October.

Four years. And you hadn't really started talking about it. I guess you weren't talking about it publicly for certain reasons, but now you are starting to talk about it, right?

Yeah. The reason was that I never saw the point of sharing a sad story with people unless there was some benefit from it. And I'm very lucky. I've got amazing friends and support around me. So that's one of the other things I would say. If you're in grief or loss, please make sure you've got the right people around you. It makes such a big difference. I literally don't think I'd be here today if it wasn't for my friends. So I then went on this journey of receiving signs from my lovely husband, who I knew would never leave me. And he's proven it to me now.

So he sends you signs?

Yeah.

Your husband?

Yes.

Who's no longer with us?

Yes.

What type of signs does he send you?

Obviously, hearts. But when I met him, I was journaling, and I kept noticing this infinity symbol on an advert. And for some reason, because I really trust my intuition, I had written in my journal, if the person I'm going to marry is already in my life, then I will see three infinity symbols in really unusual places. So then I was walking on the streets of London, and I saw an elastic band in the shape of the infinity symbol. I flew to a conference in Turkey. There was a guy wearing a wedding ring that had an infinity symbol engraved in it. So, you know, I was obviously very close to him to even see that. And then I was sitting on the tube, the London Underground, and it was super crowded. I had a seat. There was a girl standing right in front of me, almost against me, and in the gap between her sneakers and her jeans was a tattoo of an infinity symbol. So I had already met Robin on a plane at this point, but he was pursuing me, and I wasn't interested because he was so much older. So I never thought it would be him. And then he was just very kind, and he wouldn't go away. So eventually I thought I'd give him a chance. So that story is in the background. And now, for example, I have so many stories like this, but one day I was walking between meetings. I had an hour, so I thought I'd take the chance to get some exercise. And I ended up walking past the hospital where he'd been having treatment. And in my mind, I said to him, why would you let me walk this way? You know, it's so traumatic for me. I never want to see that building again. You've got to send me a sign.

So you're saying this to your husband who passed. You're having a conversation with the husband? I'm just making sure. Okay.

Yeah, I was speaking.

You're saying, why is this happening? Why are you sending me this way?

Yeah, and you've got to send me a sign to make up for it. And by the time I got from University College Hospital to Euston Station, and please Google Maps it, it's very close. There was an elastic band in the shape of an infinity symbol on the pavement. And I get things. Sometimes I ask for signs, but sometimes I just get ones that I couldn't expect. I've had one recently. That is so crazy I haven't shared this before. I was with a really good friend who never, unfortunately, never got to meet Robin. We're sitting down at dinner, and it was a prepaid set menu, but it had a lot of meat on it, and I don't eat meat. So she said, actually, can I just transfer my credit and take her to the restaurant downstairs? And they said, no, it's prepaid for this restaurant. So we decided to stay, which was a good move because the food was really good. And they did some, you know, changes for me. So I'm talking to her, I'm looking at the glasses between us, and engraved on the bottom of the glass is rb. And my husband's name was Robin Bieber. So she and I are kind of freaking out. Then she says, when are you having the little dinner for his birthday? Remind me when his birthday is. So I said, September 21st. So I constantly see 2109 on my phone and on receipts and things like this. So she goes to put that into her phone calendar, and she has this shocked look on her face. And I say, what? And she says that she used to have this habit of putting people's birthdays in with the age that they were going to turn. And so she had her aunt's birthday in on that day, but she hadn't updated it for seven years. And it said 44. And that's my angel number, which means your angels are guiding you. And I liked 11, but I never asked for 44. It kept coming to me. And then I realized it was him telling me that he is, like, still looking after me.

Interesting.

The next morning, she sends me a screenshot of an email that she got with the title of which is a thank you from Robyn. And it was a receipt for a charitable donation she'd made, like, two weeks previously. And then this is the one that is going to blow your mind. She matches on a dating app for somebody called Robin Bieber.

What? Wow.

And I've got. Obviously, I've got the screenshot so I can prove that.

Wow. Wow. Now, the thing that we have talked about a lot in our last couple interviews and we talk about personally, is that I see you creating content around us around manifesting and the science behind it, how you actually have a specific science that you studied on how to do it. We've talked about it on the show a few times. But do you think that you can manifest what you want if you're not willing to go through grief when sadness or loss comes in your life?

There's lots of ways I could answer that question. I mean, I think for a long while, I felt like everything I believed in, like manifestation and love and abundance, was just shattered. And I felt like I'm not that interested in manifestation anymore. And at first, you know, I wasn't meditating or journaling. I was just trying to get through each day. I will say I've come back round to believing in manifestation in a different way, I think. Whereas before, for example, I would have suggested journaling to hone your intuition, now I'm much more into unleashing creativity and spending time in nature and doing, like, somatic or physical body therapies like dancing, drumming, chanting, humming, to unleash hidden wisdom from the body and then. And manifest. Manifest more through having a conversation with the universe through signs.

Interesting. Why do you think it's important to kind of hum, chant, drum, dance, be in nature in order to. Is that more of getting in alignment with the signs and your intuition, or what is the reason for that?

You know Bessel van der Kolk's book, the Body Keeps a Score? So that book explains very carefully how trauma is stored in the body. So the PTSD circuits of the brain, like the hippocampus and the amygdala, they're not the only place that trauma plays out. And actually, when you're traumatized, the broca's area of the brain, which articulates speech, gets shut down. So people say, I'm speechless. I don't have words for this. I'm dumbfounded. And that's when his research showed that yoga is better for PTSD than talking therapy or any kind of, you know, drug therapy and also things like art therapy. But I think you don't have to be traumatized. You can unleash hidden wisdom through physical movement, too. Do you want me to give you the real, like, deep science of this?

Yeah, please.

So serotonin, which is commonly known as the mood hormone, over 95% of that is made outside of the central nervous system. So it's mostly made in the gut. And it doesn't cross the blood brain barrier, so it has no effect on mood whatsoever. It has many other functions in the body. But the word serotonin itself actually means serum, which is like your blood and your plasma and tone. So serotonin has an action to constrict or dilate the blood vessels that changes how much nutrition and oxygen is pushed into the tissues of the body. And we believe that that's how trauma and all the intuition and wisdom that we picked up in life that we don't consciously remember is stored in the body.

Interesting. So let me make sure I understand this. So if we do things that activate serotonin, then we unleash more wisdom in our body, or what are we doing?

If we do physical activity, it's more likely that serotonin will dilate the vessels, allowing a lot of nutrients and oxygen. Okay. But also, when we are traumatized or we have intuition stored in our body, it's held in certain patterns in the tissues, like the fascia and the muscles. So you're actually accessing those patterns, and that's what's giving you the wisdom. It's also from your mind. But what's held in your body, you can't articulate through words.

So if someone's been experienced some type of trauma, whether big trauma or little traumas that have continued over time, but they haven't released those traumas or they haven't released that grief, and it's stored in their body and their cells, they've got a blockage in the way they think around things because of that memory that's causing them to feel tighter or clenched around A certain situation, what is the best thing they can start doing to feel more emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically free, just to allow possibilities in their life or intuition to come in or see the signs? Because there's been seasons in my life where I felt like everywhere I look, I'm getting signals and signs, and then other seasons where I don't feel like anything's coming to me.

Yeah. And I think it's really worth saying that's completely normal. So even when I was, like, at the height of my manifesting powers, it would feel like for months nothing would happen, and then it would be like everything's coming at the same time. And I always say, ask for what you want in that moment, because that's when you're manifesting. And you don't necessarily know whether it's the cycles of the moon or the seasons or your mindset or, you know, what it is, but just take advantage of it when it's working. And so, in terms of that physicality, which I think a lot of us are cut off from, there's a real disconnect between our minds and our bodies. The first thing I want to ask you all is, have you ever had a visceral reaction to something where you've received a piece of news and a shiver goes down your spine or you get goosebumps? So that's the start of learning the language that your body is speaking to you. And so, you know, I have this favorite thing, which I think you enjoy, which is when I don't know the answer from modern science, I go back to evolution. So our ancestors didn't have spare resources for anything that was just fun or a luxury. All the resources were for survival. So in that case, why did they dance, hum drum, chant, make cave paintings? It must be because art and beauty is crucial to human survival.

Interesting.

And so we know that we were painting caves 40,000 years ago, but 10 and 20,000 years before that, we were making. In southern Africa, they were carving ostrich eggshells. And, you know, just for fun, for beauty, they were making necklaces out of shells and wearing them. They were using ochre crumbled from the ground to paint their faces and their bodies. And 500,000 years before that, we were making tools that were more beautiful and symmetrical than they had to be to complete the task that they were for. So it really goes to show that art and beauty and creativity and physicality and movement are very crucial ways that we've always operated. And since the world has modernized, we've kind of like forgotten those things. So it's not really anything new. It's just things. It's ancient wisdom that we really need to remember.

Yeah, interesting. So I'm hearing you say that art, beauty, dance is designed for our survival, and it also is designed to heighten our experience. It sounds like. But we forget that sometimes.

Yeah. Because if you think about when we lived on the savannah, we had to access our instincts and our physicality to read the land, to read the weather. But the beauty of ancient wisdom is that a cloud formation could say, rain is coming, or it could be a pattern that you recognize as a message from your ancestors. And it's just such a beautiful way to live.

Speaking of ancestors, do you believe it's possible for us to connect with our ancestors and have, like, they're with us? I know some people do, some people don't. But what's been the research and the science around the signs around either reincarnation or connecting with ancestors or people who have passed? What have you researched or personally experienced?

I just want to say, because I have been teasing you about this for several years, I'm very impressed with your Spanish.

Now it's getting a little better.

It really wasn't good for a long time.

Still needs to get better, but it's getting better. Thank you. I'll take it.

And I'm saying that because I want to ask you about your own wife's culture. I mean, Mexican Day of the Dead. Need I say?

Yeah, it's beautiful.

But in the book I've researched, you know, the major ancient civilizations. The Greeks, the Romans, the Mayans, the Aboriginal Australians, the Maoris. And in all of those cultures, there is ancestor worship, there is communication with ancestors. When I worked in Aboriginal Australia, I worked with Aboriginal liaison officers. And the very common bird in Darwin is the cockatoo, the white cockatoo. But he told me that when they see the much rarer black cockatoo, they believe that's their ancestors in animal form. Just letting them know that they're still around.

Wow, that's beautiful. What have you. I mean, did you always believe that you could connect with people who had passed, or is this more of a recent thing that you started to experience, but also research?

It's definitely a recent thing. It's definitely since I lost my husband. It was just, you know, such a terrible time. You saw me, like, shortly after, and I was desperate for a sign, and I couldn't. I just couldn't believe that he would, like, completely leave me. I could see that he'd had a horrific Disease, and his body couldn't tolerate that anymore. But this was a man that taught me what unconditional love was, that told me he wanted to live till he was 100 because he'd met me. And so his as, obviously his name was Robin. And I did start seeing robins in the garden, like, all the time, like a crazy amount. But it didn't give me that much comfort, and I didn't really know what to make of it. But out of desperation, I went and spoke to a couple of mediums. And in the end, because I'm super independent and obviously I'm all about, like, expanding my mind, I just thought, if it's possible, then I want to do it myself. This is the person I was closest to, and that's the journey that I went on, that I've written about in the signs.

What about people that think that they don't believe, but they're like, you know what? That's too much for me. Or that goes against what I've grown up with or my beliefs or my religion that that doesn't happen. I'm not sure who. But what would you say to someone who doesn't believe that when someone dies, you can still be connected to them in some way or have some type of relationship, signals, signs, conversations with them?

Yeah. I mean, I was brought up in a. In an Indian household where we. My parents believed in reincarnation and gave, like, food offerings to ancestors. Right. But I also went to medical school in the UK and did a PhD in neuroscience. So I've always been quite torn in that respect. I've had that skepticism that I think everyone should have. The only thing I can say now since writing this book is that I have literally had thousands of messages from people.

Really?

Thousands.

People?

Yeah. Real live people.

Okay. That was like, you got. Okay, real people. Yeah. I cut her off before the end of the sentence. Okay.

People who can DM and email.

Okay, got you. I. I don't. Like people are talking to you all day long. I was like.

And I've been taken aback. I've been taken aback by the amount of stories like mine that I've heard in my friendship group. It's normal to say, oh, send me a. Know, Send me a WhatsApp of a sign or whatever. But the number of people who've written to me and included in that is the skeptics. I actually had someone. This is just one message. I hope he's listening. That I'm going to say he literally sent me a voice note saying, I listened to you on a podcast. I was like, nah, you know, this just. It sounds really woo woo. I was super skeptical. I was walking on the beach whilst listening to this podcast and I came across the infinity symbol on the beach.

Whilst I was, ah, that's cool.

And just, you know, many other people saying, I listened to you. I didn't believe. I've never heard from any of my lost loved ones. But I specifically asked for a sign and it came.

Wow.

So that's all I'm asking all of.

You is just try it.

It's not going to harm you. If you've lost someone or might just be from the universe or God, whatever you believe in, just think of a symbol that means something to you that will feel like it's an unmistakable sign and just ask for it and see what happens.

What if they don't see it?

It's so me a million dollars right now.

Where are you? So give me an example. Give me an example of, like, if someone's the most skeptical person who's like, I don't believe any of this stuff and I've heard people say this before and all these things happen to me, or I lost someone close to me and I haven't felt a thing.

Yeah.

I've just felt sadness, loss and grief and it's unfair. And I'm alone. How can someone say, I'm going to just give it a try, even though I know it's not going to work? The biggest skeptic, how could they try to be open to the possibilities to see a sign? What would you start them with? Think of a sign that's meaningful to them. Not like actual physical money, but more of like a symbol. Right?

Yeah. And I think there's gotta be a more like emotional depth to it.

Okay.

You know, there's got to be a reason that you're longing to see that sign, and it would actually mean something to you in a way that a million dollars is never gonna make you happy.

Gotcha.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So for you, it was an infinity sign.

Oh, well, it's Robbins. It's the numbers 11 and 44. It's the infinity sign. White feathers are quite universal. My friend who's written a book about it actually calls them the angelic business card. So that's one that a lot of white feathers. Yeah.

Okay, so you'll think. So what would the first step be? Think of a sign that you resonate with.

Well, if it's for a lost loved one, then I like to actually meditate on that person and my memory of them for a while and then think of either a joke that we shared or a memory that only that person and I would know about. And then pick a symbol that represents that. So, for example, once I asked for a button that would appear out of place.

A button that would appear out of place.

Yeah. And. And I also put, like, some parameters around it. Like, I would have to see it three times, and I would have to see three signs by 11pm the following day.

Interesting. So you were like, there's structure to the signs.

But that's because I'm quite far along the journey of getting the. At first, it would just be like, please send me a sign in the.

Next week or something.

Right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. For instance, I had forgotten that I had written in my journal that on another podcast, I said that I'd wanted to be an actress, but my father had said, over my dead body. So my father then passed away.

Wow.

And a lot late. This was when I was, like, 16, but my father passed away a few years ago. And so I thought, well, now that you've passed away, Daddy, maybe I do have your permission to said over my dead body. And that was the kind of relationship we had. I was very cheeky with him, but he liked it. And so I said, if I have your permission now, then I will bump into a famous actress. I didn't put any time parameters on it. I forgot that I'd written that in my journal. I'm the trustee of a charity in the uk and I helped organize the Christmas Carol concert. So I invited a friend. We met in the doorway quite early, and then people started to come in. So this woman tried to get past us, and so I tried to step out of her way, but she stepped in the same direction. So we literally physically bumped into each other. And then she said, sorry, and she walked off. And I said to my friend, he's a filmmaker. Oh, my goodness. That's Anna Friel. I love her. So that story's in the book. With her permission, and we've now become friends. And she keeps saying, I can help you to become an actress.

You know, And I told you I knew this story. I knew you're gonna tell me. Cause we were talking about this.

Yes. Yeah. Because you met her.

I've met her. Yeah. I met her a bunch of times. And she. I think she follows me. And she. Her and Martha did a TV show together.

Yeah.

So I was like, that's a cool synchronicity right there.

Yeah. Isn't that wild?

It's crazy.

Yeah.

So when you said her. I was like, oh, what? Of all the actors, all the people? Yeah, it's cool. Very cool. So that was something you put in there. You met her, now you guys are connected. And she said, if you ever want to do acting, let me know. I'm happy to help.

But I think the biggest thing for me is I forgot I'd written that in my journal. So when I look back, I mean, even though I believe in this, it takes my breath away every time.

That's powerful. You mentioned a meditation. You'll do meditations or you'll think about the person and the memories of the person that you want to receive a sign from. Is there a meditation or a process that people can do? Maybe it only takes a few seconds or a few moments that you can guide us with.

Yeah, there are a few, and they're all in the book as well. But I just want to preface that by saying part of my journey has been cultivating the art of noticing. And I learned that by noticing beauty. So that's part of neuro aesthetics, which is this field of research. I've written about the arts and beauty. So nature, for me, is the easiest place to do this. It'll be like the spring blossoms, the flowers in la, the autumn leaves on the east coast, whatever. And I realized that the neuroplasticity set in really quickly because, you know, I take on a neuroplasticity challenge every year. It's normally quite hard and takes a while. But with this, very quickly, I noticed that, like, 10 plus times a day, I'd be saying, oh, isn't that so pretty? And I thought, okay, my brain's definitely like, you know, looking for these things. Yeah, yeah. And finding them. So that helps you, obviously, then to notice signs, because your whole saliency network of your brain is just like the filter is less harsh. And I've written about saliency and habituation in the book, too. So I did a few, Chose a few meditations to do with our senses, and I'd like to share one now. That is to do with the sense of sound and hearing.

Okay.

So if you'd like to join in the meditation, if you just close your eyes and sit with no arms or legs crossed, and we'll just start with a little bit of breath work just to get you into the zone.

So just start by noticing your breath. Don't try to change anything, but as soon as you turn your attention to your breath, it usually does change.

So just notice if the in breath.

And the out breath are of equal length or if one is longer than the other. And then I'm just going to count you through, breathing in for four and breathing out for four. So inhale 2, 3, 4, 4. Exhale 2, 3, 4. And just repeat that for a few cycles in your mind. And then try to focus on making the out breath two counts longer than the in breath. So breathe in, 2, 3, 4. And breathe out 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6. And again repeat that for a few cycles. It just helps you to let go. And now I'd like you to take your attention away from your breath and just turn it inwards and focus on the sound that you can hear that is closest to you. And now focus on the sound that seems furthest away from you. Try to move your attention away from the closest sound towards the furthest sound. And now turn your attention to the sound that you can hear that is the loudest. And then use your senses to locate the sound that is the quietest that you can hear. And then turn your attention away from the sounds around you. And notice that whatever sounds are around you, however close far loud or quiet, there is always stillness within.

And I want you to just sit.

In that place of stillness for a little while, just breathing. And when you're ready, you can flutter your eyelids open and bring yourself back into this room, back into your body.

Back into the here and now.

Relaxing. Well, I think you need to do a meditation app next, too. The voice is so soothing. It's so interesting. Just doing the listening meditation to sounds and noises and trying to put my attention, like, up in the upper balcony of, like, can I hear a breath up there? It's like, just, even if I can't hear it, how do I put my attention over there? And then putting your attention into the stillness inside of you, it's just. That was very interesting, right? And what does that meditative practice, that specific one, do for us to either heighten our senses or our attention, or how does it support us in tapping into these signs?

For me, that one is really about remembering in the most stressful moments that there's stillness within that you can access in a matter of minutes. There's another one, which I would have liked to do, but. But it involves chewing a raisin for a minute. So it was a bit impractical, raisins, but it's about, you know, visualizing this grape growing in California under the sunshine and the rain and being transported to your local town and your shop and then you buying it and, you know, sort of so just really getting into that journey. But a lot of tapping into signs, and your intuition starts with tapping into your senses. And so to ease people into the book, because obviously, you know, I knew there were going to be skeptics. The first main chapter of research is about the fact that humans, as far as we currently know, actually have 34 senses. And so most people don't know that. And I didn't until I did a literature review. I knew we had more than the five, because I've been to medical school, obviously, but I didn't imagine it was anything like 34. So if you now know that you have 34 senses, and let me just give you a few examples, taste is subdivided into five.

So it's bitter, sweet, salty, sour, and umami.

And umami was only discovered in the 1980s. So, you know, our understanding of what we're capable of is evolving quite a lot. But if you don't know that you have them, you can't be tapping into them. And that's an analogy for intuition, and it's also an analogy for science.

So we have five tastes.

Yeah.

So umami, that was recent, though. Is that a recent thing?

1980S.

I wonder if there's more senses that we haven't tapped into.

Well, the latest one that's been recognized physiologically as a sense is the immune system.

What? The sense of the immune system. What does that mean exactly? Does the immune system feel something?

In the book, I've described a. A sense as something where a stimulus acts on a receptor and it causes the production of a chemical that then has a cascade effect in the body. So, for example, a lot of people say intuition is our sixth sense, but intuition doesn't stimulate a receptor, so I've ruled that out.

Interesting.

Yeah.

So intuition is not a sense, not.

In the strictest physiological terms.

What is intuition?

Intuition is all the life lessons that we picked up in life but that we don't consciously remember. So it's the wisdom that we picked up that we have access to. It's not our logic. It's not emotional thinking. It's another way of thinking, and it's based on patterns that we recognize from life experience.

Does intuition come from the mind or the nervous system?

So I would have said when I wrote the Source and when I first came on your podcast, I would have said it comes from the mind, which is part of the brain and the central nervous system, and possibly the gut neurons, is called gut instinct. Now, I've gone further with my research to say that it's coming from the tissues, the fascia the musculature, the whole body.

Like everything. Your whole body. Your intuition is like every cell in your body.

Yeah.

Embodied intuition. Why do so many of us go against our intuition when it comes to relationships that later we're like, we knew they were the wrong person.

Yeah.

Or a business opportunity or a career or. Why do we go against intuition and we make poor choices that we know? Like, in ourselves, we know something was off. I don't know if ever you've ever heard this story, but I've heard it so many times from. From women who have been divorced who said they knew on their wedding day that they were not. SHE LAUGHS she's the one who knew on her wedding day that she was not supposed to be with the person she was getting married to. I don't know. Has anyone ever had that feeling or. No, I've heard that it's like, after they get divorced, like, I knew on my wedding day, I'm like, if you knew, why would you go forward with this? Right. It's like, but I can say that about me for all the dumb things I've done. Right. So why do we do dumb things when our intuition tells us not to do it?

I was going to start by saying, I think society has conditioned us to believe in logic more than intuition. But I also think with the last part of what you just said is, why do we not listen? It's because we don't hear it, because we're not tapped into it, because of all the reasons I said, you know, we don't know that we've got 34 senses, so we're not tapped into them. I was lucky. I realized quite early on that I was intuitive. I would just have a sense that something was the right thing to do, and I would go with it. Yes. And my husband at the time would really support that as well. So it nurtured it. Then I got into journaling practice and that really helped me to write out all the dumb decisions that I made that went wrong and realized that I should have gone with my intuition and to learn to take a healthier risk with that and go with my intuition where no, perhaps it would feel like it would make more sense even if I made the wrong decision to explain to you. Well, logically, this was the reason.

On paper, he looked good, right? Yeah. On paper, it all looked like it was supposed to work out. That's what you always hear.

I mean, for the most important decisions of my life, like my life partner, I would absolutely go with my intuition. Now that I feel like I've grown it to the point that I trust it so much, but also for me. And like the people I teach at mit, for example, at the business school, I had to put the science behind it. So in the Source, I wrote about how. And on your previous podcast with you, I've talked about how intuition works through Hebbian learning in the body, in the nerves. But in this book, I've written about how it works. Really, like, from your entire being.

From the whole being. When you have an opportunity that comes in your life or a person you meet or something that you're given opportunity to do, what do you do? You have, like, a strategy now that you say yes or no to based on your intuition? Is there, like, something you say it needs to be a hell yes, or it's a no, or is there something you feel out more until you feel like, okay, my intuition is telling me this could be a good thing, because maybe you know right away, maybe you don't. Maybe it takes time to know if, like, something's going to be the right thing for you. Because a lot of people, I feel like, get stuck just they're not sure how to make a decision either way.

Yeah.

And so they're in the middle. Right, Right. It's like they don't just fully commit, they don't say no. They're just like, ah, let's feel it out. So how do we know when to say yes to the project, yes to the person, yes to the possibility? And it doesn't mean that thing's gonna always work out, I guess. But I don't know, how do we know it's gonna be the right thing for us right now?

So that's a really good question, because in terms of the neuroscience, that limbo place of, like, not being able to take a decision one way or the other is actually the worst place for your brain to be in. So it's better to make a decision than not make one at all. And what I've learned, I do trust my intuition, and I feel like it's right most of the time. But I've also learned that if I take a step in one direction and it turns out to be either I make it work, or if it turns out to not be the right decision, then I make that right somehow, and I trust myself that that's what I'll always do.

And I guess we probably need to make a lot of wrong decisions for us to have the wisdom to have the intuition know what to do in the future. Yeah, you need to make some Mistakes.

And you build that up by taking a risk on smaller things, not taking a risk on, like, the biggest thing, like buying your home or something like that. Right. And people experience this in different ways. So there are some phrases which are quite new age, I suppose, like clairaudience, clairsentience, claircognizance, and Clair. Oh, my God, don't do this to me. Clairvoyance, the most obvious one. So that is clairvoyance is seeing something and knowing that it's right. Clairaudience is hearing it. Personally, I experience probably what's closest to Claire, cognizance, which is I just know something's right.

Claire, what's it called?

Cognizance. So, like, cognizance your cognition. And Claire, sentience is feeling in your body that it's right. So that may appeal to different people. You know, you may receive it in a. In, like, a different modality. But I do believe that journaling and reading over your journal entries is a really good start. There's a couple of exercises in the book that are combining physicality and your mind to access your intuition.

So those are some things that they can do. Yeah. What about listening to your friends or your family, if they say no, they're not right for you, should you trust the intuition of the people closest to you, or do they not really know your intuition?

Only you know your intuition. But I do think that running your intuition by your own logic and also by past the logic of someone you really trust is a good thing to do, especially if you're not, like, 100% sure on your intuition. If I have a dilemma, I will pick three friends to ask for their opinion, and I'll pick people that I know will challenge me and, like, criticize my thinking. And I always say I know exactly what situation you're asking about. If one person doesn't like your prospective partner, that's their opinion. But if four or five of your friends don't, you probably need to listen.

Yeah, right. It's like. And how do you know? Like, you hear this a lot about. In relationships. Like, my. My parents or my family didn't like this guy or this girl or whatever, but I just so connected. We have so much love. Like, if someone's family or closest friends don't think it's the right choice, do you think they still have the ability to make a beautiful relationship? Or is it. What is that?

As my best friend once put it to me, which has stayed with me for so long, however much people love you and care for you, everyone has an agenda for you.

They have an agenda.

Yeah. And even if it's obviously that they don't want you to get heartbroken or something, that's still their agenda. I really do believe that, you know, you've got to live your life to the fullest. If one thing I've learned from losing my husband is that every second, every decision is so is such a privilege. And I feel like I could have gone down such a road of becoming so bitter and thinking like life had treated me so unfairly. But it took me years, as you know. But I've come out of it thinking I am so lucky to be alive. I have to throw myself into this life with everything that I've got and if that includes future heartbreak, so be it. It's not going to kill me.

Yeah. Wow, that's beautiful. I've got. That's beautiful. Yeah. You know you've got a quote here about in your book, page 196. It says the more stable and supported you are, the more likely you are to have the resources to bring signs into your life. And if you're open minded about the possibility of some sort of shared consciousness, then feeling your connection to others and support from your tribe gets you a step closer to tapping into wisdom. And in my experience, that's when signs will become an everyday part of your life. And when I opened this event, I was talking about this kind of mastermind, this community. Some people came alone and hopefully they'll meet someone here. Some people dragged someone that didn't know they were coming. And some people have been here for years and some people, this is their first time. And feeling supported is one of the most powerful things that you can have. Unfortunately, not everyone has people in their life that supports them and believes in them. And so hopefully here you can find that place, even if for this weekend and afterwards you can take someone and connect with someone to continue to support you. I know for me there are a lot of years where I just didn't feel supported. Even though people supported me. I just didn't feel understood as a young kid. And I had to learn how to support myself internally and almost give myself the love and affection, as weird as that might sound, internally, through meditation, through patience with myself, through kindness rather than being, you know, just upset at myself constantly for making mistakes, but being kinder to myself, I had to give myself grace. And by doing that, I felt like I was able to start to attract more of the right people. When I gave myself the support I needed, when I showed up for Me, then I attracted other people who had a similar alignment to life, similar point of view. And I want to close with this. You talk a lot about neuroplasticity. Again, you are the neuroscience master. You teach this stuff. Your books, your content is amazing. But neuroplasticity is something I'm fascinated by. How can people use this concept from this weekend to start reshaping their own beliefs, their own thinking, the thoughts that hold them back or make them think negatively? How can they reshape them to have more empowering habits after this weekend?

Well, I think the first thing that I can say that I think is going to really land as a feeling, which is a. Neuroplasticity is stimulated by repetition and emotional intensity. And I know this weekend is going to be emotional in a good way for a lot of people, but as.

A neuroscientist, what I see is hundreds.

Of brains sitting here that are more like soft clay than a hard rock, and that will inevitably be changed by the end of this weekend. And that's just by absorbing. That's if you're not even trying to necessarily learn or meet new people. It's just by being here and having the experiences that you have, your brain will be different. So it's up to you how you want that brain to be different by the end of this weekend. And if you take that intention into every workshop, into every performance, into every speaker speech, then what's right for you, what's meant for you, will land for you, and that's what you'll take forward into your life. I want to leave it as open as that. I trust the brains in this room to do the right thing.

And when you receive information, though, if you just receive it once at a weekend like this or any other weekend that people go to, is it enough, or do they have to do more to really create the dream that they have, the goals that they have? Like, what do they need to keep doing to keep their brain malleable enough so that they can start acting in different ways to create different results.

Yeah. So if something lands very highly emotionally this weekend, that itself may be enough to trigger a change. But obviously there are actions that have to go along with that. But I really liked it earlier when you were saying, you know, what's the thing that you would say to yourself, like, stop doing that now? I think pondering on that this weekend and then actually making sure that every single day you do something that acknowledges that after you leave this weekend is probably a really good start. I'm sure there'll be more specifics for people but that really landed for me as a neuroscientist because of this negative gearing in the brain so overturning that negativity working out maybe five to 10 small things that you need to do to change that status quo in your life would be a really good start.

Well Dr. Tara we appreciate you for showing up. You flew out here from the UK thank you for giving us your time I acknowledge you for constantly growing and evolving Give it up everyone one more time for Dr. Tara Swart.

Thank you very much I have come across quite a few people who say I've been through the magazines I've cut out the pictures I know exactly what I want I can't bring myself to glue them onto the board.

Why?

Well the first time someone said that I challenged them really strongly and I said I think that's because you don't believe you deserve them. So we had a whole conversation about that and it turned out.