Sande Hart is the Founding Director of the Charter for Compassion Women and Girls sector, Founder and President of the women’s interfaith organization S.A.R.A.H., Past Chair of the United Religions Initiative for North America, and co-Founder of Alchemy Productions. She is a Mother, Daughter, Wife, Sister and Aunt, and new grandmother!
A certified Compassionate Integrity Trainer, Sande is passionate about leading people to a new understanding of who they are through the lens of compassion and compassionate action, and the role they contribute to the world around them. With a strong emphasis on personal awareness and self advocacy, Sande developed the 18th Sustainable Development goal with the intention and expectation that we will wake up to our personal responsibilities to be stewards of our planet and those we share it with.
With a strong commitment to elevating women and girls by providing dialogue and circle experience, Sande’s workshops and productions provide opportunities for weaving relationships, and being in service to the divine feminine that is rising strong in our world right now.
Sande speaks and conduct workshops on a variety of topics relating to community building, women and girls, and kids activism through service.
Paying attention to patterns in community and community building, it became clear that, with some thoughtful adjustments that seem to be easily missed, and some safeguards in how leadership teams work together, we could accelerate and leverage the highest vision and success of any given group. –Sande Hart
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About Search of the New Compassionate Male with Clay Boykin. I am convinced that amidst all the turmoil in the world a New Compassionate Male is emerging, and this New Compassionate Male is emerging as the New Archetype. ~ I am on a journey to every corner of the planet. I am on a journey within; a journey of self discovery to learn what it means to be a compassionate male. ~ I do not have the answer, but I know there is a spark of compassion emerging within every man and within every woman. Regardless of sexual orientation, nationality or religious tradition I invite you to join me. Let’s travel together and find answers to questions like: Who is this man? What makes him compassionate? Is he born this way, or how is compassion learned? Is there a place or time where compassion is not relevant? How many ways does the compassionate male show up in the world Together, we can find him. Together, we can hold a mirror up for one another and find the compassion within ourselves. ~ The more adversity there is in the world, the hotter the ember of compassion burns within. It may be smoldering and unrecognizable at the moment, or burning brightly lighting and warming others. ~ Who is the New Compassionate Male? Join me in our search.
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Write me at: [email protected]
Circles of Men: A Counter-Intuitive Approach to Creating Men’s Groups – Compassionate men gather differently. – “With this book, Clay Boykin has created a spiritual blueprint for men around the world. Not only does this book provide a detailed guide for starting and maintaining a men’s group, but it also contains rich insight into the struggles and challenges of being a spiritual male in today’s western culture.” – Review on Amazon
The Liminal Odyssey: The Alchemical Power of the Space In-Between– “Everyone has a unique story known only to them that when shared is a sacred gift to the world. In her book, The Liminal Odyssey: The Alchemical Power of The Spaces In-Between, Sande Hart’s life experiences flow authentically onto the page and reveal her own dance within her own sacred liminal space. From her sobering and chilling experience, visiting Auschwitz and Birkenau death camp, to her cry out to the stadium-filled crowd to save an abandoned dog, Sande captures and shares many life lessons that evoked inspiration, and at times melted me into a sacred surrender to truths I had only known unconsciously.” – Clay Boykin
We all have, we’re all encoded like that seed. We’re all encoded with the potentiality of 10,000 forests. One oak tree can produce up to 10,000 forests, by all the seats that potentially can draw, and plant and grow again.
Sande 00:24
We have a design assignment, I believe Aristotle calls it our calling where your passions meet the needs in the world, therein lies your calling. And it goes so much deeper than that, of course, yet it’s about what is it that makes us come alive? And why aren’t we living there? Because that’s, you know, where our potential gift is to the world. And maybe that’s what we all need to be showing up with.
Clay 00:49
The book has really moved me it takes incredible courage to share on the level that you shared. Welcome to In Search of the new compassionate male.
Clay 01:00
My name is Clay Boykin, I support this podcast through my coaching practice. I help people visualize and harmonize find direction and meaning or simply get unstuck. Contact me at Clay boykin.com for a free consultation. Now here’s the latest episode of In Search of the new compassionate male.
Dennis 01:21
Hello World. It’s me Dennis and we are in search of the new compassionate male. I’m the co host of this particular podcast I’m here with the founder clay Boykin, oh, Clay, hey, Dennis, my dear friend, Sande Hart is back. Sande and I met in 2018, the fall of 2018 at the Parliament of the world’s religions. And I can tell you, she took me under her wing, and was instrumental in moving forward the work that we’ve been doing with men and raising compassion, consciousness and men. And we’re just pleased to have her here. She’s got a new book. And we’re going to talk about that and whatever comes up.
Dennis 02:01
Oh, wonderful. How wonderful. Welcome, Sande. Well, thank you so much. I am thrilled to be here. I am thrilled to be here and you didn’t stand in my way too long.
Sande 02:12
You flew right out of there. And look what you’ve managed. And you and Dennis together are amazing and breathtaking. To behold, we’re you know, we’re we’re
Dennis 02:26
Thank you, Sande it is How gracious of you it is. It is amazing to me because we still see the power structure that is still predominantly male, and certainly predominantly white male and older, white male as we’re seeing this. So the power structure and the dynamics are shifting to this wonderful interdependence, this wonderful collection of knowing that that the world is a yes. And rather than a then an OR gate. And and this is the place where you’re playing with your new book and all on can you talk a little bit about what’s going on? And what your what what is impelled you to write this wonderful tome.
Sande 03:11
Yes, thank you. Well, first of all, yes, we are definitely in an evolutionary growth spurt. And you know, you had two very dear friends of mine on your program not too long ago, Connie Baxter Marlowe and Andrew Cameron Bailey, who wrote the trust frequency, and one of their 10 assumptions isour 10… Yeah, I think the 10 assumptions are that are we are humanity is an upward spiral motion. But I challenge that, and I love Connie and Andrew and I will respectfully have the same conversation with them. But why is it we keep spiraling? What is it that keeps us coming back around and moving up ever so gently?
Sande 04:02
What is it that keeps us from elevating at such a slower pace, and right now it feels like the trajectory is accelerated and it’s going up straight, I don’t see it coming back around to the very point of what you’re working on. And that’s the patriarchy and, and the domination trance that we’ve been walking through that Dr. Riane Eisler speaks of, and because we are walking through these assumptions of the way things used to be that that male and female feminine and masculine have these different identities but now we’re pulling back the veil on that. And and those assumptions that no longer service with the work that you are doing, which is so critically profound to that. You’ve really gone right to the heart of that darkness. It’s served us patriarchy has served us. It’s yeah, it’s time has come.
Clay 04:58
Well it’s time for it to evolve as time. I’m free to move to the next level, like you’re saying, right? Isn’t it something we’re, and I know, I’m guilty of this of trying to hold on to the past, you know, I wish things were the way they used to be. Well think about that I don’t, I really don’t think I want that. But I keep migrating back in, it’s almost like, I’m not going to change until I have to change until the pressures are such that, that I’ve got no choice but to change. And I feel like that’s where we are in the world right now
Sande 05:32
Yeah, that’s the creative tension that always comes before great change. So we can bless that creative tension, you know, the piling on of crises that we don’t even have to name here. But then when we can look at the things that are changing the assumptions that are falling off, like what we consider identity, what we consider feminine and masculine even. Yeah, and so we’re and the way technology has been accelerating and speeding up and created lots of havoc in our life, it’s also helped us consciously grow because we have information coming at a so quickly, that we have no choice but to expand our mind and our thinking and our ability to, to, to, to receive information.
Sande 06:25
And it’s both it’s both a great tension. With a great it’s like when you put a seed in the ground, the seed first has to disintegrate before New Life can grow from it. Right? And what grows from it looks very different from the seed, right? We’re at that place in evolution where we could see both the seed and the sprout wildly wonderful time to be alive.
Clay 06:49
Gosh, I go back to Dana White talking with this. And the myth of progress, you know, and how it’s been going for the past 500 years, and the whole idea of technology and faster and faster and faster. In contrast, though, he talks about the myth of the fall, the story of the fall, you know, progress, but there’s the downside to it. And we’re certainly seeing that accentuated right now.
Sande 07:24
Yeah. From Joseph Campbell, from death comes life. All the myths. So stories are dying. And we have a choice, it is our moment of choice. We want the midwife service or casualties.
Clay 07:42
Yeah, it is and, and in your book, and I’m gonna name your book.
Sande 07:48
Oh, yes, thank you.
Clay 07:50
The book is titled the liminal Odyssey, the alchemical power of the spaces in between the beautiful book. And in it, you reference the Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey. But you’ve got a twist, or you’ve got modification or you’ve added to it can you talk about that some Sande?
Sande 08:14
Yeah, I found that I originally set out to frame my, the stories that appeared to me in my life, in in the hero’s journey, and started doing my own charting of what was happening in my life, if I could look at it through that lens. And the hero’s journey really fell short for me. And I realized that the linear the linear fashion of the hero’s journey is kind of specific. First comes the call to action then comes to the appearance of allies and wizards, and, and, and so on. And I think you can be you can be all of these things at once. You know, I close my book on a real great example, if you say so myself on the call to action and the resurrection, step one and step 10. Together.
Sande 09:06
Oh, well expire. It’s not even a spiral. It’s six and it’s AGS. A Bob around.
Dennis 09:10
Thank you. All right, May I May I use a metaphor, please. i When, when we had back when Joseph Campbell was writing this, we were very much in a linear world. It was very much of one thing happened after another we did this when very much in our, in our process. This is what the the this is the pre the digital immigrants. These are this is the pre that we had but the today, it’s a nonlinear world, so that the kids like Okay, so he’s 18 and wants to have his midlife crisis at 18 Go ahead and have it get it out of the way and continue on. So I love that idea because we can actually, we can actually create the journey at time when we need it rather than having it prescribed for us.
Sande 10:03
Absolutely. And that has something to do with patriarchy to. Things are a certain way because that’s just the way they are because someone prescribed them that way. And we’re waking up.
Dennis 10:19
What what is the courage that it takes for you to be out on the leading edge to be able to do this? Because you’re gonna, because you have to be willing to be able to have people go, Oh, are you okay? What? So I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s
Sande 10:34
And I go like this, like, teach teach.
Clay 10:38
I thought it was bring it on, bring it.
Sande 10:44
And I and I actually I say, Listen, we read my book, and then go to Amazon and leave a review. And I can even this even a crunchy one, even one that isn’t glowing. That’s how I have to learn these things. That’s part of my liminal Odyssey. I have to be able to clear all the stuff that doesn’t serve me. I don’t have to agree with you. But you know, when you’re talking about courage, yeah, vulnerability is required if you’re going to sit down and write a book, right?
Clay 11:13
Oh, my God. Yes.
Sande 11:16
Yeah, and it’s required in a limit a lot of sleep. And I think you’re only as strong as your willingness to be vulnerable.
Clay 11:22
Well, I want to ask you Liminal Odyssey how’d you come up with the title?
Sande 11:29
You know, I didn’t set out to write a book about liminal space. I did not even know what liminal meant until about a year ago. And even then I learned it to me threshold, and the space between crisis and choice or crisis and action. And, you know, before that, I was starting to write a, I’ve been trying to write a story about something that happened in the 1982 at the Rose Bowl at a no nukes rally called Peace Sunday. I’ve told this story before. It’s a remarkable story. It had some synchronistic stories that lasted over the course of 30 years. And like, I got to tell the story, or others are saying you’ve got to tell the story. But I didn’t have enough of the story to write. And as I’m, as I’m sitting down to write it again. I started really paying attention to what was going on inside of me what caused what what it was that prompted me in that moment to create what was a wave of a critical mass to care about a single dog in the midst of 100,000 people that unknown next rally. The last 12 hours. Tell us about the dog. What about the dog?
Sande 12:53
Yeah, so it was no nukes rally and music festival. It was tucked right between Woodstock and Live Aid. It was a cause concert. So in between the activists and the speakers and musicians. There were moments of silence Now earlier in the day. The emcee hit a rider right from the very start, the emcee came to the microphone, and said, Hey, we just got a report from the parking lot. Somebody left their dog in the car. If that’s your job, please go roll your windows down. There was a low grade blue and then you know everyone forgot about it except for me. Speaker I think it was Reverend Jesse Jackson comes to the microphone says some words of wisdom leads and before the band can start playing the first band. I think it was todo I don’t remember. Taj Mahal it was Taj Mahal.
Sande 13:47
Sitting, started singing or playing their music. I just started chat. Shouting, what about the dog? What about the dog? I was relentless. I was the relentless irritans. So they would have to answer I’m thinking surely they care about the dog. Surely they’ll report back. And then my moment came again. After the band was done before the next speaker come to the mic. I started again, only now my friends started with me. Didn’t take long before a whole section started. By noon, the whole stadium was chanting. What about the dog? It took off without me and lasted until 10 o’clock it well? No, it was more like seven o’clock when the emcee came to the microphone and said, so you want to know about the dog?
Sande 14:31
The dog is fine. Now odds are they just realized they would have to come then, you know answer that the question of the day because Mr. Stevie Wonder was coming and asking for five minutes of silence for to pray for world peace. But that was a story that I had no other story to tell it and about one, you know, time 15 or 20 years later. And then someone said, Wow, that’s a great story. You should really tell that story. And it grew legs on its own. And I sat down to write about what was going on inside of me. They got me to open my mouth. And I’m like, Oh, I’m, I get liminal. Now. I get Okay, there was my crisis. And here’s my call to action in the hero’s journey, and what was going on inside me, reverent listening, I read reverent listening. So the more I started writing about that experience, and what was going on inside of me, and what was reverent listening, the sacred art of listening, other stories started, kind of, you know, lining up, and they were all wildly synchronistic. And they were all anchored in a different skill, whether it was whether it’s the trust frequency, that’s a chapter in my book, recognizing your archetype. And I frame that in the goddess archetype, Maiden, mother and crone which you can also be all three at a time, which I play my living generally.
Sande 16:00
And listening to your body and understanding mindfulness in a different way. So each story is anchored with a different skill set. And then I stood back and I went, Oh, wait, all those skills together, I pulled them out. And I looked at them. And I’m like, independently, they’ve all got merit independently. They’re all really powerful and respected practices. And they are all practices, which by the way, neuro neuroplasticity and how Dr. James Doty, who has also been a guest has influenced me greatly. And, but what happens when you practice them together? There’s that coherence, there’s that coherence that were that were the individual skills, collectively are greater than the sum of their parts. So we have to practice Reverend listening in order for us to understand trust for us to understand, you know, the biology and how our, our body is wired, for compassion, how to understand what the multi sensory perceptions are, Gary Zooka speaks to understand that thoughts happen outside of ourselves that Dr. James Lipton talks about, and James Hillman and all those that came before him, and and you know, of course, giving credit respectfully, but how, collectively they are interdependent, mutually supportive, and create their own constellation. And like, Okay, this is sounding like a preachy book. I don’t, I don’t, I’m not going to write a preachy book, because, like I said, I’m here to learn.
Sande 17:39
And, wait, what would happen if I took other like, air Aveda, which I did, or the chakra systems and understanding crystals and all of that, or whatever skills that you, you as the reader, you know, find super helpful, what happens when you just put them in that petri dish and mix it up? It works, it works, you know, for everything. So, yeah, I’ve got, I’ve kind of like, I’m looking at a bookshelf with 300 books, and probably 250 different modalities and methodologies, but they’re single. They’re single processes. What happens when you take all the processes we already know, that worked for us, and put them together?
Sande 18:23
That’s the liminal Odyssey, when you can stop in the spaces in between, and apply those skills and expand what may seem like a mundane, otherwise unremarkable experience like an MC saying, hey, somebody left their dog in the car. So it’s still going on and still having synchronistic events from that. It didn’t make it into the book, by the way.
Dennis 18:49
Not the maybe not this book.
Clay 18:56
I keep going back to the dog. And, you know, what started out as you as an individual and then two people to make a wave 100,000 people making that wave? It hit me like a tsunami. And how long has it been how many years and it was so powerful the way you wrote it, and the way you shared it… it really hit me. Like it’s hit me now. And so yeah, and that’s just the start of the book.
Dennis 19:41
This is, this is so holy to watch to see to participate in this because this, what I love about what the precursor to that time, is how quickly we can connect on the internet. Now, how quickly we can get a wonderful idea out there, how quickly we can get the opportunity to be able to let people know what’s wonderful, we in the news business have been lazy and lazy in the sense that we will, we will only focus on something that is sensational. Whereas something that is powerful, this liminal space between being able to sit there in this, in this space is, is where it all happens. Without it, nothing else occurs.
Sande 20:35
I actually talk about in the sacred art of listening, talking about how we’ve been duped that to receive so much information so quickly just look at TV commercials, right? Absorb all this information, but there’s not enough time to stop and think, Is that really what I consider happiness? Is that going to make my life better if I buy that car? Yeah, you know, but I do have time to call the number, right. I can read that I can remember that number. But I can’t remember to stop in the moment. sacred art of listening, by the way is how to prepare to listen, not the act of listening, but the How to Prepare to listen. And so
Sande 21:14
I think it’s really important to, to really pay attention to how much we listen. And that’s a practice. It is a habit to form. And we can do that through neuroplasticity all of these skills can be practiced and accomplished just like any other habit, you want to form that repetition.
Dennis 21:33
What is this book, leading you to do differently in your life than you had before? Because something is, it’s palpable. There is some there’s something that is so dynamic about where you are right now and what you’re bringing, which is going to bring opportunities that are increasing and what you’re what you’re doing. I’m fascinated to know what’s going on.
Sande 22:01
Wow, thank you so much. My first answer is I don’t know. Which is my favorite thing to say. Because that means I’m not attached. That means I can really listen and pay attention. And that is so against the character of who I used to be. Right. I used to feel like I need to be in control. I need a chart my way. I’ve got my goals. We have a vision board. We know ultimately, we want to have this house on the beach, you know, with all you know, certain material things actually. On the sidelines with our grandkids playing soccer, no doubt about that. And I believe that could happen, or will happen. I should say, I believe that will happen. But in terms of where I’m going, how has it changed me with your question? Or what have I noticed in myself?
Dennis 22:44
Let’s let’s just put what are you noticing, right, right now as it’s happening?
Sande 22:48
Oh, yeah. Big difference there. Yeah, the time fulness my, the word that I coined time fulness time for like being mindful. But now we’re being timeful. So it’s like, it’s not just taking a pause and collecting yourself, which it does involve that it’s going okay, what’s going on in my body? What are my true are my trillion cells speaking to me right now? 37 trillion cells to be exact? Yeah. What are they saying to me? You know, how am I feeling in my body right now? What’s going on around me? What am I missing? You know, it’s really applying those those skills in in terms of time, fullness spaces in between. And I’m not so quick to judge. I’m definitely, um, more careful in my responses, care dash full in my responses. And I just am more courageous. Like, like, all a lot of the muck has just fallen away.
Sande 23:56
A lot of stuff that I realized, why aren’t I doing that? My Wait, am I not? I’m not. I’m not good enough. Or I’m not smart enough. I’m not educated enough. All that blah, blah, blah, that we hear that? You know, for years, women say to themselves way too much, and I can’t speak for men, I can only hear what I hear from say what I hear from women. And it’s not that it’s really embodying that. So they go, I’ve only got probably a good 3040 more years on this planet. Sure. So I’m gonna max it out the last 40 years have been sorry, my kids last six years. Subliminal, subliminal. So six. You know, my last six years have been incredibly wild and wonderful. And so yeah, and also, I was just talking about this the other day on another program about forgiveness. And looking at the big T traumas, a couple of witches share in the book. So talk about vulnerability.
Sande 24:59
The big T, the traumas that I had in a moment I would think, Oh my god, this is the worst possible thing that 30 years later, I would come to see where the greatest blessings. So I remember that now something’s not working out for me even something like being late. I’m like, Okay, what am I doing? Because I hate being late. And for me, that’s a, that there’s something that I must have been traumatized as a child because for me being late is like being rude. But I don’t want to be late. But But okay, I wonder what I’m being protected from right now. I wonder what’s going to happen on the other end, somebody sucks me in the throat figuratively breaks, my heart keeps me in bed for three months. That didn’t happen that long ago.
Sande 25:42
And I and I was, you know, really devastated. Yet. If that were to happen to me now I’d say, I can’t wait to see what this is all about. So that’s part of the time fulness to that I have only noticed happening me I didn’t necessarily will it practicing these other skills. And of course, writing about it Sure, sure does help, but really embodying it. You know, I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t practice this stuff. And I do.
Dennis 26:11
Oh, yes. But that’s, that’s really the whole key to it. I’ve never known a teacher. I’ve never known a teacher, that that impacted me that did not walk there first, did not do the walk first and then say, okay, there. That’s the teaching. That’s the teaching. And that’s what I’m getting from you, Sande, that’s what I’m getting an opportunity to be able to know. There is this opportunity, because I love to. I love to give part in forgive. And really, really the gift that there is for me what I am holding on to what I’m because I’ve got a lot of self, I grew up with a lot of we as men had a something that clay and I have both experienced that had a model out there, that we were supposed to live up to that inside of us when that’s not who I am. And this is allowing us this the patriarchy that we’re all wounded by the patriarchy in the sense that it allows us to be able to let go that to be able to have that to, for me to embody who I am. And whoever that is. And that’s what I get from you. There’s such an deep authenticity about about you, that just is profoundly moving. And no matter where you are right now,
Clay 27:42
I’m going to pick right up on that, Dennis, because, yeah, what about the dog? Every story that you share in there the vulnerability that you’re expressing in your book. Every story has real power to it. And I’m savoring it. If I can, I’m going to, because I really want us to, I really want to hear about this, I want to race to chapter 12.
Sande 28:08
Oh, thank you. And by the way, can I just go back and say, Clay, you helped me with forgiveness. Remember, we had a conversation while I was writing the book. So credit where credit’s due, you really helped me understand and you reframed everything for me. So you are totally in the fabric of you are in between the words on that chapter. So chapter 12.
Sande 28:32
About acorn rain in Birkenau. Yeah. Can you share about that?
Sande 28:43
Yeah, I was part of the one humanity Institute, a group of folks who are still in existence working on a project to build an education system right there in Auschwitz, right, adjacent to the grounds of the Auschwitz museum, the death camp, and we did a tour there. And then we went across the way to Birkenau which was another death camp. And while we were in the, by the way, while I was going through the tour, the very first thing I noticed after I walked through those very famous, wrought iron archway, words, work will set you free is what that says in German. I noticed the trees lining the walkways. Now they were rather young. But I imagined Gosh, I wonder maybe those trees have been here for about 80 years. Perhaps they have been here long enough. And we shot and I hugged one. That’s all I could do is think about the trees and what stories they absorbed and what scenes they saw on what did they witness and, and so I was really seeing this whole thing through the trees and then we get over to Birkenau And we’ve done the whole tour, guided by the way, and we get to the end of the, like a big park area, the end of the tour.
Sande 30:09
And there’s this big park area where they’re monuments and things and burnt down buildings. And there was this gorgeous grandmother’s oak tree. She her trunk was so big that my arms would probably take three sets of arms to get around her trunk. So I’m like, she’s been here a while. She’s witnessed it all. And I asked permission, and I wrap my arms around her ever so gently, and I can almost feel her exhale. I don’t think I wrote this in the book, I can still feel it felt like the trunk was just relax. And then all of a sudden, I hear raindrops behind me. And I look and I’m being showered by acorns.
Sande 30:55
And I turned in Nina Meyerhof, by the way, who wrote my forward in my book, and I sit, she was walking towards me, I gotta to see.
Sande 31:05
Again, like, what about the dog, I was wondering if it really happened. So I saw that. And so the acorn is run the acorn right there. So that, for me, what was so profound about that experience, and I can come around to maybe what reminded you about that with forgiveness. But you know, we’re all we all have, we’re all encoded like that seed. We’re all encoded with the potentiality of 10,000 forests. One oak tree can produce up to 10,000 forests, by all the seeds that potentially can draw, and plant and grow again. We have a design assignment, I believe, Aristotle calls that are calling where your passions meet the needs in the world, therein lies your calling. And it goes so much deeper than that, of course. Yeah, it’s about what is it that makes us come alive? And why aren’t we live in there? Because that’s, you know, where our potential gift is to the world. And maybe that’s what we all need to be showing up with.
Sande 32:10
So, for me, that’s, you know, the whole nut excuse the expression of the story. The next morning, I was up for a early jetlag stroll, which I was usually up around 4am. And I took a little walk in a quaint little town of us suites them, which is Polish frosh, Auschwitz, through Auschwitz, this polish fraud suites. And over this quaint little walking bridge, I stood right in the middle of with the river going right under me. And the lush greenery up and down the river bed was so pretty, and like I had done throughout the whole town, wondered where Jews would have hidden and I’m thinking, I wonder they hid there. But now, these these, the greenery is all home for new life for critters for birds, that face or putting oxygen in the air. And adjacent interesting. And then all of a sudden, I realized the river I was standing over was the very river that the concentration camps had dumped the ashes, prisoners into height, the height, the evidence. And I’m thinking, Oh, that’s why everything is so lush, because all of that greenery, UPS, all of those banks absorbed all those souls.
Sande 33:34
And then I saw souls in the tree and I trees and I heard this. We choose love. Of course, we choose love. Anything else does not serve our memory. And then I felt just go forth and be in love. And that is that’s a big, tall order to forgive that that remember, well, what are what would they all want us to be what they want us to be bitter down here.
Dennis 34:10
I don’t see how it could be any other way.
Sande 34:13
Yeah. And I heard it from them. And it was so clear. And I can feel it now. Yeah. And the book was actually going to be called acorn rain and Birkenau. That was my working title. Because to me, that’s a culmination. The ability to recognize what was going on in that moment was the culmination of everything leading up to that point in the book.
Dennis 34:41
You know, I think about that, I think about the concept of when when we think of either atheism or agnosticism more or and all the different spiritualities and it all comes down for me that God is Love it’s the actual I know I felt that I have felt God I have felt God because I have loved i that is the it filters through all my own biases and and limitations and all but but I get a chance to feel the right stuff. And the people that have that have that pure mainline of it Buddha or Jesus or any of the other great that you know, they all that what they did was to they were at one with perfect love. And that that love space. So that’s that’s where that’s where I choose to say that we none of us can be agnostic, because we feel love. And that love just we just happen to name it. We put a name on it and say okay, God and all that, but it’s but at its essence, it’s love.
Sande 35:53
I felt love several times during this call. I fall in love all day long, all day long. Especially with strangers. I mean, I mean, yeah, I love I love just watching people. I just feel the love. Yeah, Thomas Thomas Merton, and conjectures from a bystander. He talks about how he falls that he just had an epiphany that was it was the Epiphany, actually, the epiphany that he just loved all these people, and I was tears in their mind.
Clay 36:34
Sande. This just comes up a lot. And and I think it’s even been on the podcast before but this idea of inter generational trauma. And, what, can you talk about that a little bit?
Sande 36:54
Yeah, so thank you, that’s a big one. We are all carrying some baggage. Right? Our cellular memory has been loaded up. And, and a lot of it’s really good stuff, right? We’ve inherited some great stuff and with hair, inherited a lot of stuff that doesn’t serve us and keeps coming back around. And when I was noticing some patterns in my life with relationships, a friend said, You need to go ritualize it kind of go back and look at what what happened to you. Where that same kind of problem first emerged or could have first emerged in ritualize it then call in your ancestors and your angels or whoever you want to call in, and have conversations about it and ask good questions. And so kind of sent me on the path to looking into intergenerational trauma. And then, I found myself co producing a Passover Seder with Dr. Riane, Eisler, and, and Starhawk and some other amazing women and Dr. Rabbi Tirzah. Firestone based upon Rabbi Dr. Rabbi Tirzah, whose book wounds into wisdom, healing, intergenerational Jewish trauma is just significant. It’s just an incredible book, and you don’t have to be Jewish to read it. And in that, I recognized the patterns in my life, were not only coming down at a cellular level, but they were coming down to behaviors to know my mom and dad learned how to respond to certain situations and held certain belief systems and, and so on, that they picked up from their mothers and ancestors as well. So who knows how far back that’s gone. But at a cellular cellular level, we are programmed. You know, I would I would venture to say that as a Jew, I’m going to respond much more differently to the threat of an oligarch, let’s say, then, or a dictator, like Hitler, than somebody who isn’t Jewish, or maybe hasn’t gone through the Aspera. And because that is encoded in who we are, it’s part of our survival mechanism.
Clay 39:23
You know, Sande, it just, it just hit me. When I when I was thinking about Energen generational trauma. I’ve always thought about it. This is something to get over. This is something to get rid of. But yes, that’s true in a lot of senses. But there’s the trauma from our past generations also brings with it wisdom.
Sande 39:49
So alchemize is perhaps how I would put it, optimize it, embody it because it’s who you are. That’s another thing with forgiveness. I don’t want to forget the stuff that hurt me. It’s who I am, it informs me that I choose how, if I’m going to perpetuate the pain or the bliss, right?
Dennis 40:10
I choose the direction to which I stand. I stand either toward the light or away from it. I can choose that.
Sande 40:19
Yeah, yeah, we have choice. And we forget that and you can discover that in liminal space. Oh, yeah. I don’t have to go that way. Oh, yeah, I have what it takes.
Sande 40:30
And that’s and I just, I find that so inspirational. And where are you where you’re going? So? So what is on your what is on your plate forward? Are you going on on tour? With the book are you going on? Now that we’re in in April of 2022? We’re coming out of a time of intro version where we’re all where we’ve had to be inside. And now we’re now we’re getting a chance to rejoin what, what kind of lessons? And what are you taking? Where are you going with this particular piece of work? Right now I’m recording the audio book.
Sande 41:13
And some cases, I’m saying the sentence was over three times.
Dennis 41:21
I’m so glad you’re reading it, because that means that makes such a difference to me when an author reads her book, rather than rather than having having a wonderfully professional actor, it especially when it’s something that is deeply personal is this.
Sande 41:38
hank you, you know, the whole book has been that way for me from the cover to from cover to cover. Honestly, it’s it’s been deeply personal. And I wanted it to be in its highest integrity and authenticity. So although I don’t necessarily care for the sound of my own voice, I been encouraged by many and many saying the same thing as you that I should read it. And I’m glad I am. I’m glad I am
Dennis 42:07
So glad. I’m sorry, isn’t that interesting that we would, we would find the sounds of our own voices, or the seeing ourselves seeing our image in some way. Different I’ve often felt, Sande, that, that, I don’t know if you’ve ever expected a bite of food to taste a certain way. And it just tastes different than what you expect. And it just, it’s just
Sande 42:36
It’s usually when I cook.
Dennis 42:41
Well, but I think that’s the way it is with our boys. Because it goes through our belt goes through it goes through our brain, it’s it’s different in the same way that when we look ourselves in the mirror, we can never lose eye contact. So that when we see ourselves in a picture, it’s a different, it’s from a different perspective. So it makes us uncomfortable. But the more we do that, the more that you have this lovely voice that you can continue and let it be let it resonate with us, the more you’re going to enjoy it, the more that we’re going to get an opportunity to be able to have your to be able to have this this you do that that’s tremendous. It feels like something is shifting something something profound with a human being is is emerging. We talked about this before clay, you know, when we had on the podcast that that like, what would what would an evolutionary imperative be? What would it be when we were shifting from this to our next level of evolutionary state? And how would we be the conduits for that happening? We’re all midwives.
Sande 43:50
And that’s when we all wake up to say, no matter what we do, good are not so good. We’re midwifing this so I would like to believe that we’re we’re going everybody is going to be in their absolute impeccable integrity, showing up in their divine purpose in their divine purpose. Contributing and it’s gorgeous balance, I believe.
Clay 44:13
I agree. I’m going back to a previous comment about looking at ourselves in a mirror.
Sande 44:20
Yeah, that was good.
Sande 44:23
And it occurs to me that I know that I’ve learned a lot about myself the past couple of years because of zoom. Because I can see myself I can watch my mannerisms. And when I record I can hear the cause and the this is in the end so it’s almost like a self correcting or, or getting to know myself from a different vantage point.
Sande 44:55
Yeah, Dad, what about what about? What about appreciating your articulation how beautifully you speak, how kind you are, how the how creative and blessing that that you are. How about that, too?
Clay 45:13
Thank you
Dennis 45:13
Because that’s a really that’s a really good that’s a growth point isn’t it isn’t merely a corrective point, it is very much of an opportunity to be able to see ourselves through the through the lens of graciousness.
Clay 45:26
I feel that, you know, we’ve been talking now, I mean, over 100 podcasts, I think I want to ask you, though, in search of the new, compassionate male. And we’ve been on this journey, I don’t have the answer, but we’re asking the question. And we’re asking it out there. And I’m asking it inside myself. And I can’t help but feel like in the midst of all the chaos, all the trauma, all that’s happening right now, in this liminal space, that really, compassion is just right below the surface. And I’m going to speak about men specifically, that it’s there and it’s begging to get out. And we’re everything that we know is to push it down. And everything we know is falling down. It’s breaking. So with that breaking, the only can come out is our heart and compassion to balance the scale.
Sande 46:32
Well, as a fellow compassion activist. I agree. And it’s, it’s, you know, action. Compassion is, is a noun and a verb. Right, it’s in its we have a compassion nerve in our body. Our body is wired, as we heard from Jim Doty, our wire our body is wired for compassion. It’s who we are. And we’ve been denying it. Exactly. And it’s, it’s healthy for us. And it keeps us not only alive, and in community, that probably, I shouldn’t even say probably helps us live longer. I agree. I think every condition,
Clay 47:13
I think compassion could almost be considered the, the rubber band that has been stretched so far in the binary thinking that’s happening there. But this undercurrent of, of compassion that that rubber band not going to break. It’s going to hold and it will bring us back together again.
Sande 47:32
Yeah, well, I’m seeing it happen. That’s sprout, we can see.
Dennis 47:37
That it is and so if, what if what’s going on now, Sande, and play if this, if this seed covering is what is appears is the chaos out there that is happening right now. But what is going to emerge as that seed covering gets down, that’s, that’s, it feels so strong. I so agree with you, Sande, that, that this is a process of subtraction, not addition, that we’re actually that I had our essence we are love, our we are we have this compat this essence of who we are that we have put these structures on top of. But as we remove them, as we peel this back, we get to the essence of who we are, and that’s beautiful. I mean, I I look into the eyes of people, and I see so much courage, and so much kindness and so much I agree with you about the strangers because when you can just look at someone’s face, even with a mask on and just smile at them and this they light up. I know it’s going to the world is going to be alright.
Clay 48:50
It’s so interesting. With the mask for me. I’ve learned to read eyes more than than before. And I’ve noticed I can sense or I can see pain, I can see happiness in the eyes. It before it was in the whole context of the whole body. But just looking there and it’s magical.
Sande 49:20
It’s it’s wild, crazy time. It really is an exciting, beautiful time to be on this planet. And I feel a huge responsibility to be in, in service to it. And and finding the courage through practicing the skills finding the courage to with every breath, showing up the best I can and I fall flat on my face sometimes I wasn’t the nicest I could be today with this customer service person on the phone. I apologize but like what was coming out, but we’re all human. But one thing we can be sure of that we have control over. And that is our integrity. And I can’t say this word enough Integrity and Authenticity. And I consciousness is rising. And we’re just, we’re just going into a different animal. I believe.
Dennis 50:17
I do, too. I do, too. Oh, Sande, thank you so much for this time, this will, I’m going to wrap up my portion of this, I’m sure that there’ll be some wonderful after show that will be going. But I want to thank you for your, for your presence. And thank you for the opportunity to to experience you in real time. Because there is that there is an authenticity, I feel like I’m seeing the I’m seeing a soul in progress.
Sande 50:57
Thank you. Yeah, we all have an opportunity to free our soul. And that’s the only way to do it to live in our bliss.
Dennis 51:06
Thank you, Clay. Thank you, Sande. And thank you, everyone who got an opportunity to join us on this episode of In Search of the New Compassionate male. We’ll see everyone back here soon.
Sande 51:20
That was so much fun. You’re right. It was the funnest conversation?
Sande 51:23
Well, I tell you, I’ve been so looking forward to this. And I’m serious. I’ve the book has really moved me.
Sande 51:37
And you move me so think or even?
Clay 51:41
Well, it’s it’s a it’s an inspiration for me. It takes incredible courage to share on the level that you shared. You hit it right on the nose. And you fold, this wasn’t I didn’t read this as a vanity book, right. I really felt like You wove your experiences into something to share. But your experiences were the kind of the backdrop to the real message.
Sande 52:17
Yeah. And you know what, what’s going? It’s so not like, knowing what was appropriate to put in the book. I just listen to my body. If if there was something rubbing me and I don’t think I would have this is another answer to to Genesis question about what am I noticing. There was a faint irritation going on behind my head with some things in the book and I’m like, Okay, I gotta go back. And either reread it and calm my nerves or whatever it is calm the calm the waters, or pull it out and see if I even need it. Yeah. And on more than one occasion, it required me to remove it completely. I’m like, Okay, I don’t need to tell that much of my story, or that’s not relevant. It’s not interesting. It’s getting way too personal. It’s not relevant to the story, you know, and it was all about listening to my body. And what felt right and what was there a rub.
Clay 53:17
Learning how to listen to my body is such a big deal. I’ve got I’ve got happy mad, glad and sad. Right? And, even that is in my head. What is your body feel when you’re sad? When we feel sad? No, no, no. What? What’s the visceral feeling? What is your body doing? Right? And it’s been this past couple of years. And well, I mean, since you and I’ve gotten to know each other, where I become more conscious of that. Oh, I’m feeling of my neck is stiff. You know? Oh, those are feelings.
Sande 53:59
Oh, yeah. And I’ve lost weight. Thinking. Am I full? I’m full. I don’t need any more. And I love to eat I lose weight so I can eat so out or, or I’m either I’m not hungry. Or I’m full. And I I you know, make my body happy. Oh, my earring. My earring I put on these earrings isn’t funny. I ended up not having to take them both off. But my earring was hurting me and I’m like, Okay, I only need to wear it for an hour. So, like, screws out. My ear hurts my I gotta love my body before my vanity. That’s why I only had one earring on when I came to the club and my hair was down.
Clay 54:44
Well and just learning that. It sounds so basic. It’s so fundamental.
Sande 54:52
It really is that easy. I mean, how are we built? We were built with this. We were built with this perfect machine. With an alert system, I think I use that expression. We have an alert system. You know, paying attention to my thoughts. My throat chakra is a big one for me. I once had one of the ambassadors of the charter for compassion women and girls. She had a, she and I had our own conversation. And she goes, she was Sande, unique, and she was a seer and you know really dialed in and she was you need to get yourself a blue stone. My daughter actually wrapped it in gold, so I could wear it on her necklace. You gotta get yourself a blue stunk as blue as the chakra up for the throat. And you need to meditate with it right here and ask yourself what aren’t what wants to be said that you’re not seeing? Or why aren’t you speaking your truth? Or why don’t you feel worthy enough in your voice? That was huge for me. So I’m always paying attention my throat. Is there’s something I have to say. Why aren’t the words flowing?
Clay 56:10
Yeah, you’ll get a kick out of this after my surgery in 2007. One of the first trips out that I went on was to a rock shop. And I don’t remember why we did it. But we went there looking around. And I was trying to figure out I didn’t know anything about crystals or any of that stuff. And I was picking through stuff. I don’t know what to get here. And this woman happened to be a standard this is this a will. What do you what do you what, what’s up, I said, Well, I’ve had this and this and this and I got this big scar and it’s done. You know? She said, Oh, rose quartz. And so I got some pieces of Rose Quartz. You’re gonna laugh but I taped those to my chest.
Sande 56:55
Oh, I’m not gonna laugh.
Clay 56:58
Yeah, I taped them to my chest and the healing this the scar that was forming. It went away. And I’ve just got this little line. And there’s something to that I read somewhere. It’s been years. It’s in one of my journals. Somebody identified 25 senses as opposed to six. And the one that comes to mind is the sense of what our eyes feel in light. That that’s a that we feel and different kinds of aching. It’s different than if I smashed my finger. You know, if you have bright light hits you in your eyes, you know there was a whole range of them and I was wondering when you were talking about the throat chakra if the throat chakra in itself is a different sense, that can be put in the category of taste smell.
Sande 58:05
Oh. Or is my is one my throat chakra is activated. Is it different than when my Sacral Chakra is activated? Or my whatever other chakras could be activated? Yeah. Oh, that there? There’s more. Wow, that’s really interesting. And as a matter of fact, on my kitchen table conversations for liminal Odyssey I’m having somebody come and talk about chakras and yeah.
Clay 58:38
Wow, I I want to enjoy editing this one.
Clay 58:43
Check out the latest episode of insert to the new compassionate mail on your favorite podcast station.
Scientist, psychophysiologist, executive vice president and director of research at HeartMath Institute, member of the Global Coherence Steering committee and project coordinator of GCI’s Global Coherence Monitoring System.
Rollin McCraty, Ph.D., director of research at the HeartMath Institute, is a professor at Florida Atlantic University. McCraty is a psychophysiologist whose interests include the physiology of emotion. One of his primary areas of focus is the mechanisms by which emotions influence cognitive processes, behavior, health and the global interconnectivity between people and Earth’s energetic systems. He has been with HeartMath Institute since its founding in 1991 by Doc Childre. He has worked closely with Childre to develop HMI’s research goals and has been instrumental in researching and developing the HeartMath System of tools and technology.
McCraty and the members of his research team have worked in joint partnership with research groups at Stanford University, Claremont Graduate University, Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Prince Sultan Cardiac Center in Saudi Arabia and the University of Lithuania among many others.
He has been interviewed for many feature articles in publications that include Prevention, Natural Health, Men’s Fitness and American Health magazines, and has appeared in television segments for CNN Headline News, ABC World News Tonight, ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC’s Today Show, PBS’s Body & Soul and the Discovery Channel. He has been featured in many documentary films, including I Am, The Truth, The Joy of Sox, The Power of the Heart, Solar Revolution, and The Living Matrix among others.
McCraty’s critical research on heart rate variability and heart-rhythm coherence has gained international attention in the scientific community and is helping to change long-held perceptions about the heart’s role in health, behavior, performance and quality of life.
He is one of the primary creators of the Global Coherence Initiative and the principal designer of the Global Coherence Monitoring System and its international network of magnetic field sensor sites. Related to this, McCraty heads up HMI and GCI researchers investigating the relationship between human and geomagnetic field environments and the interconnectedness of and communication among all living systems. They also investigate how these fields act as central synchronizing signals within the body, carry emotional information and serve as key mediators of energetic interactions between people and living systems.
McCraty is a member of the American Autonomic Society, Pavlovian Society, National Association for Psychological Science, Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback and Society for Scientific Exploration.
His studies, research and extensive professional articles have appeared in numerous journals, including the American Journal of Cardiology, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Stress Medicine and Biological Psychology. He contributes periodically to the Global Advances in Health and Medicine journal.
Transcript:
Rollin McCraty 0:05
Well, as it turns out, whenever you’re the heartbeat, you have the current flows in the body. They also radiate magnetic fields, I mean, produce magnetic fields, which easily radiate right through the skin and out into the environment around us. Now, how do I know that? Well, let’s take a different device called a magnetometer.
Rollin McCraty 0:24
Which measures magnetic fields out here in space in front of the body and measure the hearts magnetic field. Yeah, and I think relevant to what you guys are talking about on your interviews and shows a lot is to also through those same years is when a lot of our natural kindness and compassion and stuff kind of gets beat out of us. So I just kind of use that as a backdrop or an analogy for what I mean, to where, you know, we start evolving to where it makes more sense, even for our own. Many, many studies bear out what I’m about to say here, that it’s really collaborate collaborating with others and being kind and compassionate is the best for our own careers, and certainly for our relationships. That was just enough for you even invited me this. I was just reading something that what women want most in men is kindness.
Clay Boykin 1:16
Hello, my name is Clay Boykin, and I am in search of the new compassionate male. I believe in the midst of these incredible times of change. A new compassionate male is emerging. As the new archetype in this podcast is intended to give voice to both men and women on the overarching topic of compassion consciousness in men.
Dennis Tardan 1:41
Hello, world it’s me Dennis and Welcome to In Search of the new compassionate male. I’m the co host and I’m here with the founder and my partner, Clay Boykin Hello, Clay. Hey, Dennis, how you doing? Great. Good. Today we have and I’m thrilled to say Dr. Roland McCrady. Dr. McCrady is the director of research for the Heart Math Institute, an organization that I knew many, many years ago lost track of, and I’m anxious to hear what he’s got to share with us today. He’s also a professor at Florida Atlantic University. And he is a psycho physiologist. And he studies and he studies the physiology of emotion.
Rollin McCraty 2:26
Oh, welcome, Roland, thank you for joining us today. Oh, it’s great to be here. It was right there. Great to rediscover clay. I think we probably met. I don’t know. 1820 years ago, maybe something? So I think so. I was with Motorola at the time. In Austin. I think y’all were doing some work with Motorola. Maybe in Florida, and work for a few places actually a few places during that era. Yeah. And I had the occasion to fly out and, and spend a little time and, and then come back. And I always remember that. Yeah. You know, I’m an ex Motorola, my person myself. That’s right. And were you in Phoenix? No, I was a communications engineer. So I was a field engineer. I was I went out and fix the stuff, you know, for police fire departments when the locals couldn’t, you know, I was that guy that. Got it? Well, I’m a little semiconductor guy. So I put the stuff in the stuff that you fixed. Yeah.
Dennis Tardan 3:24
Yeah. How wonderful. And I’m a consumer. So Motorola has happened to be in as I pick this right out. This is a Motorola phone. So I’m a consumer I this is this is the great great grandchild of all the work that you guys have done. Well, unfortunately, wow. Maybe not, unfortunately. But Motorola is now owned by a Chinese company, I think, ah, well see, as so much of what we’re doing, what a time to be alive. Roland, I, you know, when we’re when we talk about, there’s so much so much, really learning and relearning and rediscovering. And so what I want to start is I want to start about what psycho physiology? Could you please? How do you say that at a cocktail party? What do you how do you how do you describe your field?
Rollin McCraty 4:16
Well, it’s really understanding the I guess I could say it this way, the interface between how we feel how we think and feel, and what goes on in the activity in our bodies. You know, that’s the psycho part. Right? Right feelings, behaviors and physiology. You could say the underlying activity in our brain and nervous system and hormonal system. But, you know, our research is really saying that you can’t quite look at it that way, because it’s just as much as what’s going on in our thoughts, feelings, intuitions, yes, that are really driving the activity in our body and our nervous system and our hormonal system. So it’s kind of a different way of thinking of it, but that’s really What I would say the data really, really suggests it’s really what’s going on I, I don’t know how wide your audience is here, but I tend to call these are energetic systems. Yeah, you know, the vibrations, because they’re actually they are, you just can’t put an emotion or a thought or an intuition under a microscope.
Dennis 5:17
Right. But when when we, you know, when we talk about string theory, and we talk about the work that everything is a vibration that if matter and energy can, can be interchanged, then the vibrations there are what creates whatever we, you know, look upon it collapses. So, how could they not be interchanged? Well, right.
Rollin McCraty 5:38
Yep. Lot. Yeah, in the modern world, but there’s still a lot of people that kind of the blinders on?
Dennis 5:43
Well, yeah, there were a lot of people that had the blinders on with Copernicus or with I mean, this is these are all the things that we’re learning. One of the things that clay and I talk about is that, that radio waves existed before an instrument happen to detect
Rollin McCraty 6:01
blood. Absolutely. Right. I mean, and so much of what we know, from my perspective, what we discover and and there’s certainly great advances going on in material science and technology and all that no question. But you know, our fundamental, really understandings of how the universe and life especially life works, there hasn’t been any significant advance in over 100 years.
Dennis 6:24
That’s exciting. So what impelled you, what impelled you to go in the direction of this from being a motorway engineer, here, you are a motorized roller engineer, you’re, you’re out there, you’re out there working. But there was an impelling to get you in this direction?
Rollin McCraty 6:47
Well, that’s a long story. But I think even before most of my engineering, you know, times, I was military and in the university, Nebraska, and then Motorola. And there was always something in me. Even back to high school, I was a kid who was building Heathkit, radios and transmitters. And you know, in Junior High in high school through that era, and I kind of grew up. My grandfather was a small town mechanic, right? So I from a very early age grew up in that kind of world. And so I was always asking questions, like, well, what is a magnetic field anyway? And nobody could ever answer that. I mean, they give you formulas, and which I’ve forgotten most of now, to be honest. But yeah, but describing the behavior of them. And we’re really good at that. And we can make radio waves carry information, and like we didn’t Motorola still do. But the point I was gonna, well, there’s two questions that I think you’re addressing there. One is what we discover and a lot of things is really mimicking what we biology already does. If that makes sense. It’s we’re talking about radio waves. Well, as it turns out, in some of our work shows that we are broadcasting, radio waves and those waves, not radio waves, but electromagnetic waves, and that those waves carry information, just like we would use on a cell phone. So a lot of what we discover is really, why nature is already figured out and doing much more efficiently than than the technology we invent to try and mimic what’s already going on. So that would
Clay Boykin 8:25
say that there’s a field around us.
Rollin McCraty 8:28
Well, there is.
Clay Boykin 8:29
I want to explain that to me. I mean, I can’t touch it.
Rollin McCraty 8:33
Yeah, well, I’ll do that. But to finish your other question. So I was I had a good time at Motorola don’t get me wrong, but there was always a deeper something right? And I wasn’t quite, I guess wired to care enough to play the the male I guess you could say game especially for this and the corporator thing. So I actually left that world. When I first I went to Miami still working for Motorola. In another context, I supposed to oversee the installation of a country wide communication system in Colombia. And that fell through actually found out many years later why that fell through after I’d already been hired to do shop. But that’s another story. And after that, I, you know, my interests read, I found a book that was talking that was actually about the field called radionics, which is a kind of a more different perspective on biological fields and wet Ray waves and stuff. And that got me intrigued. And that’s kind of what got me into the study of consciousness. And so I moved I packed up my stuff and moved to California to get a degree in consciousness studies, one of the first degrees and the first universities that gave degrees in at a small accredited university actually ended up being here in Boulder Creek, California. And then that got me into you know, meditation, that kind of things and I won’t go through the whole story. But then let’s just say while I get through that, that that crowd of people was part of the group that introduced spirulina to the world. You may have heard of that. But it’s a Super Bowl.
Dennis 10:12
Yes, it’s a superfood, isn’t it? Yeah, you
Rollin McCraty 10:14
can actually live on it. And that got proven many times. And so this, this kind of opened my heart a little bit, I think you could say to what yours were these sort of in the 1970s? Late 70s. Okay, good. All right. And the early 80s was the spirulina thing. And, and as life unfolded, actually, National Enquirer did a cover story on spirulina. And anyway, we went from a company selling about 100 150,000 a month and this stuff through the health food stores and consumers. And thanks to I think I personally wrote about $20 million dollars in business in the next two weeks. So it was a, you know, just way, huge jump. That’s its own story. I don’t want I don’t want to go into all that how we pull that off. But the point of the reason I wanted to share this, the history was we took the profits of that. And because we really were a motive to feed the world’s hungry populations, why we were doing this because I could care less about it otherwise, frankly. So we took the profits of that and went to Southern California, out in the middle of the desert, and proved you could actually grow spirulina and in the middle of a desert and feed the world’s hungry populations, you can set these up locally and problem solved, right? Way ahead of our time. I mean, we had these giant solar powered spray dryers and things to process it, it was all there, it all worked. And that went absolutely nowhere. In terms of solving hunger problems. In hindsight, you know, I talked about that when my idealism bubble got popped, you know, here we are, you know, I mean that because I even through, you know, my other studies and practices, you know, they probably need to see here, I was grounded enough in my electrical engineering side of things that I never got too far into the wacky stuff. Right? If that makes sense. Yeah, I was, I was always pretty grounded through it. But anyway, what I, through that era, you know, we talked about consciousness, you know, it’s really all about consciousness and done and on and on. And so after that experience, that became a felt knowingness, if I could say it that way more than a concept. And so basically, after that experience, and realizing how it was blocked, it was really consciousness problems. It was people, you know, leaders of countries and things. I basically said, well, heck with this humanitarian stuff, I’m gonna go make money again. My dad, so I started a company in electrostatics, and kind of went into that field and, and we grew to a multimillion dollar company, and just a very short time, two or three years. And that was a fun ride to I had a great time through that. And, but there was still that deeper, yearning, you know, of kind of think what I incarnated with more, probably more likely, you know, looking back, even into my childhood, that I really wanted to do something, you know, better, better the world, not just my own life. And so another sports car in a driveway wasn’t kind of doing it. And so, then I met duck children. Well, I kind of vowed to myself that I’m not going to get really involved in this humanitarian type things or, you know, doing good for the world. Unless it’s something that can really shift consciousness, you know, it people in a mass scale, because otherwise, I might as well go have a good life and make lots of money. And
Dennis 13:48
exactly, I mean, when you talk about shifting consciousness, let’s take this smartphone, no, no. Technology has ever been adopted as quickly. As as the smartphone has from from not being there to how quickly people are. So that was a shift in consciousness. Right? So a shift in consciousness from from a mechanical standpoint.
Rollin McCraty 14:14
No, that’s not how I mean it. I’m talking about something quite different. Let me let me give you another example. Please. I used to say not that many years ago that I’d read this you know, in some papers and things that with 10% of the world’s military budget that every every human being on planet Earth, could be fed, have clean water educated and have housing at least basic all their basic needs met exactly 10% of what we spend on more and bombs and that kind of nonsense, right? The bucket could never find the reference until about three years ago when I met cilia Silla elsewhere, they he was actually been nominated for three but three Nobel Peace Prizes. And in fact, I’ve got her book laid out here this business plan for peace. She’s going to be a speaker at one of our upcoming events here. Wonderful. And but what that was really neat, because she did the actual the hardcore math and work on it. And I was when I was saying 10%, I was wrong. It’s far less than 10%. Wow, is this not a problem in consciousness? So it’s not technology. We don’t need another iPhone, or smartphone, or we have everything right now and have had for years that would solve these problems. That is clearly a problem in human consciousness. So it makes sense. Does that help give you what I’m talking about?
Dennis 15:41
Absolutely. It absolutely does. Because Because if this is wonderful, all right, continue, continue. Okay.
Rollin McCraty 15:50
So anyway, it’s, you know, our own growth and how we are able to self regulate, and really be more inclusive and compassionate and kind. And
Dennis 16:00
that’s why we’re in search of right fi.
Clay Boykin 16:03
It absolutely is, you know, we’ve been, for the past two years, we’ve been talking to men and women all over the world. And, you know, that’s why we call it in search of the new compassionate male. I may be an idealist. But I think that and I believe that underneath all of the negative things that we’re seeing out in the world, that there’s an undercurrent of compassion, and that there’s a shift that’s coming in, we’re in the midst of where combat compassion, consciousness is going to going to rise up. And that’s why I was particularly interested in talking with you to compare notes on which what you think about that?
Rollin McCraty 16:47
Well, we have an annual event that we do on one of our projects called the Global coherence initiative. And the title of it is the rise of collective compassion. That’s in March, three days, three, half days, march 18 19th. And 20th, I believe, but
Dennis 17:02
both virtually and on site.
Rollin McCraty 17:04
Yeah, we’re having to do we used to do these as big gatherings. We used to go to Vida buddy to Cancun, and they were great events that we had down there just be about our eight years, but the last year, and this year, we’re having to virtually because of the obviously the current pandemic era here right now.
Clay Boykin 17:21
Wow. So HeartMath Institute, orchestrates and puts that on globally. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my goodness.
Rollin McCraty 17:28
So which is part of our mentioned global coherence initiative, which is one of our projects. I don’t know how wide you guys want to get here. But I
Clay Boykin 17:38
think I want to I think I want to go there. Yeah. Somewhere along the line, I want to look
Rollin McCraty 17:42
at let me let me tie this back in now to your question. You asked me a few minutes ago. Clay. You know, when you asked me about we radiate fields. Absolutely. So it’s, sometimes people push back on this. And it’s just the absolute Craziest thing. One of the books on my bookshelf back here is a book on by electromagnetism. And there’s a drawing in it from 1863, where people had actually externally measured the fields of the body and had it right. So it’s not like this is something I invented, right? I mean, every hospital has equipment to measure what’s called mcg? Well, let me let me back up. We put electrodes across the body to measure your heartbeat electrocardiogram or on your head to measure brainwaves or the EEG, what those devices are literally measuring its current flow. Right there differential amplifiers, I probably you know what I mean, by that?
Clay Boykin 18:39
Well, I was in marketing, so maybe not
Rollin McCraty 18:44
an electronics background, but
Dennis 18:47
just just just nod when Yes, yes, of course. Of course. I know. differential amplifiers all the time, of course.
Rollin McCraty 18:55
Basically, you’re measuring the flow of electricity, right. That’s really what it that’s why it’s called the electrocardiogram or electroencephalograph for measuring brainwaves. So when I were there, this is physics 101. I mean, whenever you have a flow of electrical current, you create a magnetic field. Right? So and the heartbeat is by far the largest source of rhythmic electrical, magnetic magnetic energy in the body. So we measure the heartbeat and millivolts and you measure brainwaves in micro volts in order magnitude. Wow, later, right. So I let’s use our cell phone analogy. If you held Joseph’s I’ll hold mine up here. We got one, two. So cell phones work indoors, right?
Clay 19:37
Yes.
Rollin McCraty 19:39
Well, those invisible waves are going through the wall. Well, it’s the magnetic component that’s going through the wall. Right, that’s what we’re using to carry your voice or the pitcher, you know, whatever. We’re modulating that signal. Someone I know a little bit about from my old days, right and my original career Well, as it turns out, whenever you’re the heartbeat You have the current flows in the body. Do they also radiate magnetic fields, I mean, produce magnetic fields which easily radiate right through the skin and out into the environment around us. Now, how do I know that? Well, let’s take a different device called a magnetometer which measured magnetic fields out here in space in front of the body and measure the hearts magnetic field. Now, every most large hospitals have devices called MC G’s, Magneto cardiogram, where you can, you don’t have, you don’t touch the body with anything physical, you’ve measured the field of the body. Now, I’m not going to go into why that’s better for certain why hospitals have them. But just, I don’t think it’d be that interesting right now. But point is, every time the heart beats, we radiate a magnetic field, and you can back up that magnetometer about three feet before you lose the capacity to detect the Hartsfield, you take the same sensor you back up about it, you can measure also brainwaves externally without touching, you back up about an inch before you lose. Right, the capacity to detect that signal. So clearly the hearts the big player here, it wasn’t this guy just goes back into the 90s. In our research here at the Heart Math Institute, using about the same techniques I would have used back in my Motorola days to decode or demodulate the information being carried by in this case, a radio wave to carry the signal, he has them the same thing, just applied those to the heart signal. And lo and behold, you can demodulate and see the information patterns carried by the field. And only that you can actually hook yourself up and get the right equipment and watch this, these frequency patterns change in real time as we change our emotional state.
Clay Boykin 21:42
Now, now, is that is that anything like biofeedback?
Rollin McCraty 21:47
Well, it’s we can take that we actually develop the first commercial consumer level biofeedback. So yes, yes and no. Right. So biofeedback is big is a kind of a term, right, measuring something and feeding back the result. So looking in a mirror and smiling as a form of biofeedback, you know, so what underlies that infer those information being patterns that we are literally broadcasting that we are radiating to the field into our we can call it your personal field environment has to do with the what’s called heart rate variability. And so what that is, is and you would remember this about we taught probably back when you were here many years ago, clay but in a healthy person, our heart rate changes with every heartbeat. So most people know what heart rate is right to simply how many times is the heartbeat in a minute. But in reality, our heart rate changing with each and every heartbeat. So the time drill always vary in time between each consecutive pair of heartbeats. And that actually is a way that that physiology encodes information is the space between things.
Clay 23:02
So there’s really no such thing as a steady heartbeat, not not
Rollin McCraty 23:05
in a healthy person. In fact, if you if your heart rate becomes metronomic, like that is one of the strongest indicators of serious future health problems. Wow. And that predicts things like cancer, heart, sudden cardiac death, metabolic, a whole list of things, this is not a good thing. And so physiologically speaking, it’s a you can think of it as a simple form of Morse code. Of course, physiology is a lot more complex than, you know Long’s and shorts, but it’s the same one same process. And that, so that heart rhythm, this is what underlies our heart rhythm, the patterns of that this is going back to our earlier work in the 90s, again, is the most reflective of a person’s emotional state. So our heart rhythm pattern becomes very chaotic looking when we’re feeling anxious or frustrated or impatient. Not compassionate, right? Whereas it what was really surprising in a way back again, going back to the early 90s, in our work was that the our bodies and our physiology literally shifts into a completely different functional or operational mode. When we’re feeling heartfelt feelings, I use that word that’s thinking doesn’t work. You can think appreciation, you know, thank you for opening the door for me. But when you feel it, it’s a very, that’s what drives physiology is the emotion of it the feeling. But when we feel things like appreciation, or compassion, which are all part of the love spectrum and my way of thinking that shifted the physiology in a completely different mode that we actually figured out what to call it took us a few years, we ended up calling coherence which has become a term all over the place now in terms of physiological functioning. And so when we’re, as it turns out, we actually have what is called A resonant frequency our bodies do. Right. And when we’re operating in it, that actually ends up being the same pattern that we were seeing when people are feeling things like compassion and appreciation and so on. We switch modes into a highly opera into a highly efficient functional state. So then that also mirrors the frequency literal frequencies, we’re broadcasting and radiating out into the environment. There’s a mathematical relationship between the rhythms of the heart and the information in the field. I hope that made sense.
Clay Boykin 25:32
Okay. I think I’m with you. A coherence. First thing I think of is, oh, my heart rate slowed down and it’s you know, and I’m calm and collected. But that’s, it’s more than that.
Rollin McCraty 25:47
And you’re talking about relaxation, relaxation, okay? Alright, so let’s talk about the word coherence, you know, you look it up in the dictionary, the first definition usually has to do with like, now we’re having a conversation. And I’m hopefully I’m putting my words together in a string and in a way that conveys a meaning past all the individual words, in other words as a coherent argument, or a coherent statement, and if I had a little bit too much to drink to this morning, and I muttering nonsense, that you would say, I am not coherent, I’m incoherent, right and go here, exactly. But that’s, that’s kind of the common people level of it. But it’s really similar in fit science and physics and coherence as a concept use pretty universally in science and physics now. And, in general, we use the word coherence when we’re talking about complex systems, like us, like EA, or even a cell is a compact system living system. So within the physics and science context, coherence has a lot of related meanings that are kind of umbrella, it means that the parts of a system have to be in communication. So it implies connectedness and correlation among the parts, right, because they have to somehow talk to each other to be working together in a harmonious way to give rise to a function that’s beyond the sum of the parts. And it also implies energy efficiency in a coherent. So we use coherence if we’re talking about the cosmos, you know, that’s a common term right? Or, certainly, if we’re talking about our physiology, so to have it to be in a coherent physiological state or heart rate, heart rhythm, coherence, as we now call it, that means a lot is going on in our bodies, that we’ve actually shifted into a more efficient functional state. So we’re also now vibrating if you will oscillate in or at our natural resonant frequency. So in other words, the heart long brain blood, blood pressure rhythms are all synchronizing synchronous, doing less work to get more done.
Dennis 28:00
Got in some bats where and
Rollin McCraty 28:02
the heart and brain come into synchrony as well, the activity of the
Dennis 28:05
heart and rink and that’s where your instruments and the work that you’re doing at the Heart Math Institute, are designed to do?
Rollin McCraty 28:13
What? Yes, so that was early, all the stuff I’m talking about now goes back into the 90s, in our work, so that once we really understood the physiology in this new functional state, I mean, that was what we have. It’s always been there. Sure. I mean, we’re always can we heard incoherent and people been in the states all along? That we were just to kind of the first look at it more deeply and say, wow, look what happens, you know, and by the way, I’m kind of rambling here, but at that time, when you search the medical literature, I think I could find three papers that had to do with what we would think of as positive emotions. Why 1000s on things like stress, anxiety, depression, right? Three
Dennis 28:51
on what a waste
Rollin McCraty 28:54
on positive now that’s changed. You know, there’s a whole new movement called positive psychology and all this going on out there.
Dennis 29:00
If we study if we study why people keep keep saying, that is so valuable. Yeah.
Rollin McCraty 29:08
Alright, so anyway, the point is not very few researchers that actually looked at what’s going on when we feel good. It was all focused on the negative side, right. Anyway, once we identified the state, and it was so clear that we naturally go into this ops dysfunctional mode called coherence is optimal state. When we feel good, you know, you walk out you may not say this, but you walk out the door to yourself, in other words, in the morning, and it’s one of those days, you know, the blue skies and the perfect disco Hakata What a beautiful day. You’re feeling appreciation of how I mean, you may not think that and you’re naturally going into this more coherent state.
Clay 29:55
That kind of like being in the zone. Well, it would be what underlies
Rollin McCraty 29:59
Right. Is that makes it that makes sense clay?
Clay Boykin 30:05
It does it does. I just, every once in a while I hit a straight golf ball, it feels so good.
Rollin McCraty 30:13
Because you’re a golfer you retake up your cones, parents practices, because it’s huge a lot of golfers have find if they get coherent before they take the shot. You know, there’s there’s over 400 studies now and people when they learn how to get independent of us that have followed up on our research, that we feel better and we perform better whether it’s golf or Olympic athletes. You know, whatever tennis I mean, the list goes on a lot of professional athletes use it now as well.
Dennis 30:41
Rollin I want to go back to this, this idea that it takes less if that we could solve so much of the world’s problems with less than 10% of the debt, the defense budgets? What is between that, that solution and where we are now? And how can what you’re doing and the things that that we’re doing the science get us to that that very, very same place,
Rollin McCraty 31:12
and evolution of consciousness. And so from my perspective, consciousness is evolving,
Dennis 31:18
right? So we are if we are going through, are we because it feels to me that we’re that whatever the imperative was to go from the chimpanzee in the bonobo to the hominid to the something is happening now that there is an evolutionary imperative. Something is going on that we’re going into. And it is an evolution in consciousness. And that’s where it where it’s happening.
Rollin McCraty 31:44
Yeah, and if that word is kind of strange or unfamiliar, consciousness, colored awareness, you know, or maturity, right? Yes. Because they’re all kind of interchangeable in a way.
Dennis 31:58
So we’re in we’re in our, in our human species. We’re at like, like, like, I don’t know, where you would be? Are we in the teens? Are we’re in our teens as a species? Are we are we evolving, that we can evolve into?
Rollin McCraty 32:15
We’re probably not quite to our teens yet. You know, I’ve never used this analogy for a bit. Think about it when we are cute little kids. So I grew up in the Midwest at a time, you know, that’s very different than I think these days, you know, and there was a period I come from or how old I was that the backyard was our boundary. Right. And then we as we matured, and we developed a certain level of self regulation. Right, like, be home by dark. It’d be literally exactly right, then the block became the boundaries, you know, an off playing with the other kids in their places. And Matt and, and then there was the next boundary with the next level of maturity and capacity to self regulate was now, you know, you look before you cross the street, so you don’t get ran over and, you know, kind of basic stuff, but it really was maturing, you know, and awareness. Then, in my days, the town became the next boundary. Certainly, right. Probably same for you guys, your
Dennis 33:19
neighbors looking out for one another. If I did something, and that was reported back, it was well, yeah,
Rollin McCraty 33:25
that that too. But the point is, I’m making we are evolved, or our awareness was evolving. Absolutely. Right. And for a lot of people we get we graduate high school, or we great college that kind of stops. Right? If you get my where I’m going with that?
Clay Boykin 33:41
Yeah, it’s like going back to high school reunion 40 years later, and pick up right where you left off.
Rollin McCraty 33:48
Yeah, and I think relevant to what you guys are talking about on your interviews and shows a lot. It’s also obviously those same years is when a lot of our natural kindness, and compassion and stuff kind of gets beat out of us. Yes. If you will, you know, and especially later in that development process. So I just kind of use that as a backdrop or an analogy for what I mean, to where, you know, we start evolving to where it makes more sense, even for our own. Many, many studies bear out what I’m about to say here, that it’s really collaborate collaborating with others and being kind. And compassionate is the best for our own careers. And certainly for our relationships. I’m just in for you even invited me this. I was just reading something. What Women Want most in men is kindness.
Dennis 34:42
It’s It’s amazing. It’s extraordinary what we can do and what I love about that, and what play and I have certainly experienced at all, is that it’s there. It’s an it’s our nature, but it gets I love the way you were saying it was beaten out of us or it was layered over or whatever and it’s De construction that gets it back to our natural state, which is, which is love.
Rollin McCraty 35:06
Yeah, so we have to unlearn a lot of what we lost I I’ve had to, you know
Dennis 35:12
me to that so much of that has been, has been part of that. So where are you now rollin at? Tell me what what your your work is in helping to elevate the consciousness or to or to bring into the coherence?
Rollin McCraty 35:30
Well the reason I got involved 30 Some years ago after infection sold my electrostatics company for way less than it was worth kind of quickly exit and do what I do now was met the founder of HeartMath, Doc Childress, his name. And so I’ve got to tell you the real story here of how it all began, I was he was on the East Coast and North Carolina area, and I was back there doing some work from our company on their research triangle area. And, and I was introduced to some mutual friends through the earlier years, I was talking about the consciousness studies and all that. And this guy sounds, this character sounds interesting, I’ll go pop over spend an hour meet the guy. And three days later, I left true story actually. And through that, he was talking about his history. And we had a lot of similar backgrounds, both, you know, from being in our early years poor, mean race and poor families and farming communities. And that mine was in Missouri, Nebraska, that area, and all the kind of school of hard knocks that we’ve kind of gone through, if you will. And what he had, he had studied very deeply, a lot, a lot of things that was similar to me, it just got a lot deeper than I had. And it was talking about the heart, not just as a metaphor, you know, and through my meditation practices, we know we were meditating with energy to the heart chakra and all this stuff. Yeah. You know, as I was very adept at that to through those practices, but it was never really taking the heart seriously, as in the way I would tend to describe it. Now. We to diverge a little bit here to really answer your question, we have the physical heart, but we also have what we now call the energetic heart. And I’m saying that’s real. And we’ll structure it’s just at the vibrational level, that thing we can’t yet put under the microscope. And that that’s the bridge of the transceiver to use my communications language, to what I hear I just call it the large or larger self that’s vibrating at a higher dimension and literally in a higher dimension. Sure, different dimension of density is the way I really think of it. But But anyway, a lot of people would call it their higher self or their spirit or their soul. Sure. Just saying, I’m here to say that’s real. And the heart is the bridge to that. And I’ll go as far as saying in my own personal experience and our research, that that’s an eye of a needle that you just can’t bypass. Right. And it is that it is really getting the the mind to finally surrender to that other level of intelligence that elevates awareness and consciousness that gets us to rise above our judgments and our biases and our kind of 3d level of consciousness. It’s a long story made really short there but
Dennis 38:34
but compelling to me, because it makes me want to know more. That’s what I because when you talk when you talk about the that the heart having intelligence, and it having it at that there is an intelligence there and that we tap into it. We’ve made then that is real.
Rollin McCraty 38:54
Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, and that is what elevates consciousness is tapping into that flow of information.
Dennis 39:02
So we could could we say that compassion, the when we’re searching for compassion, we’re searching for it both in ourselves and searching for it out because there is value in that search?
Rollin McCraty 39:13
Yeah, so what opens? So I think of this. This new mechanism, or this network, I was just talking about very much like radio systems. I can’t help it. I’m an ex radio guy, right? Yep. But it really is like that, that it’s a signaling system between different dimensions, if you will, I mean, that magnetic fields are all around you right now in the room, you’re in Right. Clay and Dennison, hear all the cell phone conversations? So when we get our phone out, how do we get the information we want, we tune the receiver to be resonant with the frequency of interest. And as soon as we do that, we transfer the energy information and amplify it up and we’re having our phone call. I’m just saying we work the same way between our larger self right And so that level of our own undivided wholeness is another way of saying it is in communication with the through via the energetic heart right down to the DNA level to all the cells. And I mean, how are we talking to anyway, when we go deeper and talk to ourselves inside? Yeah. It’d be good. I’m not talking about mental chatter. Now I’m talking about those deeper core understandings of who we are and what we’re here to be and who we really are. And
Dennis 40:31
I love having these conversations, Roland and clay because the, the, I know that this conversation might not have made a lot of sense to me before, but because of the depth of the learning in the studies that I’m doing, I’m gonna be able to see and I’m trying to think about this conversation in 50 years that would be very prosaic that they would that the people would be really talking about this the normal part of conversation, rather than something rather than something esoteric.
Rollin McCraty 41:05
Yeah. That reminds me I hadn’t thought about this in years that your comment. Before I tell you this story, though, I don’t want to lose the point that it is those heartfelt feelings of appreciation, compassion, kindness, care, love, that opens that channel that I’m talking about. So there, you can’t get through that I have the needle with the just the mind, you know, the judgments and the biases and sorting that the mind wants to do. But the story you just reminded me of, I’m actually an official mad scientist. True story, it’s I’ve got to somewhere. I’ve got it back here a few quite a few years ago, now. Maybe 567 years ago, Wired Magazine selected I think three maybe four what they considered mad scientists. They actually did have the whole senators pics page, they did cartoons. This is the clinic right here. But here’s the point that made your comment reminded me I have to be qualified to be a mad scientist. Because we had to be doing work that was kind of considered far out and kind of wacky. But a generation or two from now it’d be considered common sense. That’s what reminded me of that.
Dennis 42:22
Yeah. And that’s where I see this. And that’s where I see this going. I see that because the opportunity because when we look at something that is mad, and mad is spending less than 10% of the budget of the military that we have of destruction that could end up solving the all of the problems of poverty, that madness. It is, isn’t it? That’s a problem. You’re going to say we’re moving to sanity as opposed to being something outrageous that is that anyone looking at that would go That’s insane. Play you.
Clay 43:01
Yeah, so Okay, so we’ve been talking about the individual pretty much. And okay, so I’ve got a field around me. There’s something bigger going on, that you’re involved with. I want to hear about that.
Rollin McCraty 43:15
Okay. Alright. So I wanted to give that background that absolutely feels because, alright, so I can kind of go into this. So let me just tell you the evolution of our cliff notes version of our research, okay, so we can make your fields out here, we can take the information and see that it’s carrying information, probably about a whole lot more of emotions, but for sure about our emotional state. So what we’re feeling inside doesn’t stop at the scan. It’s we’re broadcasting it. And I think everybody knows that we can feel that from others.
Dennis 43:45
We’ve seen that you’ve walked someone walks into a room and fire the entire roster changes we know that we seen everyone’s experienced Yeah,
Rollin McCraty 43:55
we’ve intuitively we know that and I’ve seen it. So the next I’ll just give you the quick notes to the next step. In our research, you’ll say okay, well, that’s neat. So what does that have measurable effects on other people? And that was an easy question to answer actually, there’s multiple studies people want the hardcore research on all this published. In other words, our physiology is exquisitely tuned to receiving and responding to the the amplitude and frequencies of other biologically generated or fields. As we’re tuned each other or so are not only we radiating, we’re also receiving and miserably affected by others. Okay. You kind of already alluded to that Dennis, so that was probably yes. Alright, so now we’ll take it bigger. So that’s the living room level, right. Then, so then we got into I’m going to skip our intuition research. That’s a whole other topic maybe we can talk about another time. But that answer clays question. We that’s what this is where we get into That’s called the Global coherence Initiative, or GCI. And so we start to, we now have a global network of really ultra sensitive magnetometers that are specifically designed to measure the resonant frequencies of the vibrations in the Earth’s magnetic field. So we have these sites, I wish we didn’t have to do this ourselves. It’s really expensive and a real pain in the rear to do. But we’ve got sites one here in California, northern Canada, Saudi Arabia, Lithuania, New Zealand. I’m probably forgetting some but so this is this global network that we’re able to literally measure the the rhythms of the Earth is what the magnetic field. So let me give a little context here, when we have a proper there’s just too far away from it to reach right now. But think of the earth right, and it got the geomagnetic field, you know, thing, our compass is tuned into sure one pole, the South Pole, we all learned about that back in probably Junior High in our era. And, you know, if you remember back to when we were in grade school, or whatever it was, you got to dump iron filings. Hope you guys got to do that right on a glass plate. Yeah, you put your magnet under it, you move it around, and it was fun to play with it. And it visualizes the shape of the magnetic field. But here’s what I want to go one more level. If you think back, those iron filings lined up in lines. Right, it wasn’t just kind of black blob. They’re all so those are also visualizing not already seeing the shape of the field, depending on whether it’s a bar or a ball or whatever. Those are letting us see what are called magnetic field lines. Okay, or flux lines if we’re using engineering terms. But anyway, the Earth, the Earth’s magnetic field is Big Donut, or toroidal shape around the planet. But it goes out into space many, many 1000s of miles is the same way. Magnetic field lines. Now, here’s what we didn’t learn at least I didn’t back then is that you can pluck magnetic field lines, and they vibrate just like a guitar string. Really? Yeah. And it’s a great analogy. I mean, any stringed instrument abolishes guitar, you change the length of the string, the tension, it changes its vibration, right? It’s frequency, same way with Earth. So they’ve got really long magnetic field lines. So they have a lower frequency. Now what’s plucking these magnetic field lines, and the fact the science term for this is called field line resonances. Okay, so what’s plucking the strings is the solar wind rushing by, which is about a million miles per hour. And meanwhile, Earth is turning and so is the sun, right? In fact, Earth is within the magnetic field of the sun. Right? So there’s all these levels of fields, we live within fields within fields. Right, so the bank, the magnetic field, lights are vibrating. And so when we measured the frequency of these vibrating field lines down here on earth through our global network of magnetometers, the in frequency language, one of the primary resonant frequencies is a frequency called 0.1. Hertz, can answer cycle every 10 seconds. And guess what? The frequency of the human coherent heart rhythm is 0.1 0.1. I’m going to pause a minute, let that soak in. Okay, so part two, think back to Science class when we were back in middle school, or whatever it was. And we got to play with tuning forks, right? Or if you didn’t develop, everybody seen the examples, you’d have two tuning forks, the same tune to the same note, you tap one the other starts to magically vibrate. It’s demonstrating what’s called resonant coupling.
Clay Boykin 48:57
Oh, okay. I had that with my guitars.
Rollin McCraty 49:00
Absolutely. You can do a clocks on a wall guitars you via you can hit one the same note the other starts to vibrate right now. Absolutely resonant coupling. All that is showing is you can transfer energy and information. When systems vibrate at the same frequency. Same back to our cell phones, all those frequencies we tune if you guys are old enough to remember back when you have to turn knobs on radios. Oh, yeah, right, you’re you’re you’re literally moving the plates within a capacitor to change the resonant frequency that wants it, you hit the right frequency boom, you’re listening to your radio station or having your phone call. So that’s just the simple basics of with where our physiology is vibrating, oscillating at the same frequency as the primary frequency of the birth. It’s not a big jump to understand how we can be transferring energy and information from us to the to the to the bigger field. My making sense here you fall Yes, yes. Oh, Are we when we’re radiating our frequencies, love compassion versus, you know, impatience, anger, frustration that we’re feeding are not only feeding our local field that is coupling to the larger field. So all of humanity is now contributing to the larger global field, the information being carried by the larger field.
Clay Boykin 50:22
And so if this large population is vibrating the same, then we’re sending some stuff out. Yeah, well,
Rollin McCraty 50:30
we’re receiving it. And we’re radiating. So that next evolution that we’re talking about in consciousness, kind of one of the scenes here that for GCI, that’s kind of a naturally emerges, please become aware of what what are you feeding the field?
Dennis 50:45
Absolutely. Right. So I absolutely, so one
Rollin McCraty 50:49
of my calls to action, usually, for I get done with most presentations or talks, is, hey, pause real today and just ask yourself that what am I feeding the field is that part two of that is what we feed to feel matters.
Dennis 51:02
I love that. Because if that means that everything matters, that means that I can sit I can I can make a difference. By changing, I love the word mindful, because it gives me an opportunity to look at it rather than in a binary state, I get to look at it and in along the spectrum, that I can become more mindful, moving toward the one and moving in that direction to become more coherent.
Rollin McCraty 51:36
Yeah, I mean, mindful is a great term, and I back in what would have been 80s. For me, I studied mindfulness and practice that during that era. And you know, and it’s really great, because we’re being mindful, or mindfulness is really becoming more self aware of what we’re thinking and feeling and hopefully more objective about it. And as an observer, but I would also like to suggest, if I may, that, as we evolve a little more, that mindful term will probably fade away, and it’ll become more about being more heartful.
Dennis 52:08
I love that. Because that, really, that that. That brings us around to compassion. And it brings us around to be using this as a power and really to being a being able to to leverage it. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 52:27
well, exactly. So we have a lot more. I mean, you know, there’s so much 30 years of research, it’s hard to shove, cram 30 years of that into an hour here. But
Dennis 52:35
goodness know,
Rollin McCraty 52:38
kind of what it’s really important, I think, to understand that radio knob we were talking about, we have one inside of us. And we have a lot more capacity and power to tune our own dial than we think to align with our larger self and, and really become more energetic responded, energetically responsible for what we’re feeling thinking and what we’re radiating into the field. And there’s a lot of if you don’t want to do it, because you have to care for other people will do it for yourself.
Dennis 53:05
Exactly. But you know, you know, the thing that I find interesting, Roland is that you’re everything that I have studied from any of the any of the Masters in spirituality, any of the scientist says that they are talking about the same thing that you are you you’re you’re bringing this, you are applying the science and applying the science to what all the great teachers that I have, that I have ever studied, will either implying or directly saying,
Rollin McCraty 53:37
Yeah, you know, it’s interesting you say that it’s true. Absolutely. It’s also true in the scientific community. And I’ve had the honor, I’d say to meet a lot of pretty well known scientists over over my career, and we’ve had a lot of them have a visited here and kind of reminds me of a conference we had here on the question that was being discussed was it as our quantum processes involved in brain function and brain activity? So we had, you know, Roger Penrose was here, and Carl pre-boom and about 30, you know, similar names, right. And so they were here for about a week, and we had a lot of time to hang out at night, and you know, around the campfire in some cases and stuff and just talk and get to know each other. And it was so highly, David Bowman already passed away, but his main role was your contributor of his. And for example, in heaven having these kinds of discussions kind of like we’re having now he talked about a larger self that really guides and directs the physiology and all of these guys were, well, of course, it’s that way.
Rollin McCraty 54:51
It’s really true. I mean, you know, the really great minds and thinkers have absolutely no problem of discussion we’re having today. It’s kind of obvious to them You know that it’s really the, oh, I want to be kind here, but the scientists want to be is maybe, you know, you’re kind of climbing the ladder, and you’re really stuck in the dogma and religions. And to me, science has become the new religion and just as dogmatic as religion. Of course. Fortunately, I work in a nonprofit research center here, so I don’t, I don’t have to worry about tenure and don’t really, you know, have to play that game to the same same way. You know, the people who resist this kind of things, you know, they’re still stuck at that lower level, they haven’t really matured enough to their awareness to really understand that, you know, the I, to me, even from childhood, frankly, the idea that a lightning bolt hit a pond of mud, you know, millions of years ago, and we evolved into who we are now, against all the laws of thermodynamics, thermodynamics is just absolutely absurd. Yeah, I could never just never could, you know, and I know, all the models have, or not all but a lot of the models about, you know, self organization and all that. But even that falls apart with a little deeper thinking,
Clay 56:04
you know, I, this whole time, which keeps coming through my head is, you know, I work with men, I’ve got a mentor, if I got a network around the world, you know, how do we take this to action? You know, the guy that’s, you know, you don’t know about all this stuff, but he’s searching, you know, he’s got this hole and inside of them, and he’s trying to figure out, what do I do? How do I get unstuck?
Rollin McCraty 56:28
Well, that’s, that’s, I think you were one of the early adopters in a way. But that’s really why Heart Math exists. The Heart Math Institute is to provide practical research based not that that matters. But it’s a nice add on approaches, tools, techniques that we really can use to to really grow in our capacity to self regulate to have more control over our emotional diet and become more self aware and able to make Icom turnarounds. You know, I wouldn’t what I mean by that clay as a turnaround is somebody does something, you know, that frustrates us. You know, are we there goes that typical, almost automated, unconscious reaction, right? Frustration, impatience, anger, whatever that is. And the analogy I like to use, it’s like the trains leaving the station. You know, the trains pretty good at you know, it’s building up momentum. And I’ve actually had, I’m sure you’d have to the experience of that train gets too far down the track that emotional train I’m talking about. You’re sitting there watching going, Oh, shit. Oh, boy. There it goes. I see it happening. And I know the playout. And it happened. It is still it’s too far down the track. We can’t stop it and turn it around. That reminds
Clay Boykin 57:50
me. I should have pulled it up. It’s sitting away across over there on my bookshelf, is a little book called freeze frame
Rollin McCraty 57:58
is our first book your first book. Yeah, yeah. So but the whole point then when I say turnarounds is it takes a little bit of practice. But once that once that emotion starts building, and this is not about suppressing, that never works. But it’s about turning that energy around. And shifting that same energy, you know, into a neutral or with practice. It can even be appreciation, compassion, care, kindness, but and then that does nothing but benefit us, our immune system, our hormonal system, gets us into that coherent state, we’re able to think better, clearer, make better decisions. So just take some practice that, you know, most people just haven’t been taught.
Clay 58:40
Yeah. Well, hopefully some folks will listen to the podcast. And it’s getting out there. I’ve got, it’s being picked up in several places in Africa now. Wow. Congratulations. Yeah, I’m very, very happy with it. And I know your time is tight. And I want to invite you back, I’d love
Rollin McCraty 59:01
to this, I was fine. This is very different than those types of conversations.
Clay Boykin 59:05
Well, you know, I’m really trying to communicate, communicate, and, you know, probably about as many women watch, this has been. And same with my websites. You know, the stats show that sometimes there are more women on the website than there are men. You know, they’re looking for a resource for their man. And the HeartMath message is a very powerful one. And I’m really grateful that you took some time this afternoon. My pleasure, my pleasure. And please come back.
Rollin McCraty 59:38
Oh, just let me know when you don’t like to and we’ll find a time.
Clay Boykin 59:41
Great. Thank you so much, Roland.
Dennis 59:43
I love that you’re giving me the opportunity to exit the conversation at a higher level than I entered it at a higher level of consciousness. Roland, thank you, thank you for for this for this opportunity to to open my mind and to really to get into To My Heart and really to to explore that to be heartful. And because I can I can I can experience that now I can explore it and work into that place. Thank you. Thank you so much time. Clay thank you for for allowing me to be along this journey in search of the new compassionate male in myself and in you and in you rollin and to be able to see the beautiful examples that we have because we’re going on from here on so thank you everybody. Thank you for listening to podcasts and there will be more coming. So stay tuned. We will see you in search of the new compassionate male next time.
Clay Boykin 1:00:46
Check out the latest episode of In Search of the new compassionate mail on your favorite podcast Station.
I am grateful to each of my guests who joined us this first year of the Podcast. Together, with my Producer, Dennis Tardan, we published over 70 podcast episodes. Our guests joined us from: U.S., Kenya, Australia, Canada, Rwanda, Tasmania, Malawi, U.K., and Sardinia....
Ram Dass wrote a letter some years ago to a family who had lost their young daughter, Rachel. Although he wrote it to these two parents specifically, everything in this letter applies to anyone who has lost a child.
Dear Steve and Anita,
Rachel finished her work on earth, and left the stage in a manner that leaves those of us left behind with a cry of agony in our hearts, as the fragile thread of our faith is dealt with so violently. Is anyone strong enough to stay conscious through such teaching as you are receiving? Probably very few. And even they would only have a whisper of equanimity and peace amidst the screaming trumpets of their rage, grief, horror and desolation.
I can’t assuage your pain with any words, nor should I. For your pain is Rachel’s legacy to you. Not that she or I would inflict such pain by choice, but there it is. And it must burn its purifying way to completion. For something in you dies when you bear the unbearable, and it is only in that dark night of the soul that you are prepared to see as God sees, and to love as God loves.
Now is the time to let your grief find expression. No false strength. Now is the time to sit quietly and speak to Rachel, and thank her for being with you these few years, and encourage her to go on with whatever her work is, knowing that you will grow in compassion and wisdom from this experience. In my heart, I know that you and she will meet again and again, and recognize the many ways in which you have known each other. And when you meet you will know, in a flash, what now it is not given to you to know: Why this had to be the way it was.
Our rational minds can never understand what has happened, but our hearts – if we can keep them open to God – will find their own intuitive way. Rachel came through you to do her work on earth, which includes her manner of death. Now her soul is free, and the love that you can share with her is invulnerable to the winds of changing time and space.
Dr. Howard Teich has addressed groups such as C. G. Jung Institute and the International Conference on Shamanism on such topics as High Performance Leadership, Six Steps to Creative Collaboration, Quantum and Reflective Consciousness, Twin Leadership, Eros and Psyche, Gender Relationship and Consciousness.
Psychologist and teacher Dr. Teich founder of PACE PROFILE® applies his extensive background in psychology and his pioneering work in conscious empathy to create more effective outcomes in individual evolution, relationships with others and organizations. Combining his expertise in the fields of archetypal psychology, mythology and neurology, Dr. Teich’s notoriety as a scholar and lecturer is based on his theory of the tripartite integration of mythology, archetypal psychology (including dreams), and neurobiology and their effects on human consciousness. With this theory of integration, Dr. Teich has created a body of work that supports rapid understanding and changing human behavior.
Dr. Teich’s formative work began while he was teaching a course at the University of California at Berkeley titled Dreams: the Language of the Unconsciousness. His deep appreciation of and curiosity about the role dreams has had on shaping human outcomes has driven him to begin years of Jungian analysis with world-renown experts Joseph Henderson, John Beebe, and Joan Chodorow.
Dr. Howard Teich’s interest in the deep cultural ties mythology has within the unconscious realm led him to focus on the work of Joseph Campbell, the master of mythology studies now famous for his contributions to the Star Wars movies and his series of interviews with Bill Moyer. After Campbell’s death he has had the honor of contributing to Use of Comparative Mythology: Essays on the Work of Joseph Campbell (Garland Publishing, 1992).
Dr. Teich’s seminal work defining solar and lunar psychology is described at length in John Beebe’s 1992 book Integrity in Depth (Texas A&M University Press, 1992). Dr. Teich’s writings have appeared in publications such as Chrysalis, Parabola, San Francisco Jung Institute Journal, and Noetic Science Review; and been included in several anthologies, including Christine Dowings Mirror of the Soul. His latest works, Solar Light Lunar Light: Perspectives on Human Consciousness, is now available through Apple Books as well as Amazon.com. Dr. Teich was a consultant on Transforming Terror: Remembering the Soul of the World which was published in 2011 by University of California Press; and author of article Our Culture’s Divided Soul.
To measure the solar and lunar perspective of human behavior and how it can facilitate high performance Dr. Teich has developed the PACE PROFILE®. What makes the PACE Profile unique is that it highlights not only preferences and behavior but the underlying motivations that lead to behavior based on our engagement with ourselves, those around us, and our environment. And unlike other assessment tools the PACE does not divide people into types or assume that they have fixed temperaments from birth. A key element of the PACE is its focus on where an individual is now and how they can grow and develop if they choose.
A frequent lecturer in Mexico, Canada, and the U.S., Dr. Teich has addressed groups such as C. G. Jung Institute and the International Conference on Shamanism on such topics as High Performance Leadership, Six Steps to Creative Collaboration, Quantum and Reflective Consciousness, Twin Leadership, Eros and Psyche, Gender Relationship and Consciousness.
In addition to teaching at the University of California, the California Institute of Integral Studies, Sonoma State University, the University of San Francisco, and the Esalen Institute, Dr. Teich has coached executives at some of the world’s most respected corporate giants, including Microsoft, Intel, and Wells Fargo, as well as at emerging companies funded by venture capital firms.
What are our modern day rites of passage? Have we lost this part of our culture? What are the consequences if we have?
Wikipedia – A rite of passage is a ritual event that marks a person’s transition from one status to another. Rites of passage explore and describe various notable milestones in an individual’s life, for any marked transitional stage, when one’s social status is altered.
“Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it” ― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
***
Frankl believed that “love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire” (Frankl 38). But what allowed him to hold onto this believe so fervently amidst the moral deformity of the Holocaust? In Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl’s autobiographical testament of his time in Auschwitz, he offers this explanation: “Those who know how close the connection is between the state of mind of a man, his courage and hope, or lack of them and the state of immunity of his body will understand that sudden loss of hope and courage can have a deadly effect” (75). To illustrate his point Frankl details for us his theory on the record high death rate in Auschwitz during Christmas 1944 to New Years 1945: that prisoners died because they had expected to be home before Christmas. When they realized this was not to be they completely lost hope in life beyond the concentration camp.
***
In this rare clip from 1972, legendary psychiatrist and Holocaust-survivor Viktor Frankl delivers a powerful message about the human search for meaning — and the most important gift we can give others.
This video was created for a graduate-level Theories of Counseling Psychology course at The University of Texas at Austin. Its intent is to provide some insight into Viktor Frankl’s life and his work in Logotherapy.
Article Excerpt: “Logotherapy is composed of three basic principles. The first basic principle is that life has meaning in all circumstances, even despondent ones. The second principle is that the main motivational force is the desire to find meaning in life. Lastly, the third basic principle states that humanity has the freedom of attitudinal choice, even in situations of unchangeable affliction (Frankl, 1959). Thus, Frankl purports that people can discover meaning through creative, experiential, and attitudinal values (Hatt, 1965). Creative values consist of achievement of tasks such as painting a picture or tending a flowerbed (Boeree, 2006). Experiential values consist of encountering another human, such as a loved one, or by experiencing the world through a state of receptivity such as appreciating natural beauty (Hatt, 1965). Attitudinal values speak of the potential to make meaningful choices in situations of suffering and adversity (Gelman & Gallo, 2009). Frankl contends that everything can be taken away from a person but the freedom to choose one’s attitude (Frankl, 1959). He stressed that people should not suffer unnecessarily in order find meaning but that meaning was possible when suffering is inevitable. For example, a person subjected to an incurable disease or placed in a concentration camp can still discover meaning even though his or her situation seems dire (Hatt, 1965). Moreover, tragic optimismmeans that people are capable of optimism in spite of the tragic triad. Frankl believes that all humans will be subjected to the tragic triad, which consists of guilt, death, and unavoidable suffering (Ponsaran, 2007).”
“Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it” ― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
In this rare clip from 1972, legendary psychiatrist and Holocaust-survivor Viktor Frankl delivers a powerful message about the human search for meaning — and the most important gift we can give others.
This video was created for a graduate-level Theories of Counseling Psychology course at The University of Texas at Austin. Its intent is to provide some insight into Viktor Frankl’s life and his work in Logotherapy.
Article Excerpt: “Logotherapy is composed of three basic principles. The first basic principle is that life has meaning in all circumstances, even despondent ones. The second principle is that the main motivational force is the desire to find meaning in life. Lastly, the third basic principle states that humanity has the freedom of attitudinal choice, even in situations of unchangeable affliction (Frankl, 1959). Thus, Frankl purports that people can discover meaning through creative, experiential, and attitudinal values (Hatt, 1965). Creative values consist of achievement of tasks such as painting a picture or tending a flowerbed (Boeree, 2006). Experiential values consist of encountering another human, such as a loved one, or by experiencing the world through a state of receptivity such as appreciating natural beauty (Hatt, 1965). Attitudinal values speak of the potential to make meaningful choices in situations of suffering and adversity (Gelman & Gallo, 2009). Frankl contends that everything can be taken away from a person but the freedom to choose one’s attitude (Frankl, 1959). He stressed that people should not suffer unnecessarily in order find meaning but that meaning was possible when suffering is inevitable. For example, a person subjected to an incurable disease or placed in a concentration camp can still discover meaning even though his or her situation seems dire (Hatt, 1965). Moreover, tragic optimismmeans that people are capable of optimism in spite of the tragic triad. Frankl believes that all humans will be subjected to the tragic triad, which consists of guilt, death, and unavoidable suffering (Ponsaran, 2007).”
If you're looking for clarity or just need a fresh perspective, I'm here to help. Click here for a complimentary 20-minute 1:1 chat. No pressure, just a conversation to see how I can support you on your journey.
A certified Compassionate Integrity Trainer, Sande is passionate about leading people to a new understanding of who they are through the lens of compassion and compassionate action, and the role they contribute to the world around them. With a strong emphasis on personal awareness and self advocacy, Sande developed the 18th Sustainable Development goal with the intention and expectation that we will wake up to our personal responsibilities to be stewards of our planet and those we share it with.
Dr. Teich’s seminal work defining solar and lunar psychology is described at length in John Beebe’s 1992 book Integrity in Depth (Texas A&M University Press, 1992). Dr. Teich’s writings have appeared in publications such as Chrysalis, Parabola, San Francisco Jung Institute Journal, and Noetic Science Review; and been included in several anthologies, including Christine Dowings Mirror of the Soul. His latest works, 
The concept of rites of passage as a general theory of 
important rites of passage for people of their respective religions. Rites of passage show 
