Greg Voisen
Well, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. Joining me from actually the Bay Area is Dr. James Doty. And he has a new book out which we're a little early here, but he's got what I call a proof copy. And it's called Magic Mind. And if you want to hold that up real quick, maybe our listeners here or on Zoom..

Dr. James R. Doty
It's actually Mind Magic, Mind Magic is that magic is backwards to you when you see it.

Greg Voisen
Mind magic. And if you look it up on Amazon now for all of my listeners, you can pre-order the book. And that would be a good thing to do if you'd like to do that. And I'm going to let you know just a tad about Dr. DoDI. He is the founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford, of which His Holiness the Dalai Lama, is the founding benefactor. He works with a variety of scientists from a number of disciplines examining the neural basis for compassion and altruism, through care C.A.R.E. Dr. Doty as overseen the development of a variety of techniques, apps and programs to address issues of stress, anxiety and burnout, through the lens of compassion, that are used around the world and positivity changed the lives of hundreds of 1000s. And you do have an app out and I want to let people know that as well. We'll put a link to that app. He's also the adjunct professor at the Department of Neurosurgery at Stanford, is on the board on many boards of nonprofits and former chairman of the Dalai Lama Foundation, and the former Vice Chair of the charter for compassion. And the senior editor of the Oxford Handbook of compassion science and the author of The New York Times best seller into the magic shop, which is a sounds true book. And we do a lot of work with sounds true as authors. And that's now in 14 languages. So, boy, what an introduction I could go on and on, but I think we ought to get to the heart of it, which is really about how people can work with the neuroscience of the brain to actually manifest in their life. Now, Dr. Dirt you state the manifestation is about cultivating a fierce belief in the possibility you then go on to state that as a child, you're acutely aware of the power of negative circumstances. To limit a human life. You grew up in poverty, with an alcoholic father and a chronically depressed and suicidal mother. Could you tell us a little more about your childhood and how the circumstances helped you to mold the person that you become today? And how dispositional optimism played a role in transforming your life?

Dr. James R. Doty
Well, that was quite a summary. Thank you.

Greg Voisen
I tried to get it all in there, because that's what we do here inside personal growth. Yes, yes.

Dr. James R. Doty
Well, as you pointed out, I had a challenging childhood. And like many actually, people have, I think a lot of people are embarrassed or ashamed to talk about their backgrounds. I as you pointed out, my family was on public assistance, essentially, my entire childhood. My father was an alcoholic, my mother had had a stroke when I was a child. And as a result, was partially paralyzed, had a seizure disorder, ultimately became quite depressed and attempted suicide multiple times. We were evicted from a number of residences as a result of inability to pay the rent. And as anyone who has been in that circumstance, that is not the best environment to achieve what would be typically defined as success in our society. And in fact, there's a whole body of literature related to what are called adverse childhood experiences. And those who've grown up in poverty or have had experiences with drug and alcohol abuse and parents, or mental illness. The likelihood for achieving success ends up being very, very low. What happened to me though, was at the age of 12, I walked into a magic shop and I met a woman and she was not the owner of the magic shop. She was the mother. Yes, Ruth. Yes. And, you know, I think all of us have run across people who have this personality style that just is one that embraces you with kindness. And she had this radiant smile. And she knew nothing about the magic in the magic store, which is why we're sitting there. But she didn't know about people and her and I began a conversation. And the important aspect of that was that by the nature of who she was, she created this, what I would call a sense of psychological safety, which allowed me in some ways to be honest about my own background and story. And she asked me some penetrating questions. Long story short, after about 2030 minutes, she said to me, you know, I really like you. And I'm here for another six weeks. And if you show up every day, I can teach you something that I think could really help you. And this was before. Mindfulness was in common use or even talked about it all before people had used the term neuroplasticity. And also, well, I think the term manifestation had been used, at least in the context of woowoo, pseudoscience, certainly in the realm of neuroscience, it was not studied or discussed or understood. And so during the course of the six weeks, she taught me a mindfulness practice, or what would now be called mindfulness practice, and a way to calm my body. Because you know, when you grow up in these types of environments, it's like, in some ways, it's like a battlefield, there's trauma all around you, there's no predictability, you never know what's going to happen. So you're always on pins and needles waiting for something to happen. And as a result, it's very hard to relax and calm down, which is really required to be present. And if you're not present, then it's really hard to learn or process information appropriately. So she taught me a relaxation technique, or what would now be called a body scan. She taught me a technique to be present. In this case, it was looking at a candle. And then she taught me an understanding that the negative dialogue that I had going in my head was actually not truth. And, unfortunately, so often, when we say I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not worthy, I don't deserve the very nature of saying it then makes that becoming a reality impossible. And so she actually taught me a self affirmation technique or technique for self compassion. And then from there, she taught me a manifestation technique. Unfortunately, the problem for me at the age of 12 was one, I had little, if any self awareness, and two, I fell into the same trap that I think many people fall into, in regard to sort of the woowoo pseudo science side of manifestation, or also what society actually has promoted, which is this selfish attitude about I want, I want I want. And so when she taught me this technique, and I was 12, I put things on this list, like, I want to be a millionaire, I want to live in a mansion, I want to have a Rolex watch, I want to have a Porsche. And I did get all of those things. The problem was that it was a false narrative. And what I mean by that is, you know, I would climb these mountains and achieve, yet there was nothing there for me. And the problem was that I was seeking happiness through affirmation from others. And it's not possible. Yeah,

Greg Voisen
you, you are definitely somebody realizes that. Happiness is an internal job. I've always said to my listeners, if you're looking for happiness outside of yourself, you're looking in the wrong direction, whether it's material possessions, or it's through somebody from the opposite sex or whatever it might be. You know, and you have such an interesting story about a wreckage. You speak about this, and you have a chapter in the book out of the wreckage, and you tell the story about your financial collapse, because you went to this peak, and then you went to the bottom of it. And I'd like you to tell the story if you would. And the one of the most important things or one of the good things about that story was, you found yourself going after this collapse, or this cigar box where you found this piece of paper that you'd written these things on that you just talked about. I'm going to have a Rolex watch, I'm going to have the million dollars. And in your case, it was $72 million. But you went through the.com Bust. And you lost all of this and also speak, if you would, because I think this relates to the listeners about the practice you've created for readers. Because in every one of these chapters at the end, there's a practice. And I think that's really important. Because everybody goes through a chapter here, you're gonna realize at the end of the chapter, there's learning lessons, right? And these are coming directly from somebody who's experienced. So the question is really speak about out of the wreckage, what you learned, and what these practices could help our listeners do.

Dr. James R. Doty
Sure. As you alluded to, I ended up being at least, extraordinarily successful by traditional Western capitalist standards. And what I mean by that is, I went to college, I went to medical school, I became a neurosurgeon, I became a successful entrepreneur, CEO of a company that ultimately went public, and accumulated a lot of wealth. And in fact, during that time, which was before the.com, crash, if you had stock in a publicly traded company, even though you have what are called lockout agreements, you could borrow money against that stock. So I had actually ended up borrowing about $15 million, which allowed me to buy a penthouse in San Francisco, a villa in Florence, I had a Porsche, Ferrari, BMW, Mercedes, range, rover, all of those things. I was dating very attractive models and those types of folks, and I was flying around in private jets. And it's interesting, because all of my friends were saying how great my life was. And to be honest with you, I was never more unhappy than I had ever been in my life. And again, as you were talking about, I was looking outside of myself, for people to tell me how great I was, which was going to take care of the insecurity, and the shame that I carried around with me. And of course, it did not happen. So here I have this incredible rags to riches story. And then during the.com crash, I lost everything. And in fact, I was about $3 million in the hole. And I had made some provisions to donate stock to charity. And what I tell people is, when you end up in the position I was sent, you have two people who become your best friends. One is your banker. And in this case, because I owed the bank, $15 million, and the other was my lawyer, because I had a lot of stuff to take care of

Greg Voisen
a lot of things happening, the lawyer had to help you out. Yes.

Dr. James R. Doty
But the interesting thing was that I did go through this period of reflection, and the reflection was what had I missed here. And again, what I missed was that it was all about me. And I want this, I want that, which unfortunately has been a common narrative that's been promoted in our society. The problem is, I want results in the opposite of happiness. And it leads to emptiness, and it leaves to craving and it leads to attachment. And after this period of reflection, I realized this, and in fact, I had an opportunity not to live up to the, to these charitable commitments I had made because the only asset I had was talking to company that had gone public. And the lawyers indicated that the paperwork had actually not been filed, and I did not have to make that donation. But after this period of reflection that I went ahead and did, and ultimately, that stock became worth about $30 million dollars when the company went public. And it actually funded research and set up programs for the poor all over the world health clinics. It allowed me to endow some chairs at one of my medical school when at Stanford, it allowed me to set up a program for teenagers who are affected by AIDS, HIV, as well as for the Pro as well as programs for the disabled. So, I was able to do extraordinarily wonderful things with that. But it also put me on a different path. Because while I was obviously a doctor, and most doctors help people, my motivation, though, was out of ego. And when I switched how I looked at the world, to one which I will be most happy by being of service, then that changed everything for me. And ultimately, it allowed me to create this center at Stanford at which you pointed out studies, the neuroscience of compassion, and the value proposition of compassion. But it also had other profound effects. As you mentioned, the center founding benefactor was the Dalai Lama, which then led me to develop relationships with many of the world's leading spiritual and religious leaders, to the point where not only was a friend, a friend, but in many cases, an advisor or confidant. And that was profound because what you end up realizing is that these types of individuals, these elevated spiritual beings, live above the dogma of their faith tradition, because what they look through the lens of is, is this person kind, is this person compassionate? Do they care? Are they non judgmental? Do they love, and this is really the core of our existence? Yeah,

Greg Voisen
it actually, if you don't mind me, saying, I can see where you made a big shift from being ego driven to being kind and compassionate. And I think that, you know, I had some similar experiences, not near to the magnitude. But when I founded Compassionate communications, it was about giving back initially, the way the charter was to people who were dealing with life threatening illnesses, my son had leukemia, so that that actually kind of pushed the endeavour to move forward. And I have to admit, I was very ego driven initially to and a financial services business. And I went through bankruptcy. And as a result of that, then started looking just like you there's quite a path here of similarities, maybe not to the same magnitude. But it really it's interesting how you rejigger looking at life when these kinds of incidences occur. And that brings me to what people probably want to read your book for, which is manifestation. Now, you have a chart in the book that really tells a story about how we manifest. And I wanted you to speak about the fight flight and freeze versus the rest and digest and the physiology. Can you also speak about the practice that we could utilize, meaning my listeners to make the crucial switch from this fight flight or freeze response to this rest and digest response, which is really what you and I went through? You know, we were always on, I was having anxiety attacks on a daily basis, striving to keep up with what I thought was the Joneses model and really realizing that was something that I made up incredibly depressed, and not feeling good about myself. Yet I fought that's what the world wanted of me. Right? And I think in an even a neurosurgeon, or a doctor, or somebody who's excelling, I find many times as I speak to you, lots of times families from certain regions of this country, whether they're Asian, or they're Indian, or trying to make their children want to go to a career that's going to be looked at, as you know, hey, the world loves you, because you're a doctor or a scientist, or your computer engineer. You got that right. Oh, sure. Yeah. So I'd love for you to speak about this, because that the heart of this book, is really all these exercises people can do at the back of the book after they read the chapter and get these great stories, but really how they can actually use this book, to transform what's going on inside their brain, okay. And work with their subconscious and work with the various parts of the brain. And you really do a great job of explaining and I just want to let my listeners know, it's a wonderful book for that.

Dr. James R. Doty
Well, thank you. Well, first to comment on what you said about a number of situations where family members or a cultural tradition such as India or Asia, in regard to education, is sort of promoted, oftentimes extraordinarily aggressively to children. And this sad part is that this narrative that you have to do this you have to be the best does several bad things. One is everything turns into a competition, it's a zero sum game, I have to win somebody has to lose. Plus, it puts an extraordinary amount of pressure on an individual who, during the formative years should not have anything like that type of pressure. Now, don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with sort of a competitive nature and attempt to achieve. But it has to be modulated in the context of the real world and how your actions affect others. And don't get me wrong. I am at Stanford. And obviously, I run across a large number of people from similar types of backgrounds. In addition to the cultural aspects, you will also see this type of behavior commonly among parents of high achievers, individuals went to Harvard or Stanford where again, there's this almost forced tradition that they have to excel otherwise, quote, unquote, they're a loser. And the horribly sad thing is, as an example, my son, who is my youngest, who's a freshman in high school, at a very competitive are probably the most competitive school in this area, terms of private or public schools. There's just an Asian child who committed suicide. And the horrible thing is, you know, this was an event that has occurred multiple times where there's a train track by the school and the kids walk in front of the train, and kill themselves. And you know, the sad thing is, in almost every instance is because the child has translated their value to their parents into a grade point average. The parents are not proud of them for being an honest, kind, thoughtful human being, the only thing that these children have processed because the pressure their parents have put them on is that their only value is if they're a straight A student. And, and unfortunately, not everyone is a straight A student. And as you know, from my background, I've certainly was never a straight A student in any way, shape, or form. And the point is, though, you don't need to be a straight A student, actually, what you need to be is a kind, thoughtful, caring human being, doesn't matter what your grade point averages or what you achieve. In fact, as a physician, I would see a lot of people from Google and Facebook, as a spine surgeon, actually, which was one of the things I have done as a physician who had back pain or neck pain, or whatever. But I cannot tell you the number of stories of these individuals who basically expressed their unhappiness, that they were either forced to be a physician or forced to be a doctor. And that's not what they wanted to do. But they were repeatedly told that, you know, if you don't do this, we're going to disown you, which is also a very horrible thing. Yeah,

Greg Voisen
it's, you know, the whole challenge with that is, you're asking somebody to live a life that is not from a soul based. It's from with the egos of others wanting you to do something else. And I think when we get to our soul, our true soul calling, and we really figure it out, sometimes it takes many of us many years. We literally realize that it's almost like an awakening, that it's such a relief, to let go of all of this burden of what the world was. And you mentioned, this is my one of my questions that much of the time we go through life, feeling things are happening to us, not motivated by us, and certainly not occurring for us. You then stated that this feeling of being a passive participant is this is an experience like being the passenger in a car that someone else is driving, this is what we've been talking about here. Either which non intended destination or toward a place that will inevitably cause us pain. Can you speak with us about what you refer to as incentive salience? And how this creates a pattern of activation in the brain? And also speak with us about building this inner power practice?

Dr. James R. Doty
Well, I haven't answered your first question, which related to the flight or fight or freeze response? Okay,

Greg Voisen
that's okay. I think people realize that all they got to do is buy this book. I'm just gonna tell everybody, go get the book. And if you don't want to buy the book, go to sounds true. Tammy Simon is wonderful. And by the audio book that you did, magic shop, you're literally going to get I think, kind of the same thing that Dr. Doty is speaking About here. But I think this question really went right in line with what you and I were talking about. So I was like, Okay, I'm gonna have to sing this one in there right now.

Dr. James R. Doty
I, you know, I think one of the points are important points is the difference between what people think they want and what they need. And this gets back to you're talking about being a passenger in a car that's not being driven by you, you know, we have a narrative that we think is going to make us happy. But the reality is that, and the way we evolved as a species is that we are one of the species where our offspring don't swim away or run off into the forest or of the jungle, our offspring have to be cared for. And the reason that's important is because that is the basis for how our species interacts with the world. And what I mean by that is that if we did not care for offspring, which requires an immense amount of time and resources, obviously they would die. But why would we do that? And the reason we do that is that we are rewarded when we do that. And we are rewarded by the by neurotransmitters being released in our brain, which stimulate our reward and pleasure centers. And of course, one that many people are aware of is oxytocin, the bonding love, connection hormone. And you see, so when our reward and pleasure centers,

Greg Voisen
what about what about serotonin? Well, you were just speaking about this young Asian person that ran in front of the train. And you know, it's interesting, you're bringing up a point for me, I just want to make a point to my listeners here for a second, sorry for interrupting. That's one of my best friend's daughter hung herself in the garage. When they came home, they opened it up and she was only 14 years old. And they had no record anything about what she was going to do. They didn't really push her. But they took a test of her serotonin levels. And they were so low. That I just want a you know, this is bringing this up, because this happened two years ago. But at the same time, though, serotonin levels were so low that the some of the doctors I don't know if it was the people that did the autopsy on her, but the reality was, it was exceptionally low.

Dr. James R. Doty
Well, this is why oftentimes, people who are depressed are given SSRIs, right, because this actually elevates the serotonin levels. And serotonin, of course, is associated with many mood disorders. And you basically have four of these neurotransmitters, which are prominent in the context of our sense of happiness connection. And those are oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins. But getting back to what I was saying is that as a result of not knowing what we need, many people go off and become very, very unhappy because they find the ultimate truth, which was what we said earlier, was seeking outward affirmation doesn't work. And it's an interesting paradox, because on the one hand, you have to look inward, to essentially, allow yourself to be happy, and understand that happiness is your choice. It doesn't come from outside yourself, it doesn't come from an event. It comes from how you see yourself in the world. And what I mean by that is that this is where the paradox is right? On the one hand, you're looking inward. But it matters because when you look outward, and you realize that people are suffering, and as a human being based on our evolution, which I was saying earlier, when you care for others, when you go out of your way to benefit others when you look at the world through the lens of how can I be of service that changes your physiology, and it switches you from what we had mentioned earlier, which I had an answered which was from this perception of the world as being fear based, where you shut down and you don't connect to a recognition that the world is a wonderful place and through your own choice. Ancient mental attitude, you can change the narrative where you benefit from engagement of our parasympathetic nervous system or this rest and digest system. And you look through the lens of gratitude, you look through their lens of generosity, you look through the lens of how can I be of service. When you do that your physiology changes, you go from this fear based mode, and where you look through the lens of scarcity, scarcity to one of generosity, thoughtfulness, kindness, which affects your peripheral physiology in terms of positive effect on your cardiac function, your blood pressure, boosting your immune system, decreasing stress hormone levels, decrease in the production of inflammatory proteins. And this is the gift of looking into the lens of being of service to others, because that's how we should be. Now getting back to your other question about these cognitive brain networks. There, basically, four. One is the salience network. And a component of that is what we call the attention network. One is the central executive control network. And the other is the default mode network. Now, there's a lot of anatomy and physiology, but in summary, as a species, and we are essentially a species, in some ways, because we have these organ systems that take in an immense amount of data, and up to 10 million bits of information a second. And what happens is most of that information is not at a conscious level. But it's part of how we regulate our body systems or homeostasis. But the reality is that we can actually embed our intention, because we process on a conscious level about 50 to 100 bits of information a second, which is a small, small amount of the total information that comes in. But through practices that I outlined in the book, we can actually embed them into our salience network, which then results in our subconscious attending to what that intention is, which then affects the other networks, which then it and I use the analogy of a bloodhound, if you will, which then puts the bloodhound on the search for us manifesting our attention. And as an example, I'm sure you've been to a party where it's very noisy, but you'll hear your name mentioned. And you immediately turn even though there's all this noise, you are attuned to your name, because it's so deeply embedded with you. So when you're able to embed your attention, as an example, and this happened to me a few weeks ago, there was a project I was working on, I was thinking about how I wanted it to manifest. And I was at a coffee shop and two tables over you know, there's again, a lot of noise going around, I actually hear these two individuals talking about exactly what I'm trying to do, which then led me to end up being in a conversation with them. And now we're working together on this project. And so my point is that there's so much information going around, but we as a species, ignore almost all of it until it becomes salient to us. And this is the power of this program that I outlined to as a neurosurgeon as an example, I'll tell somebody, they have a condition, and they'll go, Oh, my God, I've never heard of that before. And then I'll see them six weeks or two months later go, it's the most amazing thing I've run into six people have the same day. This is the nature because again, fear, in some ways can embed into your subconscious as well, both for negative and for good aspects. But it just shows you that you have to stop and attend and it gets embedded. And it's a powerful tool. It is

Greg Voisen
and I think for my listeners, I'm gonna say this again, this book is a game changer. If you pick it up and read it do the practices. The key is you got to do the work and anything you got to do the work. And as you were talking about that, as recognizing, say, it's like when you buy a car and then you see 80 of those same cars, right, because it's now recognize that, Oh, there's one of those Tesla's or whatever. But the thing I was going to say is that, as caregivers and as physicians, how we actually speak to the patients about a condition really actually seeds, whether or not somebody could succeed from overcoming that condition. I had Dr. Steve Berman on here was a emergency room physician for 24 years at Scripps became a hypnotherapist with subconscious and was talking about, you know, he's now working with Andrew Weil and they're coming up with another program. But the key to that is was this he really brought up with? How does your doctor talk to you about what it is that you have? Do you have a 90% chance of overcoming it? Or do I just talk about the bad part? Which is the 10? Or do I say, oh, but really, you know, 98% of the people overcome that particular kind of cancer. Right. So now you're gonna look more hopeful, instead of more depressed. And I think that's an important point, I only run a brought it up, because I think it is how you see this brain is how we actually manifest what comes out on the other side. You can comment or not, what do you think? No,

Dr. James R. Doty
no, I think you're absolutely correct. I've experienced this many, many times. And let me just also mentioned a few other aspects, if you look at how hypnosis works, and in many ways, it activates many of these systems, to embed things. And also the placebo effect, which, even though you're told that you're receiving a placebo, for a number of people, it still has the exact same effect as the drug itself. And it shows you how bleef can have a profound profound effect on a variety of things. And now, I do want to caution that if you have cancer, or you have some, you know, really profound medical illness. My suggestion is follow good medical advice and use the power if you want to call it positive thinking or embedding your intention. Because, you know, unfortunately, there's a subset of people who think, well, I'll just think it through and it'll all work out. And unfortunately, manifestation doesn't work that way. As an example, let's say I said, Well, I want to be the first person on on Mars, well, you're so outside the limits of what's possible, that it's ridiculous, and that is not going to happen. So your desires have to be constrained in some ways that but that's not to say that there are many, many things that seemingly are impossible that you can accomplish. Now, you did mention something, I think that's important. Your mental attitude can have a huge impact on your immune system, and a variety of other aspects of your health, that can have a profound positive effect against illnesses that are impacting your health. So I think having that component is is very, very critical. I will also tell you that there is an immense amount of data that demonstrate as an example, a physician, if one he doesn't use his goddamn computer while he's talking to a patient. Or he's not even looking at the patient. If the if the physician interacts with the patient, if the physician leans in toward the patient, if the physician touches the patient, if the physician appears to actually be caring and not rushed, yeah, everything, every one of those actions has a positive aspect on decreasing the stress and anxiety or stimulating the flight fight or freeze response, which then actually allows people to go into that situation or understand you know, what, for many people can be an anxiety provoking situation with a calmness about them and a belief that they're going to be okay. And this belief and that you're going to be okay, what does it do? It decreases the release release of stress hormone. Yeah, I increases the stress on your heart, it decreases your blood pressure. Study after study shows that when you do this type of interaction with the patient before a hospital admission or surgery, they stay in the hospital a shorter period of time, they use less anesthesia, they use less pain medication, their readmission rate is lower every one of these things by affirming the positive aspect, and creating a narrative of positivity, or you could even say option, optimal disposition. Then that really, in some ways liberates you and allows you to be your best self.

Greg Voisen
Well, I'm glad we spoke about this regardless of the nature of the book because it's it's it's important and my listeners, like hearing these kinds of things and actually setting up situations with your physician to actually make this happen. And I would say focus more on the positive and well I found the negative focus on the good things that are going on in your life and less than the negative things that are going on. And that brings me to this because in, I just did an interview with another physician and the book is called open. And it's really about the experiences we have and the distractions we have in life. And one of the things was, we know that micro dosing, little small bits of LSD and all these various drugs today are happening more and more and more, and I say, microdose Smalling. And here's my question is going, when you were a kid, you had some out of body experiences. You actually read Carla's case, jnana, and you Edgar Cayce, and a bunch of other people. And the reason I know this is because I'm very close to this kind of work myself. And you mentioned that the experiences that you're having is known as like you say, I don't know, you use pipe agnostic hallucination.

Dr. James R. Doty
hypnogogic. Okay.

Greg Voisen
Sorry, you say that today, you understand this experience is the key to your entire practice of manifesting, because you're working with the mullet, amygdala, region or the brain. I want to know, for people who are going to just do somatic breathing, who can actually obtain the same states of altered consciousness, if you would be somebody who would advise micro dosing or not, or going the somatic breathing route, or going any breathing route to actually alter the states of consciousness? And actually, our brainwaves? Are neuroscience? What's going on? This is a fair question, isn't it? No, of

Dr. James R. Doty
course. But I think in many ways, it all relates as an example. There are many roads to get to Rome, if you will. And what I mean by that is that, as an example, for myself, I can pretty much get to be anywhere I need to be through a mental or meditation type of practice, doesn't necessarily have to be a quote unquote, mindfulness practice. But a deep meditation practice can take you anywhere you need to go, anywhere you choose to go. That being said, there is other Are there are other techniques such as somatic breathing, or Holotropic, breathwork, that can also create that type of a situation. And the use of psychedelics can for many people, be extraordinarily beneficial. The thing is, you have to get out of your ego. And you have to, if you want to call it get into a flow state, or one of the states where you have focused attention, and are not distracted by many of the things that distract all of us, then you can get there. But if you have this constant chatter and and stuff going on in your head, it will, I think, limit that. And some people use the term dissolution of the ego. But whatever terminology, you want to use, many of these techniques, and many of these agents can be profoundly profoundly beneficial to people who are suffering, because one of the causes of suffering for so many is childhood trauma. And of course, I'm sure you know, Gabor Ma Tei. And a variety of other individuals who talk about how these types of traumas in the past are baggage that we carry with us that dictate so many of our actions. But if you don't have an awareness of this, you can't change because you don't know what it is. That's the driver. And many people as we were talking about earlier, being driven in a car, but they don't know who the driver is. And when in fact, they're the driver, they just don't know it. So one of the aspects that's important, and that many of these different types of techniques can do is one allow you to deal with your shadow. That part of you that you hate about yourself that fails and makes you feel as though you're not worthy. And the problem is, so so many people try to push it away, and act like it's not part of them. But the reality is you have to accept it, that in fact, it is an inherent part of you. And the more you push it away, the more likely it is it's going to present itself in a very destructive fashion. Versus if you accept yourself and understand that even with all of that. You deserve love. You deserve kindness, you deserve to be accepted. That is a huge, huge thank you This

Greg Voisen
theme is definitely a theme that carries in a lot of my podcast. You know, Dr. Brian Allman right now who I am helping him develop an app for Ace adverse childhood experiences. And he's using the ACE tool because he and one other doctor, were the ones that actually developed it at Kaiser. So that the interesting thing is, is those adverse childhood experiences that people are unaware of what Kaiser finally found out, especially for overweight people, so I'll bring that up was that this was helping them with the actual costs of caring for people. So they really started pushing the ACE protocol, and they've done 149,000 or 159,000 test on this ACE program. So a lot of my listeners already know that I've had Brian on several times. But I do want you to see that what Dr. Dodi is talking about the correlation is really something that is inside inside your subconscious mind, your until you actually activate it, see it and choose to do something about it, you're really going to be living with it, and you're not even going to realize what's happening. So let me give you this because I'd like to give you an opportunity to comment on this. We'll sum up the interview. The books filled with great stories demands a great stories, folks, and practices that inform us about the neuroscience of manifesting questions at the end of the chapters, ways to get in and practice. And obviously, there are things that you can do, like he was just saying, you can do deep meditation, you can do somatic breathing, you can be mindful, you can do all of these things, to try and access this and and change. But if you were to leave the listeners with three main points or ideas that they could start using immediately, what would you advise them to start doing to manifesting? A, I'm gonna just call it a better life?

Dr. James R. Doty
Sure. Well, I think one of the most important things is not to be fixated on the narrative, you're in your head that your life was horrible. And I know that may sound trivial, but that's very, very important. As an example, as a neurosurgeon, obviously, I see people have had horrible events happen to them. But imagine you have a somebody who's fallen off the roof and is paraplegic. And they're crying and telling you how horrible their future life is going to be. And then you take them into the intensive care unit and see somebody with a broken neck, who who cannot move their arms and legs. And who is on a ventilator. The contrast there is dramatic, where you can sit there and say, Oh, my God, I'm lucky. And so in many ways, part of this has to change how you see the world, from one of every event is negative towards you, to actually the reality that in almost every situation, there are things that you can be thankful for. And I know that may seem strange for many people, but it's actually true. So I think one is changing how you see the world and look through the lens of how other people are suffering. And sometimes you don't even recognize everybody's carrying a burden to I think that we need to have emotion regulation. And what I mean by that is, many of us are very reactive, many of us are judgmental, and unfortunately returned by our amygdala. You know, we have a tendency to grab onto things that we feel are a threat. And then that leads to a whole narrative of how we respond. And in some ways, we have a fast and a slow response system. The Fast Response System is to keep us alive, which was developed over millennia, because there is a lot of threat in our environment, you know, big animals or other things that we can control. So we had to be able to bypass any thought to do an action that would save our lives, runaway climate tree, etc. We have a whole system that reacts very quickly. But the problem is that type of reactivity in the modern world can be very, very negative. So there's something that Viktor Frankl is attributed, although he actually never said it. But that's this quote of his or this quote that's attributed to him. That says between stimulus and response, there's a pause. And I'm paraphrasing but within that pause lies our freedom. And I think this idea of controlling your emotions, but For you react is very, very important. No, yeah. And I think, really, this idea of actually positive affirmations or being kind to yourself, I was just did a podcast with Shauna Shapiro who wrote a book called Good morning, I love you, which is this idea about being kind to yourself. And then I think the other very important aspect is actually doing activities, or practices that give you access to your subconscious to actually implement some of the things that we're talking about. That will then put you in a position where you have the tools to change your life in a positive way. But I have to caution that one, actions that are self only self centered, the likelihood of those manifesting are much less than those unless they're focused on others. But the reality is, when you focus on others, many times, you get all the other things you wanted to that manifestation, as you pointed out earlier, is it simple as God, as some people say, God only helps those who help themselves eat there is work involved. Three, manifestation works on its own timeline, it doesn't work on your timeline. You know, you might think, oh, I need this by this date. But sometimes the, it's just not possible, and you have to not be attached to the outcome. Right? You do the work, and hopefully, it manifests.

Greg Voisen
That's a good Buddhist philosophy. And I've always said that we haven't always said it. Once I got involved in this work, I said it I, I went back and got a master's degree in spiritual psychology, and it changed my life. But I would say that for people that are out listening right now, and I've made it this far through the podcast, please, please go get a copy of this book. This is one of those books. It's called Magic mind the neuron magic minds. It's my magic. I apologize again, I screwed up my magic, the neuroscience of manifestation and how to change everything. Dr. James DoDI, we're going to put a link up to it basically, is website now is there a website for the book? I didn't notice there was?

Dr. James R. Doty
No, there's not. There will be soon. But if you go to the website for my first book, which is into the magic shop.com, actually, the new book is there. And also you can order from that. But there should be a website up in a couple of weeks. And to be honest with you, I haven't picked out what the name is because my magic is already taken, maybe I'll have to change it to the opposite. Like you said, magic

Greg Voisen
twice. So maybe that's what it is mind magic, or magic mind. But it is mind magic folks, and do look for that. We're going to put a link to Amazon because you can preorder the book, the book comes out May 8, and may 7, may 7. Yeah, close enough. People rushed to it to get it on the seventh grade, if not go and get it on the eighth. But the point is, is for all my listeners, truly, it's been an honor and a pleasure having you on the show your wealth of knowledge and wisdom. You I just did a podcast here with Chip Connolly. And I think it what I say about you is you're the what does he call himself the wisdom guy, right. That's, that's the place to be. But thank you for being on the show for taking this time for letting my listeners know about your story a little bit, but also more as much about the neuroscience of this, and how they can actually alter it themselves. Without doing anything drastically in their life. They just need to wake up, pay attention to what they're telling themselves and actually follow a new path of intentions. And don't be in a rush actually slowed down a bit and let life manifest as it will because it's a beautiful journey. Namaste to you. Thank you for your time of being on the show.

Dr. James R. Doty
Well, it's Greg, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. And for the audience, please never underestimate the power that you have within yourself to not only change yourself, but to change the world and others around you. So thank you.

Greg Voisen
Well said.