Dr. Joseph Shrand Interview

Greg Voisen
Welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen and host of Inside Personal Growth. And I have Dr. Joe joining me from Philadelphia. Right Dr. Joe?

Dr. Joseph Shrand
Not quite close to Philadelphia, it's more like Marshfield close to Boston. But it's close enough to Philadelphia.

Greg Voisen
Why did I say why did I say Philadelphia for some reason I'm going to Philadelphia, my brain

Dr. Joseph Shrand
hurts. Okay, I'm a psychiatrist, we can explore that later.

Greg Voisen
We should. I'm going to let my listeners know a little bit about you from your website. And for all those listening, go to Dr. S H r a n d.com. And I'm going to say SRAM, does that work? That works great. Okay, and what do you how do you say it? Shred, okay, because I want to make sure so it's Dr. Joe Sharan. He is the chief medical officer of Riverside Community Care headquartered in Massachusetts. He's been a lecturer of psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School and an adjunct faculty at Boston Children's Hospital. He is a triple board certified in adult psychiatric and Child Adolescent Psychiatry, and diploma and from the American Board of Addiction Medicine. He's developed a strength based model called the I M approach, and we're gonna be speaking about his book right here, I'm gonna show my listeners, I'm gonna hold it up here, Joe, because it is a work of art. It is wonderful. Look at that. So we want you guys to all go out and get this we're gonna have a link to amazon so that you can get it. And this is an approach that suggests a fundamental paradigm shift moving away from pathology to viewing a patient as a current maximum potential. He is the founder of drugs story theater, Inc., a nonprofit organization that takes teenagers in their early stages of recovery from drugs and alcohol, and teaches them improvisational theatre techniques. The teenagers then create their own shows, which they perform in the middle of high schools so that the treatment of one becomes the prevention of many. I love that he is on a radio show. And this is weekly, w a TD 95.9. FM. It's called the Dr. Joe Show. And he's the author of many books, which we're going to be speaking about the book that I just held up. But he also has, is it five other books? I think it's five other books,

Dr. Joseph Shrand
five total books. Yeah, five total books, unleashing the power of respect is the latest one.

Greg Voisen
Yep. And this one is really, really, you don't have to have read the predecessor books to actually understand what's going on this book. It's got lots of stories from the patients that Dr. Joe treats, which is a good way to kind of tell it by story, you can tell it Dr. Joe is a good storyteller. So what I would like to do is start this off, because the forward is by Dr. Ken Duckworth and the he says in there that unleashing the power of respect is a book for this time, the benefits and indeed magic of treating people with respect has never been more in need. And I couldn't agree with him more. As a society as a society we are struggling with many long standing problems and the power of respect is grossly underutilized. How has disrespect in your estimation underestimated the fabric of our society? And what can we do about it? Dr. Joe?

Dr. Joseph Shrand
First, let me thank you again for having me on the show. And just imagine Ken Duckworth is the medical director of Nam a the nationalized mentally ill, he's going to be coming out with a book relatively soon, you may want him on your show. It's called You Are Not Alone. And I think one of the things that I'm so honored that Dr. Duckworth agreed to write the foreword, because he is able to, to really focus in on what's going on here. We have had disrespect undermine a lot of stuff that's going on in our culture in our world. Part of it has to do really with not just COVID but with the idea that if you don't agree with someone, then somehow you're being disrespectful, which doesn't necessarily need to follow. You can have a discussion with Someone can still absolutely respect them, even if you don't agree with them. But we have this world now that is so divided and put into these groups. So that if you don't agree with me somehow, you are less valuable. This is really the key to b I am approach and unleashing the power of respect. When was the last time you got angry at someone treating you with respect? When you think about it, you really don't Anger is an emotion designed to change things we get angry, when we want someone to do something different, start doing something or stop doing something. But being respected, feels great. So you don't activate that very primitive part of your brain.

Greg Voisen
But don't you think to Dr. Joe, and just I want to add this because this is something for my listeners, we live in a society which you're in my time, we didn't have all this digital connection. Now we've got so much social media, we're actually blurting out a text or posting a blog, or doing something that's going to create anger is very easy to do. I mean, you look at Twitter, and now Musk is saying he's gonna buy Twitter because he wants it to be an open platform again. And he doesn't want it to be censored. But if you look at all the anger that's kind of being infused by this instant always on let's say something kind of thing. I'm just curious as to I don't I know you believe that this has got to be aggravating it. But how can we work in those platforms and still work with respect?

Dr. Joseph Shrand
Interesting, isn't it? We call it digital communication when there's so much miscommunication, right? We call it social media, where there's so much anti-social media now. So why is that happening? The first thing is it shows us how powerful words are and how important words are to us. The second thing is, it shows us how important it is to actually have face to face contact with someone not that you're going to put your face up against someone's face, but that you're watching and looking at someone's face. We are so attuned to the emotions that somebody portrays in their face, it's actually something called theory of mind. We actually have evolved this is not theory of evolution with theory of quantum mechanics. We can't see someone's mind. So we have to guess and theorize, what are they thinking or feeling? We look at their face. To do that. You can look at emoticons and you can immediately discern if the emotion is anger, sadness, happiness. When we are doing just words, it leaves it up to the reader to interpret the inflection of those words. Great that can it can I ask you in our audience just to do a quick exercise just to demonstrate this? Sure. Say these words exactly. I am having lasagna for dinner.

Greg Voisen
I am having lasagna for dinner.

Dr. Joseph Shrand
I say the exact same words. The exact same words, but as a question.

Greg Voisen
Am I having lasagna for dinner? And now as a demand? I am having lasagna for dinner. Exactly. And

Dr. Joseph Shrand
now, this is a tough one. Greg has a seduction. I'm having lasagna for dinner. Beautiful, right? So look what's just happened here. The exact same words, but with different cadence, different prosody different rhythm, a different expression. When you hear them, somebody can understand that. But if I were to write those words out, you get to attribute whatever emphasis you want. And that is part of the miscommunication. That is part of the difficulty with it. It's the same thing with road rage, right? With road rage. You can't necessarily see that driver, you just know that they've cut you off. And so you get furious. Can you imagine doing that in line at a supermarket? Would you really get that furious with some of that same degree of rage? If somebody just goes in front of you, you're gonna get angry, but you're probably not going to try to pull out a gun and kill them. Because you don't have that human connection where you do when you're in line with someone. So this is absolutely part of it.

Greg Voisen
Yeah. Well, you know look as a MD. You've worked in psychiatric wards with locked down and we're gonna get to the question about the guy with the chair was the nurse and the way that you're able to manage people's out of control emotions, right? But I do want to get to is early childhood events for you that I think helped to form who Dr. Joe is today. You know, you talked about your parents’ divorce when you were 14, and you stated that they didn't have a happy marriage. Your dad was a pediatrician. And your mom was an actress to air interesting combination. And at 14, you audition for a PBS show called Zoom kit. And you were selected, right? It

Dr. Joseph Shrand
was just called Zoom. It was called Zoom, oh, zoom, and I became an I became a zoom kid.

Greg Voisen
Right? Okay. And you became a zoom kid. And your mother gave you some sound advice about respect when your kid didn't come from your dad? Because you said your dad was angry? What indelible bit of advice did you receive from your mom, that is still with you today that you'd want to impart to our listeners about respect.

Dr. Joseph Shrand
My mom, who was quite a famous actress in her own right, Frances strand of the spider's web, she had her own radio show where she would read children's books on WGBH. And she said to me, Look, Joe, you're now a celebrity. People will recognize you in the street, and some may come up and ask for an autograph, right. Just think of what bravery and courage that may take for somebody to come up to a really a stranger, someone they've just seen on television, and ask for an autograph. And always treat them with respect. Always treat them with respect. Now. Zoom, laid a foundation for respect, Zoom was all about people coming together. It was the first fully racially integrated show, we had people, kids from all over socio economic status. There were no adults in the show. It was just a group of kids coming together. And Greg, this is now 50 years later, we just celebrated our 50th anniversary. So folks, if you want to go and check it out, WGBH actually just released some of the content. They never done this before. You can go to WGBH dot o RG and then backslash. Zoom Z Oh am five zero. And you can scroll down you can actually see the original show. Oh, but it was about respect. Now I didn't see that respect between my parents. They were disrespectful, devaluing, which led them to be mistrustful. I'll say this in jest. But my mother always used to say she was a divorcee, but always wanted to be a widow. Which is really pretty great. And I, I learned early on, that I was living in a family where there was so much potential, so much talent. My father was an incredible pediatrician, he was chief of pediatrics at a very large hospital in Boston. But the two of them for whatever reason, they could not get along. And I vowed as a kid that I would never repeat that in my own marriage. And I am delighted and very honored to say I have an incredible partner, my wife, Carol, we have four amazing kids. But it was all based on respect and value. Because respect is what leads to value. And if you think about it, great. This is what everybody wants. Think about every person you've ever met in your life listeners think about every person you've ever met. The common thread that binds us, we just want to feel valued by somebody else. Think about that. We want to feel valued. We have spent millennia.

Greg Voisen
Civilization, but that anger that your dad had, obviously toward your mother.

Dr. Joseph Shrand
Vice versa. Yeah. And

Greg Voisen
your mom toward your dad. Yeah. Um, you know, psychologically, as a psychiatrist, I'm sure you know, some of the reasons you lived in the family. And it frequently is and you can address this because all of what you've done. It's the words and the way you communicate the words to one another, that actually create it's almost like your, I don't want to say your etching away and it just gets deeper and deeper and deeper in the wound gets worse and worse and worse and it gets more and more painful. And for your mom and for your dad. It was extremely painful because of the words that were spoken in the family right there. Similar to your I Am approach that we're going to talk about here in a minute. But that is what erodes a marriage.

Dr. Joseph Shrand
Yeah, I agree. And again, if you think, and remember that Anger is an emotion designed to change things, what did my parents want to see different. And I think it came down to somehow they just, they just didn't treat each other with respect for whatever reason, there may have been many things going on in their relationship that I as a young child was not privy to, right. But the bottom line is the same. And that's why when you can step back and look again, at why someone is doing what they're doing without judging it, then you have a chance to shift your brain. Because the anger part is from this ancient part of our brain, the limbic system, it's irrational, it's emotional, it's impulsive, it's where memories live.

Greg Voisen
Why does the ego as a psychiatrist always want the person to be right? Because you know, what happens is, you know, I've been in relationship for 43 years, and I understand, you go through ups, she goes through downs. But frequently, when this agitation occurs, it's about one person wanting to be right, because the ego is very challenged. And or you're being reminded that you did something wrong. You didn't do it the right way. Right. So we all are in relationships, where this occurs in every relationship, this happens, okay. Sure. Approach, how would How would you know this, I have an approach to tell us the acronym and meeting for the four domains that are part of the model. I'd love for you to do this is a perfect timing. And it's a perfect question for that. Because you give a way to get out of the limbic kind of modality that we're in, I call it the mammalian brain, it just defaults to doing that.

Dr. Joseph Shrand
It's the it's the reptilian brain or reptilian brain is the limbic system, and the mammalian brain is what we have evolved. Yes, yeah.

Greg Voisen
So where we are is, you know, we have a hard time breaking that cycle.

Dr. Joseph Shrand
Yeah, we do, don't we? And isn't that fascinating? And why is that it is because we are so worried that we will be viewed was as less valuable. That's what the item is all about. Yeah. The item is saying, we're all doing the best we can. You're at a current maximum potential. This is who I am. This is me, I matter. That's the paradigm shift. How often do we hear you're not doing good enough? You should be doing better. What's wrong with you? You're broken. In psychiatry, that's what happens. That's what happens in medicine. We've spent a long time trying to fix people.

Greg Voisen
But with your model, how do you break that cycle? In other words, what's happening is one person is saying to the other person, I'm right, you're wrong. Right. that agitates the other person to say, I'm right, you're wrong. Shut up. Right. And they get angry.

Dr. Joseph Shrand
They can? Yes. And this was this has been absolutely a reflexive way. Yeah, this has been part of what I was saying earlier is we have spent millennia increasing our value, we're everybody wants to feel valuable. We've spent millennia increasing our value by decreasing somebody else's. And then they're astonished that they do the same, they then try to re increase recapture their value by decreasing yours. And then all of a sudden, we have war. We have the group division we have in our country, we have this global conflict that is going on right now. Because one group is trying to reestablish their value by taking away somebody else's. But we don't have to do that anymore. That's what the I MSA, the IME is saying even that's an im so the best that person can do right now. To increase their value is try to make me feel less valuable. What's going on in there I am. What is the I am we are influenced by four domains?

Greg Voisen
What's going on? Putin is I am I mean, that's about it. That's right. Yeah, Joe, it's, it's my wife has always said it's the test of money and power. And always the one with the most power doesn't always win and always the one with the most money doesn't always win. And we could check a lot of boxes from Mr. Putin. And a lot of people say, Well, he just didn't get enough hugs. You know, well, they said the same thing about Trump. And I, you know, I'm not afraid to talk about political figures on the show. It's my viewers can do whatever they want to do. My point is, is that, you know, when you look at psychologically, how, I don't know how you put your the psychiatrist, delusional they are. Maybe delusional would be the term. Tell me because there's a perfect example of I am not working. Well, but you see, it is working, because he is I am yeah, that's right.

Dr. Joseph Shrand
That's it. Exactly, Greg. And that's, that's the refrain, right? For whatever reason, the best this person can do, is what he's doing. And it is alienating a lot of people. But there's also a lot of people who say, Hey, I'd like to be part of that group. This is the dilemma that we have as human beings. But if we all want the same thing, which is to feel valued, and I don't think there's any disagreement that at every, at any moment in time, you can remind someone of their value. And whenever you remind someone of their value, increases your value, I hear your dog, right now, dogs are a great example of this. Right? Because what does a dog do for a human, if not make them feel valuable? It's unconditional. It's actually based on a neuro hormone called oxytocin, which we'll talk about not Oxycontin, oxytocin, the neurohormone of trust, this is what we can do with the I Am, we are influenced by four domains, your home domain, no one's gonna argue the home you grew up in, it's an influence on your work. We were talking about that in my own personal world, how my home domain influenced me, the social domain, which is everything else, that was what zoom was for me, Zoom school, meeting, Carol, my social domain, everything other than the home, these two domains are outside. And you can appreciate stuff that happens at home influences, the decisions you make in your social world. But then there are two internal domains, the biological domain of your brain and body. Are you hungry? Are you tired? Are you digesting your lunch? And then what I call the ice domain? How do I see myself? How do I think other people see me? As I said, human beings are very interested in what other people think or feel we call that empathy? What do we really want to know? We want to know what someone is thinking about us. And these four domains interact all the time. But if you don't like it, you can change it the eye and doesn't mean you're going to win. It doesn't mean you condone it, it's not a free ride, you're going to be held responsible. It doesn't even mean you're going to be successful. And for some people, I was actually was listening to one of your podcasts one of the guys who's talking about oh, repeating so that was what was it? You keep saying the same thing. That was I think you've just released it the last week or so. One of your podcasts?

Greg Voisen
Was it Steven Kotler?

Dr. Joseph Shrand
Yeah. And he was talking about the his book about you already said that? Something like that. Sorry. But oh,

Greg Voisen
yeah, quit repeating yourself. Right. Just released. Like last night.

Dr. Joseph Shrand
Yeah. Right. And it talks about success. And for me, one definition of success is when you love going to work and love going home. But for some people success is having food in the refrigerator. For some people success is having a home to have a refrigerator. For some people success is just being able to wake up and get through the day. Yeah. But instead of judging each other, as less than and broken, should be doing better. Let's look again at why we do what we do, based on the influence of the four domains. And I want you to just think about these words, look again and reverse them. Again, look, again, to repeat something look like a spectator. The item is saying, let’s respect why people do what they do without judging them. But wondering, what has happened in their four domains that this is their I am. Respect is what leads to value, which is what everybody wants, and value means to trust. And with that trust, trust is the antidote to anger, fear, sadness, because when you trust someone, you can make mistakes. And you know, you're not going to be judged. So that's valuable. We live in a world full of mistrust. Due to devaluation due to disrespect.

Greg Voisen
I can change that. Yeah, I Well, we have to change it. Yeah. Oh, yam has to change it exactly, because it can't change anywhere else. And you know, I happen to be listening to an address that Barack Obama made yesterday at Stanford, regarding the division, what's going on? And he says, you know, he used the word sludge. So the media was like, wow, it's just enough sludge. And he said, Look, if Putin wants to put into the airwaves, just enough sludge to confuse, because people are listening, or we put enough sludge, you can. And I thought sludge was a great example sewage, no, actually, it's called sewage, called it sewage, not sludge, that it confuses people enough that they don't really know what direction to take, you know what I mean? So it's like,

Dr. Joseph Shrand
that will make them anxious, that will increase their anxiety. They don't know what direction to take?

Greg Voisen
Correct. Correct. And he says, that’s exactly what's occurring. You know, literally kind of worldwide. If you look at the leaders, he, he used Venezuela, he used the US, he used many countries to give an example of that, but he called it sewage. So there's enough sewage out there floating around that people are getting confused. And so they're going to use this sewage to slash out at somebody else about something because they're finally going to take a side or whatever. I thought it was really interesting.

Dr. Joseph Shrand
And that's right. And think about it in terms of our limbic brain, the fight flight freeze response. Yeah. So if you don't know what's happening, if you don't know what to believe that's going to increase your anxiety. Yes. Right, which is the flight response. But one way that human beings have been able to tolerate that anxiety is by forming a group. Because now, you are not alone. Remember, this is why value is so important. Millions of years ago, we weren't the biggest animal the fastest or the strongest, we were isolated mammals scurrying around, hoping not to be lunch, we were prey. And then we found these social groups, and our survival potential increased. So dramatically, human beings are everywhere. But to access to protection of that group, you must contribute to that group, you must have value, you must have value. So, you know, President Obama is correct. There's a lot of stuff out there in the airways, there's a lot of ability to influence other people that, yes, and bring them into your group by saying, your group is being attacked. Now, there's a fascinating

Greg Voisen
what we couldn't have a better example than the insurrection in on June 6 of people that got in a group and chose to march on Washington. And now we've got everybody trying to investigate it. Right. But my point is,

Dr. Joseph Shrand
but step back for a moment and look at them. That's their I am, yes, going what was going on with them, that the best they could do was form this mob, to try to change something. If we can't have that dialogue. And wonder, instead of worry, and be reflective, instead of reflexive, we must have this dialogue to understand what it was these people wanted to see different.

Greg Voisen
Well, they wanted to be valued. That's right. That's right. I mean, they didn't believe they didn't believe they were being valued. And then the other side said, You're not valuing us. So that you created this conflict. You know, in your chapter on building on the science, you talked about your first book, manage your stress. And let me tell you, this is a stress producer, for everyone. I would say the only way to eliminate it to a certain degree would be you turn off all media, you go to a deserted island, and you don't listen to anything or read a book or open up your phone or do anything. Otherwise, you're pretty much affected by sludge or sewage. Speak with us about the biological domain, and how this affects the ability to move into a state of respect, because let's face it, this is affecting all of us for moving into this state of respect.

Dr. Joseph Shrand
Right? So let's look at it from a biological domain. Again, let's step back. Let's look again, this is an AI n. Let's not judge it. Here's what's fascinating about stress. Stress has been part of our survival response for millions of years. We need it to have it

Greg Voisen
right. Fight it was a phrase is used

Dr. Joseph Shrand
exactly the fight flight freeze response, but was stress a chemical from the brain called ACTH. Basically, as Paul Revere and says, Well, there's danger, there's danger, there's danger and it releases into the body. Paul Revere goes down and goes to a tiny little gland on top of your kidneys called the adrenal glands. Sounds like adrenaline. It also releases cortisol. Now, these are the Minutemen. These are the chemicals that come out and activate that fight flight freeze response. Cortisol can result in increased blood pressure, all sorts of different medical things. We can talk about those later. But what cortisol also does is it interferes with another chemical called dopamine. Dopamine is the neurohormone of pleasure, all drugs and alcohol for spraying to make dopamine, when you're under a lot of stress, it's hard to feel that much pleasure. That's part of what's happening in the world right now. The second part of that cortisol does is it interferes with oxytocin, the neurohormone of trust, it's really hard to trust people when you're under that much stress. So a lot of people will then begin to use drugs and alcohol to at least feel some pleasure. But here's what happens with dopamine. Dopamine also interferes with oxytocin. Now, you have a world where we have so much cortisol, the stress response is so hard because it COVID reticle divide, yeah. And it's interfering with the dopamine and the oxytocin, right. But now we know. So we can step back, we don't have to take it personally. This is stress in manage your stress, what I suggest is the best way to reduce your stress is to help somebody reduce theirs, because then you increase your value. And then you actually are going to be increasing oxytocin in both brains. And oxytocin can overcome all these things. It is a remarkable thing. And we can do that for each other at any and every moment.

Greg Voisen
Audience you go you well, empathy and empathy and compassion are a result of oxytocin. Right?

Dr. Joseph Shrand
Yes, empathy. Absolutely. Right. But, but what I'm saying is that when you feel that I am empathic towards you, you then respond to me very differently, and increase my value. You thank people. Thank you for saying that. Thank you for being so empathic. Thank you for being so compassionate. Whoa, what does that really mean? That means that you have done something to increase my value, so I will reciprocate in time. Why not do that in the world, instead of trying to increase our value by taking someone else's and then are astonished that they're going to do the same? No need to do that

Greg Voisen
any? Well, in a utopian world, this is what we would do. You know, I, I wrote a chapter in a book a friend was writing for Bucky Fuller and I always used to live Bucky Fuller is to talk about and one of them was if we put more money in living reverses weaponry. Right, that was it was he used to make up words, right? So it was made up words. Imagine how many people we could feed in the world and what we could do, you know, in his comment was really about look at what we're like the correlation now is give Ukraine more weapons to fight Russia. Okay. We're like right, great. So now we're going to put more weaponry and now we've got nobody living they're all trying to flee go to other places. Because it's they're dying in the process. And I wish you could take your content and going fuse it in. And everybody over there because that's what needs to really happen. You're, you're fascinated, I love this approach. I think it's great. You have five books six with this one.

Dr. Joseph Shrand
Now, this is the fifth one. This is the fifth book iPhone.

Greg Voisen
Okay, I keep getting it wrong. I'd like to get the other it's so

Dr. Joseph Shrand
your I am great. I'm okay with it.

Greg Voisen
Okay. Because it all came up to I am really all those books led to this. So if all my listeners just get this book, you don't have to get the others but I would say based on

Dr. Joseph Shrand
what it's okay if you do though it's okay. If you get

Greg Voisen
you mentioned that the basic idea rather than worry that we have less value. It's recognize that the very worry at Self is the best we can do based on the brains, which is what you said, I agree. The I Am approach helps us to be more respectful when the ancient brains would rather react and say stupid things that we'd regret. Right? Okay,

Dr. Joseph Shrand
so

Greg Voisen
how do I trigger? myself to remember, so that the ancient brain doesn't take over? And do something I would regret? Because unless you catch yourself in the moment, you know, this is I always remember Tony Robbins beating himself on the chest right after a rubber band that he would bang on his wrist right? To do the neuro linguistic programming. How do you? How would you tell my listeners who catch themselves in this moment, and they see themselves going down that rabbit hole to stop going down the rabbit hole and go, I am? Sorry, they are? Right.

Dr. Joseph Shrand
The first thing to do is just recognize it's happening. Okay. Awareness. Yeah. Because your limbic system is going to activate, it will activate in a way to protect you. But you can then step back from them and go, wait a sec, there are no more saber toothed tigers. What just happened here, something changed in my four domains. And I see domain, the way I saw myself, the way I thought that person saw me activated my biological domain. And my cortisol levels went up. And I

Greg Voisen
saw not to interrupt you. But think about this in our world today. We're not out fighting tigers, we're not doing things like that. But what we are doing is taking in information and forming beliefs and the beliefs cause conflict. Because you sent stands so strongly for something that what you hear or what somebody says, you become angry about, that would probably be many of my listeners. Okay. What would you what advice would you be, you know, they're in listening to a lecture, they're watching a newscaster, they're on Twitter, in somebody's infusing their, you know, limbic system, and they're just going, fuck you. You know, it's just, you know, that's the way it gets. That's my point. I see this, because I'm involved. I'm on the air all the time. So what advice this is it don't help phrase don't fight

Dr. Joseph Shrand
is remember that that person is that there I am. We're all doing the best we can. I don't have to like it. But I want to understand it. Right? If I can't step back and look again, and respect, remember, respecting something isn't the same thing as saying it's okay. But I have to understand what has happened in that person's four domains that the best they can do is say something that I so disagree with. But rather than create a cap around it, we're now I'm in one group, and you're in another group, I'm going to recognize, well, this person wants the same thing I want. They're just going about it a different way, will speak and also want to feel

Greg Voisen
about the lady in the gun. Because you know, in that chapter, you talk about these attachments. Now, in Buddhist traditions, there's, you know, I've studied it, you know, it's, Hey, I say you can have a goal, but don't get so attached to it, because it may not happen the way you want it to happen. But you also get attached to a lot of other things too, right? And in in that one, it's the chapter you talk about Bridget and Jan. Right. And I'd like for you to tell the story, because I think it's a great story. Also, if you could comment on the four basic types of attachment, because, hey, that's, that's what happens.

Dr. Joseph Shrand
Really, with a gun is a story about a woman who did not think she could love her child. And by the end of her journey, realized how much she truly did love her child. Part of what had happened to her is that she had been abused. And when you're abused, you very quickly begin to see yourself with less value. Of course, what happened in our work together and these are my patients Teachers is we developed a rapport. We developed a trust. And, and one evening, you know, this was before cell phones, right? This is where we've had beepers. And my pager goes off. It's this patient, she's been coming in to see me every week, certain time, the same time every week. And I call her back. So what's going on? She says, I'm not coming in tomorrow. Talk to me. And I said, what's happening? She's, she said, I have a gun. This changes the dynamic quite a bit. And somebody says to you, I have a gun. And I had to make a decision. This was her I am. I didn't like it. But I was going to trust her. She had been hospitalized so many times. But what I did was I said, Listen, I'm gonna call you back in 20 minutes. If you don't answer the phone, I'm gonna send the police over, put the phone down, call the back in 20 minutes, she, she picked up the phone, she wound up coming back in the next day and everything the whole story spilled out. So she had developed a more secure attachment with me, as opposed to having an ambivalent and insecure attachment. That was the result of being abused. She also developed an attachment style with her daughter, where she was distant, and then was astonished that her daughter was also pulling away from her. So the attachment is about value, it comes down to that value and trust. If you think about the way an infant comes into the world, they don't have any mistrust. They don't really have an attachment to individuals, they don't even recognize that they are an individual. Right for quite some time, right? That's who we are. When we come into the world. We are completely connected to each other without an awareness of who we are. We are just one. Yeah, yes. And then things happen. And we begin to forget that we begin to confuse it. And yet, we can always come back to it. Because that's what the IMF is saying. There are no groups except for one group called humanity. We all want the same thing. We are all connected in this way. The I Am because the four domains interact, there are two truths. The first truth, small changes can have big effects. You don't need to change everything. I'm hoping that your listeners that this small change of listening can have a big effect. Today, you can do a small change, because of the second truth of the I Am, which is everyone's got one. Everyone is interested in what you think about them, which has an effect on their biological domain, because you know, it feels different. When you feel respected or disrespected. And you are part of someone's home or social domain. What this means the second truth, you control no one, but you influence everyone. You get to choose the kind of influence you want to be, you get to choose. So if somebody is getting you angry step back What do I want to see different? Why is the best this person can do? Make me angry. That's my limbic response that's reflexive, but I will now be reflective and talk with them. And I will use something called my mirror neurons. We mirror each other's emotions. That person's angry, my mirror neurons activated I got angry, but you know what? I can now reflect on that. I can calm down. And I can treat that person with respect. It will take a little while. But that person will be unable to sustain anger. Because

Greg Voisen
awareness is it Dr. Joe Waring. Yeah. You know, it's so true what you're saying. But always a little more difficult to actually pull off. It's gonna take some practice, it takes practice and if you can, you can and there's ways that you can do it. I believe people that meditate more, have the ability to keep calmer during those situations and remember who they are versus the ego saying no, that's not it versus the soul of themselves being expressed, which is a loving kind and compassionate soul. And you know, one of the ways you express yourself and I said it in the bio in the beginning, was the drug story theater theater, and how you've helped adolescent brains. There's so many, you know, so many challenges when we're adolescents, right? Speak with us about the three core concepts of the drugs, story, theater, and your work with teenagers. Because no, this is big work for you. This is, this is part of Dr. Joe. And it is what's helping heal society and heal a group or community of people, especially in adolescents that are very influenced. And they've been influenced, because you said, many of them are either in alcohol or drugs. Yeah,

Dr. Joseph Shrand
yeah. So let's, let's just remember that addiction is not about morality, it's about mortality. It's simply the way the brain responds. And so in drugs, we theater not only do these kids create their shows, and perform them, as you said at the beginning, but in between each scene of the show, they step out of character. And they do PowerPoint presentations, teaching the audience about the neuroscience of adolescent brain development. What we're trying to teach is the dopamine, oxytocin interaction, not Oxycontin, oxytocin, so you can get high, but the price you pay is trust, you decide what pleasure is more important to you. The second thing we teach is that one of the main reasons kids start using drugs or alcohol is low self-esteem. But at any moment, you can remind someone of their value. And whenever you do that, you increase your own value. And then one of the third things we teach is just simply because of brain development. If you start using drugs, or alcohol after the age of 21, one out of 25 people are at risk for lifelong addiction. You start using before the age of 18, because the way the brain is developing, because your limbic system is more in control, that number goes from one and 25 to one in for one in four kids who start using before the age of 18, are at risk for lifelong addiction. So we're asking our audience, just to wait. If you are going to use just wait until your brain is a little bit more developed. Our kids are powerful, in the sense that it's peer to peer, they are in their own recovery. The slogan of drugs for the theater, the treatment of one becomes prevention of many, every time that audience gives our kids a round of applause. They are increasing oxytocin in our kid's brain, that is our kids treatment. Those kids in the audience have influenced our kids on stage. This is the same as the I Am. You control no one you influence everyone you get to choose. But the vast majority of our kids have started using because on some level, they felt less valuable.

Greg Voisen
Well, it's such a great program that you're reaching kids who are using or have been using, and the ones in the audience who possibly are using or have been using, and to have it peer to peer. You know, it's so powerful that way. And I love the work you're doing. And if people want to learn more, you can just go to Dr. Joe's website. And we're also going to be putting the link to the book. Here we go. One last question to wrap this up. If you were to leave the listeners with three great takeaways from your book that they could apply today, in their lives, and it and it would have them improve in some way. How would you help them open up to the power of respect?

Dr. Joseph Shrand
Firstly, thing is remember, you're doing the best you can. Instead of judging yourself, look again at why you do what you do based on the influence of the four domains, you are not broken. The second thing the small changes can have big effects. You do not need to change everything. If you think you need to change everything, you're going to get overwhelmed. If you're overwhelmed, you're going to flood your whole body with cortisol and interfere with dopamine and oxytocin. Find a small change to make today in any one of the domains and see the ripple effect that happens. See what changes. And again the third thing you control no one influence everyone. You get to choose the kind of influence you want to be. And I know I know if everyone's heart people are good. They really do want to influence the world in a good way. But they may just be so afraid that they're going to be seen as less valuable. Relax, you read an I Am. Dr. Joe,

Greg Voisen
thank you so much. Namaste to you. Your wisdom, your great books, we'll put links in the blog, actually put links to this book. But I've just decided I think we'll put links to all of Dr. Joe's books. So you can check them out because he said it's okay, then maybe they don't go in succession. But the reality is, all of his books in his books titles are super interesting, and you can learn from them. So Blessings to you, thanks for the work that you're doing with the theater. Thanks for the work that you're doing individually with your patients. And thanks for the people you're trying to reach through this book. To get them to just be aware of where they are in the situation. And make that momentary awareness so that they don't lash out and use that limbic system and then ward off the good chemical releases in their brains that make them feel good about what they're doing. So that's the most important thing. And, again, thanks for being on inside personal growth and spending some time with our listeners. I really appreciate you.

Dr. Joseph Shrand
Thanks for all you're doing Greg and to all your listeners much appreciated.