Dr. Norman Rosenthal

have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf m

Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Dr Norman E. Rosenthal, a world renowned psychiatrist, public speaker, and best selling author who is known for his innovative research and inspirational writings. He is currently clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University's School of Medicine. His new book is super Mind, How to Boost performance and live a richer and happier life through transcendental Meditation. Here's the interview. Hi,

Dr Rosenthal, Welcome to the show. Hi, They're good to be here. I'm excited to have you on. It's kind of fortuitous timing. This was not planned, But when I originally started talking with your publicist, I was not doing TM at the time, and that's what your latest book is about, transcendental meditation. But I've been doing it again now for several months. I had taken it a long time ago when I was eighteen, but I took a refresher course recently, and so I've been doing it for

the last several months. So it's kind of interesting because at the time when we booked you, I wasn't but but now I am. So we'll definitely dig deeper into that and some of the other work you've done in your career. But we'll start like we always do, with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of

us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second, and he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins, And the grandfather quietly replies, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in

the work that you do. I think it's a profound parable, and profound because it's true that whatever we practice is what we will succeed at. And if we practice anger and violence, we will succeed at that. But to my mind, for me personally, that would not be a successful life. That would be a life of destruction. Everything that I've done in my professional and personal life has been geared towards trying to make the world a little bit of a better place, which each of us can only do

to a very small degree. But if all of us do that, then we can have a very powerful collective force. So I think that practicing good things, it doesn't mean I've always made the best choices, done the best things, but I've always tried, and I think thanks to the knowledge and wisdom I've acquired along the way. I'm doing a better job now than I did before, and that's the way I would like to see for my children, my grandchildren, my friends, and the people listening to the podcast. Well,

that's an excellent way to start. One of the things that you are probably most known for is that you were the researcher who discovered seasonal effective disorder. The fact that we get depressed during the winter time. Tell me a little bit about what led you to that discovery and what you think are some of the most effective

treatments for it. As I think of everything that I have contributed, the most important things come first from within, from an insight that is due to me looking deep inside myself and then looking at other people and saying, wait, a sick Could this supply to them too? Could this be a general phenomenon? And that's what happened with seasonal effective disorder. I came from South Africa. I was twenty

six years old. I went to New York City to do my psychiatry residency, and when winter came and the days became short and dark, I had never previously experienced such a slowing down my thinking of my emotions, of my creativity and that returned in the spring. The momentum and the zest came back with spring and summer, and

that happened three years in a row. So perhaps it was not a coincidence that I ended up doing a research fellowship at the National Institute of Mental Health with a group who were looking at cycles, cycles of mood, of light of day and night. And in that context I came across some people who had that winter experience

much more than I did. And that's when, with the help of colleagues, I put the pieces of the puzzle together and I said, look, these people, we people are having this regular, full winter depression that gets better in the spring and summer, and it may be due to the light. Maybe that the lack of light is driving it. And so let's give these people more light. And I gave myself more light as well, and I immediately felt

the effect. It was not difficult to discern. I took a big ceiling fixture, I remember back then all you could get with these sort of four ft long ceiling fixtures with fluorescent bulbs in them, and I put it in my bedroom, and you know, I immediately felt that impact. And so we did research, many research studies to really verify the syndrome, and others replicated it, and light therapy

became a standard treatment over these years. But there are many things that people can do to help themselves with this particular melody. The seasonal effective disorder tell us anything about other types of depression, well, I think it shows how there are different inputs and different circuits that can propagate depression and where if you interfere with them it

can actually help depression. So, for example, a recent form of research that I have gotten into with my colleague Dr Eric Finzy, he's a dermatologist and researcher here in Maryland, we have been looking at botox for depression because paralyzing these frown muscles turns out to be also an antidepressant.

So I think that what it can tell us is that there are many specific inputs that can fuel depression and if you interfere with them in a positive way bad thinking negative thoughts, thinking negative thoughts that had led to cognitive behavior therapy. So I think we just have to recognize that depression is fueled by multiple inputs, any of which might be helpful if we modulated it in treating the depression. Making will feel better. We have to

tackle it in many different ways. One of the things that we talked about on the show An Awful Lot is the idea that we become great not in spite of our difficulties, but often because of them. And so you wrote a book all about this, called The Gift of Adversity, The Unexpected Benefits of Life's Difficulties, Setbacks, and Imperfections. Could you give me a brief synopsis of your thoughts on how do we turn difficulties, setbacks, and imperfections into

positive things in our lives? Well, yes, When I began work on that book, it was initially in my mind conceptualized as lessons that nobody ever taught me m hm, Things that I learned that nobody ever taught me. But I learned them anyway, and there were some of the most important lessons, And when I combed through them, I saw that it was when difficulties occurred, sometimes very terrible difficulties.

And so I took many of these incidents from my own life, but also from the lives of some fascinating people whom I was lucky enough to meet. So, for example, as a young man, sitting in a car with my girlfriend, I got attacked and stabbed nearly nearly to death, and fortunately I made a complete recovery. But that taught me that every day of life is precious. Every day, never waste a single day. And so that was one great

insight that life gave me that nobody else could give me. Also, some some of the things that I described our mistakes that I made, well, that was a mistake. I shouldn't have been sitting there. I should have been, you know, tucked away in some safe place. And I remember a wonderful Latin teacher, a woman came to visit me in the hospital after I'd been stabbed, and I said, you know, I was such an idiot to be sitting there, necking in a dark, shady place. And she said, she said,

she had this Italian accent, wonderful Italian accent. I'll imitate it. I'm sorry, I'm not a good imitator, she said, Norman. She said, sitting and necking in dark places is what that's what life is all about. She made me feel better. She might have a point, Yeah, she made me feel better. So in any event, you know, when things go wrong, they say you cannot become a master sailor. On Calm Seaves. It's only when you're tested and challenged that you can

really learn. And so that's a perspective that I particularly want to give to the young people who don't realize that. I say, never waste a mistake. If it's a mistake, learned something from it, because it will be the best lessons you'll ever learn. Let's turn our attention now to your latest book. Actually, you know you've written a couple

of books on the subject of transcendental meditation. The most recent one is called super Mind, How to Boost performance and live a richer and happier life through Transcendental Meditation.

So let's start off and maybe talk about what transcendental meditation is for people who are not familiar with what it is, and then we'll talk more about what the supermind is from their Transcendental meditation, which is often called t M, is an ancient form of meditation that comes from India, and it involves sitting down twice a day for about twenty minutes, closing your eyes and thinking a mantra, which is a it sound that doesn't actually have a meaning,

and you do need to be taught, so the book won't actually tell you exactly how to do it. But what the book does, People say, is that a how to book? I say, no, it's a why too book. Because our most precious resources time. So before you are willing to devote twenty minutes twice a day of your precious life, which I've just told you every day is precious, before you devote that time, you have to be persuaded that it's worth your while. So basically, that's how you

do it. It sounds very very simple, and actually it is simple and automatic. But even simple and automatic things take a little practice and a little learning and a little teaching. That's why it's taught. So for example, when you ski down a say modest hill, then gravity is going to do the work for you. Gravity will pull you down, but you do need to know how to work your legs in the right way and you're you know, ski poles in the right way so that you can

remain balanced and get down the hills. So even though it's not effortful, it takes a little bit of skill and that can be easily learned. So that's really the actual method. But then what happens to you once you get the hang of it is that when you go into that meditating state, you go into something called transcendence, which happens to be the name of an earlier book

on the subject that I wrote. And that is a state of consciousness where you're very calm and very alert, which is kind of unusual to be calm and alert at the same time, and it's very lovely and pleasant and wonderful and you when you do this repeatedly, it begins to settle down your nervous system in a very healthy and positive way. Let's talk about transcendence for a second, because that's one of those things is that I know a lot of people, myself included, find meditation to be challenging.

Now I know that TM one of the big things is to be effortless about it, is to not put any any effort into it. However, how do you encourage people to continue? Maybe if and initially it's difficult to sit there with your brain racing for twenty minutes, because, at least in my experience and a lot of people have talked to you, I'm not one of the I transcended quickly kind of people. Well, I think that's right. I didn't transcend, or at least I didn't realize I

was transcending that quickly. But let's take your initial parable with the grandfather. The grandson says which wolf wins out, and he says the one you feed, So that's good. But then in the actual teaching of this child, you have to say, well, how do you feed the good wolf? What do you give the good wolf to feed? How often do you feed? What kind of food is best? So the the basic message is very very simple, but then when you actually get to do it, you need

a little guidance from the grandfather. So in a very analogous way, the actual technique of TM is very simple, but you need a little guidance. And that's why the presence of the teacher who is going to be there for you until you get that technique just where you want it and just where it does the good that you wanted to do. And so that's what I would say, you know, there there is in the teaching for successive days. Each day the teacher goes through the technique with you,

asks you for feedback. Then you should come back in a week and say how are you doing. And I think what a lot of people don't realize is that they have the support they have the support. So somebody is going to take you by the hand until you get that technique just where you want it to be. Uh. You know, Oftentimes we think, well, this is a pain in the neck. You've got to go back and have it checked and so on and so well, No, think

of it a different way. Think of it as endless support until you have that technique right, and it's not that difficult. Oftentimes the trouble, the biggest trouble is we're forcing it, we're judging it, We're saying to ourselves, I'm not doing this well enough, try harder, work more. Whereas it's it's work less, you know, it's just let it happen. It's it's that easy. And it's so strange because so many of the things that we strive for in life

are really quite difficult. So to find something where the actual goal is to be easy is paradoxically a little out of line with the rest of our work. Very interesting point. Let's talk a little bit about the difference between transcendental meditation and other types of meditation. The type of meditation that we are all here about all the

time in today's world is mindfulness. You've got a great chapter in the book, and I think, given that you are definitely biased to t M, I think you did a nice job of being relatively even handed in your perspective, which I know you were trying to do, so nice job. Well, thank you. Yes, I think that the important thing is for somebody to just acknowledge a bias right up front, because I think we're all biased based on our own experiences. You know, I've had this amazing ride with TM. It's

been so wonderful. It's changed who I am as a person, so naturally I'm extremely enthusiastic about it. You know, I'm not here to convert anybody or persuade anybody. I'm just here to just share a wonderful experience that I've had personally and professionally. Because many of my patients now meditate with a technique that helps you to feed the good wolf. Basically because as you feel nicer within yourself, other people

respond better to you. Other people feel nicer to have you in their presence, and then they are better people. So you're not only feeding your own good wolf, you're feeding the good wolves all around you because you're putting

out good energy. Now, as you point out, mindfulness is very different when you practice mindfulness, whether it is focusing on an object, focusing on the breath, or thoughts like loving kindness, for example, you're given a very specific directive focus on thus and such experience at moment to moment in the present, and you're taught how to go about

doing that. Now, that is a process that involves the part of the brain, which is the prefrontal cortex, where decisions are made, judgments are made, active instructions are followed. In contrast, when you automatically access something as you do with a mantra in TM, that part of the brain is not really online. And when you start judging your TM or saying this isn't good enough or whatever, then you actually interfere with the process because you're bringing that

prefrontal cortex online. In addition, there are deep seated circuits in the brain called the default mode network. That's a network of pathways that come alive when the brain is not focusing on anything in particular. And as you can imagine, that set of circuits shuts off during mindfulness when you're focusing, and it comes alive during transcendence. So all of this is to say that these are very different practices, They

ask different things of the meditator. They have different effects on the brain, and so we should imagine that they would different effects on a person's life. When I ask people who do mindfulness, and in that chapter there are two people who do both t M and mindfulness, so they basically compare the effects. Mindfulness does just what it

purports to do. It helps people stay in the present, in the here and now, and therefore understand the reality of the changing world, both external and internal, from moment to moment. TM does exactly what it purports to do. It takes you into a different state of consciousness called transcendence when you meditate. And then here's where the leap

comes to supermind. As you practice TM more, that beautiful state of consciousness filters into your daily life and begins to shape every aspect of brain functioning, from memory to creativity, to performance and also to the sheer joy of living. I was very fascinated by the studies on the default

mode network you referenced in your book. A study that I really like and I've participated in, which is Dan Gilbert's study on UM you know what people are doing, and he kind of came out with a title, you know, is a wandering mind and unhappy mind. No, no, he didn't do it that way. He said, the wandering mind is an unhappy one. Yes, the wandering mind is an

unhappy mind. Your perspective on it was interesting because I found for myself by and large that a wandering mind, at least the wandering mind that I have, is not a very happy mind. Um. And so you know, in those cases, what we're doing is turning off, you know, in mindfulness practice other things, turning off the default mode network. And that's that's being a little bit more focused. Now you're almost describing a third type of thing here, which

is not your ordinary wandering mind. It's the kind of mind you come across through TM training. Yes, I think you've nailed it, because you know, when your mind normally wanders, it's usually because some problem has popped into your head. So let's say you're doing work on a computer, you're filling out, you're punching numbers into a spreadsheet for example, or whatever you're doing, and then suddenly you remember, oh, my car, the meter on my car is expired or something,

or I wonder what my girlfriend is up to. She wasn't feeling well this morning, I wonder how she's feelings. Your mind is wandering, but the way the mind works is unresolved issues pop into your mind to be noodled over and processed and fixed. So it's not surprising that wonder ing is often, in the normal course of events, associated with some level of unhappiness. But what happens when your mind wonders, if you want to put it that way during TM, is it's actually a very joyful thing.

And I described in my book a walk that I might have where I'm thinking about this, thinking about that, my mind is wandering here and there and m it's you know, very joyful, and then all of a sudden, I'm riveted by something I mentioned, grass growing through the asphalt, which looks as green as emeralds um and absolute delight to watch and to look at. So yes, then I'm being mindful. But I'm not being mindful because somebody told me to. I'm being mindful because that is where my

attention was drawn. And that's not what they mean by mindfulness at all. But it is a sense of being very alert to the world around us. In all it's it's glory. Basically, Yeah, I'm I'm not sure that I agree that that's not what is meant by mindfulness. On on some hand, I think the goal of the practice is to be able to see the beauty that's kind

of right around us. Um. And I think the thing about that I've read about the default mode network and what Daniel Gilbert did and all that is that, um, it's when our mind is wandering off to very self referential things, you know, where we're just kind of thinking about ourselves and how we fit and what we you know, all that sort of stuff. And that leads into with TM ultimately talking about you know, who you really are.

And I think we haven't had a chance to get much into super mine, and we're quickly running out of time. But super mind, from your perspective, is a mind that uh, you know, functions better in all aspects, has access to different areas of consciousness and and one of the things that you talk about is discovering who you really are. Yes, I think it's true we have perhaps not given supermnd it's due it's the mind waking up the mind in all its full potential. That's why I say super mind.

And I'll just say from personal experience and from watching many people meditate, and also we have a survey of more than six people that everything you would want in terms of feeding that good wolf is grown when you have a super mind. It's not just that you're a better person, but you're a happier person, you're more effective, you're more productive, you're more creative. And I want to also emphasize that it's not a matter of abstract concept,

it's a matter of specific instances. That's why I just load the book with very intriguing stories from very intriguing people. When I say, you know, who are you really? Somebody who really epitomized that question is Hugh Jackman, who said that t M, after many years, has has given him a sense of authenticity who he really is, not just a famous actress, singer, dancer, but who he is as a person. And so it is with a homeless man who my feature that he has had a terrible history

of feeding the bad wolf, drugs, crime, violence, incarceration. Now on the outside, having learned TM, he walks in the street in his uniform. He has a sort of job that was given to him by a charity where he says, I'm greeted every day by people, they're not their head, they smile, they're pleased. I'm cleaning the street. It feels

so wonderful to be part of ordinary society. And then he says, at lunchtime, I go into Central Park, I sit on the slopes, I close my eyes, I think my mantra, I hear the birds, and I'm the happiest person imaginable. So that's what the supermand is all about. Whether you're homeless, or whether you're a famous actor, or whether you're a psychiatrist, or whether you have a wonderful podcast. As you do, you can be the best that you can be. And the way to the super mind from

your perspective is through transcendental meditation. You know, I don't claim that there's only one way to get anywhere. I'm all for saying there are many doors to dharma, there are many ways to getting good things. But this is one very reproducible, dependable, reliable way, and a way that I know and that I want to share with the reader. For getting there. Yeah, Well, like I said earlier on, I'm kind of fascinated right now with transcendental meditation because,

like I said, I started doing it. I did it a long time ago, and then most of my meditation experience has been various forms of mindfulness meditation. So it's been really interesting for me for the last three months to really get deep into transcendental meditation. And I will say thank you to you because your books are very good. Why too, I read your books and I'm like, I better get that second twenty minutes in today. You know

it's it's helped me. It's helped me remember more regularly my motivation for why I want to meditate, why it feels important to me. And and so that's one of the things with with TM that I've started doing is at doing that second session nearly every day. You know, that second twenty minute session. I'm so happy you say that. And here's where Superman comes in once again, because you know you can say, well, I'll miss the twenty minutes

and it's not a big deal. But firstly, it is a big deal because I don't feel the same if I haven't had that. I can tell the difference now in terms of how I feel in the immediate since. But the other thing is I realized that I'm not just meditating for those twenty minutes. I'm meditating so that I can grow all these functions that we've talked about, all these things that constitute feeding the good wolf. My mind is growing with each meditation. I feel it, and

I that's why I wanted to share it. So if transcendence was how TM settles down the overstressed nervous system, the supermand is how it wakes up the mind to its full potential. Excellent. Well, I think that is a great place to wrap up. I'll have links on the website to your books, to your website and all that stuff out at when you feed dot Net. And thank you so much for taking the time. It's been a pleasure to talk with you. And maybe we'll do this

again soon. Well, that would be wonderful. And do send me all the links because I'll post them on my social media as well. Excellent, Okay, fantastic, Take care, Okay, bye bye. You can learn more about Dr Normandy Rosenthal and this podcast at one you Feed dot Net slash norm