Jim Fadiman || Orchestrating Your Symphony of Selves

Jim received his bachelor and doctor degrees from Harvard and Stanford, respectively. Apart from psychedelics, he's also been involved in researching healthy and multiplicity for over twenty years. His newest book with Jordan Gruber is called Your Symphony of Selves. Discover and understand more of who we are. In this episode, I talked to Jim about multiple selves. The DSM says that having multiple personalities a disorder, but doctor Fataman challenges this notion.

In fact, he believes that the opposite is the case. The multiplicity of selves is both normal and healthy. It's not about having one super self, but unifying the different parts of who we are. We also discuss psychedelics, it's effects on mental health and how Abraham Maslow would have viewed these mind altering substances. It was an incredible opportunity to chat with Jim. I respect him so much, and he's one of the few living people who actually knew

Abraham Maslow personally. In fact, Abe asked him to teach in his place when he went to Menwell Park during the last couple of years of his life. So this was a really deeply personal episode for me, and I think you'll be inspired as well. So, without further ado, I bring you Jim Fatimin. At the moment, I'm getting a little rush. You may know Michael Pollam has a series out of course. Yeah, so I'm in the first one oh Netflix for a couple of minutes and maybe

two minutes total. But I'm going very sweet notes from people I haven't heard from in a decade, So congrats. Yeah, and everyone I know says you look really healthy. In that you look very healthy. Right now, I'm staring at you. I am it is you know that you get to a certain age and there's only one variable, which is your health, which is you know. Ever, some mornings I wake up and I think, God, I am this age. It feels like it's tolerable. How old are you now?

Eighty three? My god? And I know how that sounds. It sounds like that to me too, you know. I hear somebody eighty three, I think some old fart. How do you feel inside? How old? Well, it's an interesting question. And I once asked my eighty five year old father and my ninety one year old uncle, Clifton Fatima, that question. And I was, I don't know, you're sixty or something. And my uncle said he was seven and a half.

And I said, which is And what he said is he was learning fastest at that age, and I think what he was also saying he was starting to have an identity. And my father said he was about twenty or twenty one, and at that age he left Brooklyn and spent I think maybe nine months in Paris, which was like, you know, total mind blow. And I think he was also getting more, you know, more sensation and information per minute during that time. Yeah. So the answer

is I'm a very healthy age. And it sometimes puzzles me that I'm in this old box. I know, Well, you get a lot more mileage, you know, you're not done yet. Well, what's nice? And you know, as you know, if you're each age you get older, you get more kind of extra years in the kind of statistics because the statistics, you know, all the young people have died and so forth. Yeah, if you make it to ninety, there's a good chance you'll meet ninety one exactly exactly.

And you're looking good too. Well, thank you. I really appreciate you saying that I really enjoyed your new book and we have lots of common interests in it. Well, you said something on Twitter the other day, and I thought, that's the clearest definition of what we're trying to say that I've seen. I know, so you're you are aligning yourself with truth, but it's a it's a a stinct minority. Yes, And I don't know if you saw the follow up tweet I gave people linked to your book to buy.

And also that very nice person said I want to grow up to be Jim Adam. I said that, Yes, you are really cool, Jim, you really are. You've had a very long career and you've done some really cool and interesting, fascinating things. What's it like to see this psychedelic renaissance right now? Well, I want to hear how you what you think of it, and then I want to I'm curious what you think, abrat your friend Abraham Maslow, if he was alive today, what he'd think of it. Well,

it's really a revival, okay. Remember the Renaissance was a influx of really new information into Europe. We're like, when you get to see the Michael Pollen series, I think two out of the four start with the indigenous use. You know, so I have been called the father of microdosing, but the people who I work with, we now say

of modern microdosing. So it's wonderful. It's wonderful to see psychedelics. Well, we are so mainstream that the New York Times Crossword puzzled two days ago number four down clue drug that can be microdosed three letters. Wow, And it's everything positive and everything things we never thought of. Capitalism coming in to screw it up, and they will a lot. But as I've said for many years, mushrooms do not know they're illegal, and they also won't know when they're patented.

So yeah, no, I'm very happy to see it. That's very wonderful. And you know, on the micro dose side of the house, the world has not yet begun to see what's possible. I like micro dosing. I prefer that it's just more my style. Do you still microdose regularly now? And then trying a little elixir that a friend of mine made who was into Chinese medicine, and that's kind of an energy elixir, and I had noticed I haven't my micro dose for a couple of months because of it.

But it's ideal. It's ideal for first drafts. That's it's a hint. Well, what do you think about those who want to uh meek for pharmaceutical purposes for healing, They want to bottle this without the USA genetic effects high doses. Yeah, those are the same people that say, don't use viagra. We have a new drug where you'll just have erections and orgasms, but no pleasure. You don't have to have any right, there's no emotional over no emotional disturbances. I

think it's I think it. I think it shows a kind of materialism where people literally do not have any idea of the of what happens during a during a serious psychedelic experience. And there's a term for it in in psychotherapy. It's called insight not found by rattling your neuro it's it's a little bit fore like the people who said, all right, guys, we have discovered the part of the brain that where dreams come from. And I say, that's terrific. Now, how do you differentiate between a sex

stream and a nightmare? And how do you difference between a wise dream that you know? And the answer is they have the famous idea because that's consciousness is not you know, they don't don't like consciousness, they like brains. Yeah, you're not a fan of reductionism. I take it. I'm a fan of simplicity and simplification and parsonally, you know. I mean, it's an interesting question because microdosing, in a sense we have a lot of the same results as

the high dose studies, you know, without any excitement. But I'm beginning to understand why and why microdosing is much more exciting to me for physical issues and for and for serious mental illness. That's where I find the excitement. I mean, I'll just give you my one one miracle. You'll only get one miracle per show. Here's the miracle that I'm looking at. Woman diabetic fourteen years, same medication,

totally stable, life is fine. And for other reasons, she microdoses, and she's working with what's called a microdose coach, so she's in touch with him, and within a month she's using twenty percent of her insulin dose. Wow. Wow, right, see that's wow. How does the mind affect the body in that way? You and I both know because we read it, that diet is totally physical. It's totally your

bancreous et cetera, et cetera. And we don't have a lot of pharmaceuticals that say take this and you're pancreas will be more cheerful. Ok. Well, what we do have with microdoc and let's let it go with that. It looks like it rebalances things that are in disequilibrium, and it may do that by being a different level of anti inflammatory. But I don't understand enough about some of the physical illnesses that I've got cases of to really

understand it. It's so interesting, gosh, so interesting. Well, I'm just so curious about this idea of multiple cells. And right off the bat, I want you to differentiate between DSM level multiple cells and healthy disassociation and the pathology called multiple personality. Can you differentiate that between and what's healthy multiple cells? When I took my abnormal course, what I was told is the reason you're studying the is because all of these are kind of exaggerations of normal things.

So that too anxious, too sad to disorganize. So forth, and therefore, even though you're not going to be, you know, a clinician, this is helpful to understand human beings. That made sense to me, except they said, now, no multiple personalities. There isn't a healthy version. What And I thought, wait, wait, wait, wait wait wait, maybe there is, And so what it is?

It turns out that there is, as one would expect of any other condition, there's a healthy level of multiplicity of understanding the separations within this, within the psyche, and there's a pathology version where they are not cooperating, where they are actually harming the whole system. So if we look upon it as family, as a family, if one member of the family is is it is causing trouble for everyone, That doesn't mean the family has pathology. It

means that part. And so there's a common sensess to looking at the question of is there inner multiplicity? That's the first question. And if there's if inner multiplicity is normal, then one would expect an abnormal version of it to be visible, and it is. And there are different ways of working with pathology of multiplicity, but it's much easier if you understand that it's a multiple, it's a problem

with inner multiplicity, that multiplicity is not a problem. And the part of the book that I thought would have special interest to you was that that early psychology, especially Charcot and Gene and Freud, All and William James, were all quite comfortable with understanding that there was what was called disassociation, meaning a breakdown in association, and the normal

of that was association. And their only argument between those groups was the clinicians, not surprisingly said it's only found in pathology, and William James, who dealt with the real world and undergraduates, said no, it's not, it's in everyone,

because I see in everyone. That was the discussion going on until Freud really made his great shift of deciding that the sexual stories he was getting from children about parents, which we now call sexual abuse, had a serious economic problem for him, which is his clients were the children

of his friends. And so he does this about face and says all that sexual memories are now quote fantasies and with that went for some reason selves so in a funny way, and very near the end of years and years and years of working on this, I get this, this realization that this is not novel. This is a return to where psychology was until Freud kind of took it off to the side. Now Young clearly still has internal multiplicity and so forth and so on lots of

other people. Well, I wouldn't be surprised if Young did some microdosing. Well, you know, highly likely, because every culture that we found that has availability of mind changing substances uses it, and small doses make obvious common sense. Yes, by the way, you never answered what would your friend Maslow think today about back because he was a little bit skeptical. Did you ever have any personal conversations with him about LSD or He was skeptical about a lot

of things. He was skeptical about almost all Eastern thought, And at one point in a new edition of Psychology of Being, he was going to put in a footnote saying Eastern thought and Taro and all that stuff's a bunch of crap. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, And I read that because we were flying to the Meninger to Meninger for the consciousness kind of conference. And I said, ab, I don't think you want to do that. I think you have to realize that you may not know anything

about these things, but some of us do. And wonderfully he said, okay, I won't have that footnote. I have the transcript of that exact conference and everything you and he said, and he mentions that that exact conversation he had with you in the conference. Oh goody, that's right. You're this wonderful treasure trove of things that I don't know. Well, I just submitted the Maslow article to the journal last correction of correction, so it's pretty much what you read.

And what Menlo would say is, I mean what we saw in Maslow is a kind of optimism and excitement for what was going to happen, but that we no longer have, We no longer feel optimistic. And he would be in a very interesting position because he would be fascinated by psychedelics. Bertha would say, you cannot possibly do this because you might change, and he would probably microdose because he would figure he could read and write better

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book helps you grow and thrive and become your best self. Okay, now back to the show thing. A second ago, you said you submitted something in about the same form. What was you What were you referring to Jim? That was the article that was the speech he gave in nineteen sixty nine. Okay, our audience isn't going to know exactly. That's like inside baseball, So yeah, okay Maslow. Maslow finished his life with a fellowship from a company in Menlo

Park that was in the institutional food business. But the president of that company was a absolute Maslow fan, and he said to Maslow, what would make you happy? And he said, if all I could do is read and write and create. He said, well, why don't you come out here. I will give you an office. I will give you a secretary. We all needed them. Then I will give you you know, equipment, and I will rent

you a house nearby. Well, I don't know if much of your audience doesn't know what the community around Brandeis University is, but it's not as nice as having a house with a pool in northern California and being with such you know, such excitement and such courtesy and such grace. And he gave a talk to people at the company about where he saw humanity coming, and it was it's magnificently optimistic, and he's really seeing that we could become decent, kind,

open human beings with each other. And he has a lot of evidence that he is finding. He's finding changes in the university where students. He says, students are no longer just quitting if they don't like the kind of education. They're complaining. And he talks about the growth of growth centers like Esln Institute, and when he was writing this, they were proliferating. Yes, And there's a lot of other examples he has. It's what I call it kind of

strident optimism. Yes, and he and I worked on the transcript of that speech, and then I submitted it to Look magazine, which was that time there were three major magazines, Time, Life, and Look and had each had millions of subscribers, and that was a there were major, major forces in the culture. I think he wanted me to be part of the article because I was friends with the editors we were

sending it to, so that was its genesis. And then it missed their deadline or they didn't want it, and it then went into a file drawer, misfiled until a year or so ago when a graduate student doing his dissertation had me searching for him for various things, and I found it and showed it to the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology and they're thrilled, and so it will be. It will be available soon and it's pure Maslow at his at his at his cheerful best. I love it.

I love it. I love your connection to it. Did you ever go and visit him in his his Menoe Park swimming pool house? Did you ever go swimming with him there? No, I didn't go swimming, but we became He had asked me to come to Brandeis a year or so earlier where he had a Ford Foundation grant to take a year off, and so we became friends during that year, and then when he came up to California,

we were quite friendly. And one of his last projects and it ties a little bit into what we're talking about, he said, I've really studied, you know, the best in human beings for so many years. And he said, I'm wondering now about the genesis of what he called evil, and it's the genesis of unkindness to each other. And what he said is in looking at his grandchildren that when there was a single child, there is no kind of evil, but as soon as they're is sibling rivalry.

He said, it's the first time you see people behaving in a way that's unkind to each other out of whatever those needs are. So that was one of the things he was observing, studying thinking about in those last couple of years, for sure. But you know, she never visited that house. Though I don't remember, I probably visited the house because I I there was someone who went and did a lot of investigative work to find the

precise address and to visit that house. And I have it eight five to five Lo Messa Drive, Portola Valley, California. It was, that's what does that ring a bell? Yeah, that's a neighborhood. Well, now insanely expensive, but then very nice houses, yes, very quiet, somewhat hilly neighborhood with a lot of views of of you know, trees and grass and even more wealthy people on horses. Yes. Well, I just sent you in an email pictures of the house, so I thought you might get a kicked out of that.

It's on the market right now for five million dollars. So I guess I said it correctly there, Yes you did. I can't afford it, but I was like, that'd be cool if I bought the house Maslow lived in. But I can't afford it. If the American Psychological Association could afford it and buy it and make it a Maslow shrine, they can probably afford His house in near brandeis a lot a lot more easily. Oh yeah, oh that's true.

That's very true. Okay, So, returning to your book a second, you say, we really are different people, or have different minds, parts, or personalities in different moments and in different contexts. The cells that comprise us are actual, real, independent, and in neatly valuable parts of who we are. So does that argue against the notion of a real self, because I've argued against that notion, and I think we probably see eye to eye on that there's really no such thing

as the real self. You know, if there was a real self, then there's a false self, right or anything on that. So that's one hint what people say is there has to be you know, I really want it to be a single self because I feel single. Like right now, I feel like I'm Jim Fatiman and I'm talking to my friend and it's a little warm out, and I am dressed appropriately, you know, so forth and

so on. But I also when I have a small dog at the moment who's not feeling well and he's particularly attached to me, and when I pick him up and he's feeling sad, this kind of smarty, you know, vocabulary educated, literate guy totally is not present. And I'm this little mushy person who is so sad and so linked into my little dog. It's a total set of different behaviors and it's not a change in mood, it's

a change in state. And let me make it very very simple, which is the way people get it most easily is you say to people, have you ever argued with yourself? Okay? And everybody yeah, And then I say who's the other person? And then there's a moment where people are aware that they have total memories between all those parts. That's healthy, but they behave differently. Most of us behave differently when we're with our children. We're quite different.

In fact, people say, well, I can't be with you. I'm still in my work clothes. Okay, so I have to change. And I remember when I had a terrible client at one point as a consult just a horrible, huge, multinational, corrupt corporation, and I really felt unclean when I was working there, and it's the only time I would come home and take off all my clothes and change before

kind of being with Dorothy, my wife. It was so obvious, and a lot of people, as we've learned during COVID, realized that going to work in your bathrobe didn't feel right, and a lot of people would change into their work clothes to be as we are now, you know, talking to each other. So we're used to making those changes. We're used to we're used to. There's a wonderful term called losing your temper. The reason I like it because it means finding your temper. And you say things that

you would not say otherwise. Well you said them, who said them, Well, not the part of you that wouldn't say them. Okay. So there's a lot of examples. One of the ones that's most obvious is people behave differently when they're drunk. No, and they say I'm so ash and then in the morning, the one who didn't do it says, I'm so ashamed of how I behaved last night, when correctly is saying I'm so ashamed when the when the drunk part of me behaves like that. So you

also to see people and yourself. You're much more forgiving of yourself for the parts of you that you don't that the rest of you don't like. I agree, I've noted that. Like you know, when like politicians do something corrupt or get or get caught for doing something corrupt, that's the key part. They'll be like, that's not who I am, that's not that's not who anyone who knows me knows. That's really not who the real me. You know. It's just like so interesting. You know, people don't seem

to take responsibility for their whole self. They kind of have this authenticity bias where they when you say who's the real you, they include the most positive aspects of themselves. Is the real them? Yeah? Except people who are depressed. Oh that's interesting to identify with the worst parts or the least functional. That is so such a good point. Yeah. So, so if you're being a therapist and you realize that

there's first of all, who came to therapy. Okay, I mean, let me give you an example with a little bit of statistics. The worst known method to help alcoholics is psychotherapy. It has about a two percent success rate. And there's like, if you look out in the literature, nobody knows okay except you and me are going to now know this, which is the person who drinks usually likes drinking. The person who has a hangover and is sick and wakes up guilty does not like drinking. Who do you think

goes to therapy? Yeah, you don't go to therapy drunk. Well, the alcoholic doesn't go to therapy, right right, That's exactly right. And the wonderful part of if you've ever been to an AA, which is a really very powerful and moving positive experience. They've worked it out. So the alcoholics shows up. You go in and you say, who are you? My name is Jim and I'm an alcoholic. That's the line.

And then what are you there for? Well? Trade stories of your alcohol life and you you, if you're recent new, you tell this story and it's full of justifications of why you're drink and it's not your fault and you really don't drink that much, and you know, sure you had a hut and run, but hey, you know that just happens. And then and then and you say, and that's why I'm drinking. And then someone else in the group tells the story of their life like five times

worse than yours, so terribly can hardly imagine it. And they end it and saying I've been dry for twelve years. So the alcoholics still goes to the AA meetings dry or not. And that's why it's a fascinating and very different, very different therapeutic mail you than any other we know. Yeah, so the great point, so who do you? You know, getting the part of you that needs help helped is

often difficult. I'm so interested in the integrative functions of humans and how you know we we still have a coherent sense of self when we walk around, or else we would be psychopath pathological, you know. So there are functions, executive functions, and things that give us a false sense

of unity. Sometimes they give us the feeling of identity. Yes, see what we I mean if you think of if you've been in a relationship with another human being for more than a few days, you expect consistency, predictability, and someone behaves and you say, how could you do that? That isn't the way. You know, You're not like that, And they say, you're right, you know, I don't. I guess I had this terrible meeting at work and then I came home and I actually hit my kid. You know,

I was beside myself. I love that, Okay, I was. I was over here to the side, and we are. And what you realize with the person you love most in the world is they are not concerned. They are often consistent, but they have certain inconsistencies, which is another one of theirselves. And once you see that, particularly when you see it in yourself, you're much more forgiving. You know, we all have a relative for example, that is a

trouble at family gatherings. Okay, don't talk politics with Uncle Albert. We'll hit you with his theory and he won't shut up for twenty minutes because once the tape is running and Albert is you know this QAnon in person. Stop. Okay now, but Uncle Albert's a nice guy most of the time if you don't push him into selves that aren't great point. In order to support the Psychology podcast, we need the help of some great advertisers, and we want to make sure those advertisers are ones you'll actually

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Dash Psychology Dash Podcast. Thanks for your help. From an individual differences perspective, there seems to be gross variability among people and extent to which they are more even keel on a regular basis versus not the most extremes. You have, bipolar disorder, you have, you know, things that do get psychopathological.

But it's linkage to creativity is something that fascinates me because I found that the creative mind is the one that seems to have more contradictions within themselves that they h our, embrace and accept. This was a major theme of my book Wire to Create. You know that they accepted that, you know, do I contain multitudes? Well then I could all you know, well then I could able to do? Is the women quote created people have more of that attitude. Well, they not only have that attitude,

they have that awareness. And there's a wonderful quote in our book about someone who says, now and then I have a board meeting in my mind, and the person writing this is some famous essayist says, I actually don't say much. I you know, I bring in the pencils and pads for people, and maybe bring in coffee. But we all just you know, discuss what is an issue and what we What we found is the way we

see mental health. Mental health is when the parts of you are in harmony, meaning you're all working together to help each other, and the specializations support one another. So creative people seem to have a much better grasp at how to get there. There's the right self at the right time. And if you if you look at there's always books about how to writers write, okay, and you find out this one's and there's a there's a wonderful one where he sharpens like fifteen pencils before he sits

down at the typewriter. Okay, the ritual he uses to get into the writing place, and when he leaves the writing place, in a sense, he becomes and he can relax and be a different person. And you've written enough books to know the feeling of when you're in the writer mode and when you wish you work in the writer mode. Yeah, and the writer is really not the same as many other parts of you. Yeah, it's a great point. You know. It's a very interesting question and

very deep question. Is it possible to create a single super self? It does. Yeah, I'll just ask that question then and pause and see what you think. Well, what we had to come to my co author and I and Jordan Gruber did really, most of the amazing scholarship in our book is there's not much evidence for a

super self. See if you're just I was listening to somebody who was asked about do you believe all these amazing stories about people in their psychedelic experiences, and he says, I believe in the data, so I believe in observation. And the problem with the notion of a super self has two problems. One is it makes the rest of you, which is us, ninety eight percent of the time, even if there is a quote super self, inferior, and that's

not a nice feeling. And it also says, well, I don't have to make any improvements because my higher self will take you know, will give me great advice. Now it turns out that I came up with a fool proof test of higher selves. If your higher self is your best self, your most integrated self, your wisest self. Then you say to someone who tells you that, you say, well, what's your favorite what's your highest self favorite restaurant? And they after they look at me unkindly because the answer

came up nothing. I then say, can you tell me any attributes of your higher self? Well, what we found is there people. Your higher self doesn't have attributes, it has like virtues. The point is that the problem for what we decided after a lot of discussion is the higher self, which also would include angelic beings who guide you, which occur in most traditions. The notion that there are spirits without bodies that help people. It's all found in

indigenous people and so forth. There's a lot of things you can't cover. What we're trying to do in discussing Sells is how do you function better when you're not quote in your higher self? Which is most of the time, it's all the time. But the question again is how do you harmonize the parts that you have? And when we talk about personal growth, for instance, someone says I want to lose weight. Okay, Now here's a piece of chocolate cake, and they say, is that really good chocolate cake?

And you say it's fantastic, and they say, well, I'd like a small slice, and then they say, then another part of them says, I'd like another small slice. And one of you knows that you are just looking at the difference between two and five hundred calories and those two hands one that goes back from the cake and the other that goes forward are a beautiful view of ourselves. You know, I think, I mean, Saint Paul says, why

do we do that which we would not do? And the answer is, Saint Paul, I got a book for you because that's the question, which is why do we do things that parts of us don't approve of? It's a very straightforward question. The book you have for them is your book Symphony Yourselves? Yes, yeah, Saint Paul says, I'd like it. Yeah, can you you have that an aramaic You're funny, You're funny. It just seems like not all of ourselves are equally weighted. They're not equally prominent

in our in our personality structure. It does feel experientially like there is a me that is more authentic, at least in the sense that they're like if I do something or there's a side of me that likes something, that there is another me that's bigger than that, that's like, you know what, I don't want to want to like that. There's a there's like a higher order want. Oh, there's selves that have a higher morality than others. Yeah, okay, is that? What is that? What it is? Okay, that's

the but that's the internal dialogue. We have. An internal dialogue is what I'm talking about. Okay, internal dialogue. You gotta have to you know, you don't have an you know. Uh, they're all all your parts, are you? They feel like they all feel like Scott because they are. Okay, you're not. You don't feel like somebody's you know, down the street. You say, gee, there I go. But they don't all equally. They don't all equally feel like Scott, I guess, is

my point. Well, they do when you're in them. Okay. If I'm about to do something and I know it's wrong, Okay, I know it's wrong, and the part of me that wants to do it says, I know it's wrong too, but I don't care. Those parts are not equal or unequal,

They're different. So you've got to walk out that the parts of you that are kind of moral don't become self righteous and prissy, because we know that in a lot of psychopathology, a lot of psychotherapy, what people say is I am always putting myself down, and I love that because notice how many people are in that that sentence. Yeah, it's true. The language really is a good hint on what's going on? So let's let's go back and say, why do we have this whole notion of a single self? Anyway,

it's perhaps it's because of monotheism. So monotheism is this very very it's kind of the notion there's only one divinity, except if you look at every religious system that has only one divinity. He's got a lot of friends, he's got a lot of assistance, he's got a lot of servants, he's got I mean, there's people don't know this. Outside of Catholicism. There are nine levels of angels. Now, if you're a you know, if you're a single being, what do you have nine levels of angels? What's going on?

So monotheism, however, the notion is that there's a oneness and therefore you have to stuff everything in so that the composite of ourselves. Again, the notion is if you're a single being, you would be consistent. Okay, yeah, I mean I watch it again. I have two little dogs and they're rescue so they have had some childhood trauma,

all right. And my one little littlest one, the one that was zeal Now is probably we all agree and we have a lot of dogs in our lives, the most loving little dog we've ever met, and now and then something happens with him and this incredibly vicious, little snarling thing with these little sharp teeth appears. It's really scary. Yes, it's real. Now. We rarely see it with each other, but his way, and it's very common in pathology. How

do you handle fear? We know a lot of people turn it into anger so they don't have to look at it. So he does that do when he sees a large dog, he wants to hurt them, and some large dogs kind of look down at him and excuse me, what are you doing around my ankles? If you don't move, I'm going to wipe you out. Man. So we see even in animals this differentiation, and it's it's it's fascinating when that when they switch, because it's as different as

having a different a different animal. Do you think that the more integrated a person is in the sense that you're talking about, where all these things are and more harmony with each other, that the person comes across as more a comfortable in their own body, be more more cohesive, more congruent. Do you think that we can get there to a certain degree. Right, I can give you one example of someone who seems to be a single self, and then i'll give you I'll start with the one

that we see as unified. If you if you ever listened or watched the Dalai Lama. One of the things about the Dalai Lama is he laughs at himself, okay, and it's a clue of mental health. I love that. At one point there's a film about him and he says, you know, I fix Swiss clocks, and then he laughs and he says, it's wonderful to be able to fix something. Okay.

Now he's partly aware that he's got other things quote more important, but that's part of him, and he's amused when that part of him, you know, needs to be dealt with. Now. A person who is totally unified, we would expect to behave absolutely the same in every situation, regardless of the externals. Okay. And if one looks at the ex President Trump, the thing that is most clear

about him is he treats everything the same. Something someone has a minor slight to him, like they take away his food a minute before he's finished, or we're about to have an international incident. He has the same basic responses to everything. That's what a single self actually looks like. And single self, you see, is a pathology unified itself, diversified harmonious self is healthy because it can act apropriately

to a wide variety of situation. Yes, but you say mental health is being in the right mind at the right time. That's your catch phrase. What how do you don't you themselves differ in what they think is the right time? Do you know what I'm saying? Well, usually you know. I mean, for instance, during the day, you have a sales meeting with your own people. You talk to your the customer you like least, You have a

nice lunch with a friend it's not from work. You go home and your children, who are small want to play with you. These are all different aspects and if you are in the wrong one at the wrong time. My children, one of my kids, when she was about three, I'm in a little teeny corner of our house where I have I don't have a desk, but I have

a little table with a little portable typewriter. And she comes in and we have some kind of interaction, and she goes out, and then I hear her say to my wife, is daddy tired because daddy just treated her badly? And she already can tell there are different daddies. Okay, So the right mind at the right time is where there's the best match. So if you are, you know, if you're with your girlfriend, you don't treat her like you just treated your worst client. And you don't treat

your worst client like he's your girlfriend. You you have it built in and we actually get some very interesting training as very small children. Okay. Now I don't know if you remember this, but we were all told at some point when you're upset, you count to ten. And as a child, you think this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. I want to just punch my little brother, and because he just hit me, and I get to hit him back. Seven, eight, nine, Okay, I

don't want to hit him. Okay. What happened in that that spiritual practice of counting to ten is you were able to access a more harmoni as part of yourself. So we have it built in as a system, and there's dozens of ways. You know, you undoubtedly have probably taught people, you know, take a deep breath, you know, settle down, you know, relax for a moment. We have all these ways of working us into the other side. Some people say, you know, I'm going to do an

interview with someone I like. I think I better have a cup of coffee first, because I know that will shift my cognitive capacity a little bit that caffeine does. Okay, so I know what I'm doing, right, I hear you. I think that for some people it's harder than others. Yeah. Yeah. And and what your goal is, well, it happens at a very profound level. A few years ago, when I was still traveling, I was quite physically ill a lot of the day, and I had accepted a date in

Salt Lake City, and I was the event. Okay, so I really pretty much had to do it. And I crawled on the plane and I was unhappy, and I went to the hotel and I slept, and I'm in the green room with the little room off stage that you wait before you go on. This was the beautiful library of Salt City, and it was like five hundred people, and I'm thinking, I'm so physically out of it. I wonder what happens if I faint in the middle of my talk. Yeah, I said, that I hope not, but

I've never done that. And I went out of the stage and I had asked for a chair, not a podium, and I sat there and I said something that made them feel welcome, and then I said this little story and they were amused, and you know, laughter feed certain people's vanity in mine is one of them. And then I did have a speech prepared, so I had some I had notes, don't I don't, and I don't use a power point because I changed things around and I gave really a for me, a very very good speech,

and my physical capacity. When I finished with that speech, I was physically fine, and about two hours later I was back to being ill. A graphic view of what we do, and there are ways we know physiologically change adrenaline and so forth to shift. We have shifts built into the system because that's we need them. That's the normal healthy behavior. And the thing that is what the book says is here's the really simple truth, which is you're a multiple and you can be more harmonious. And

then we say, how come you don't know this? And then we say because whenever it comes up, it kind of gets put into some little box. And then we literally there's probably a thousand examples from fifteen different fields of human knowledge where multiplicity is described and discussed and elucidy. When what we found is the only thing I've ever written. It has had is people read it and say, oh,

I'm starting to see myself and other people differently. So I wrote a self help book, and self help books whenever we think of them, they're self help, but all of them. When you're done, you have to do something. You have to lose weight through different exercises, breathe different They make charts and lists and do affirmation whatever it is, whatever the book says. And I've done one of those

and people do that. But it's wonderful where you simply say to people, just notice your own mind and put it into this try this framework, and if it feels more congruent within your prior framework, then you've just found a better way to describe your own life. And the example we use is the Earth is I don't know if there's going to frighten anymore, as your group of the Earth is not the center of the universe, it's not even the center of the Solar system. Watch out.

But up to a certain point it was the center the Solar system. And at that point we had enough astronomy, so we were we could see the orbits of the other planets. Imagine trying to draw the orbit of Mars around Earth. Okay, and they exist, and they're these wonderful

curlocues and curves, amazing things to make it fit. And so when the Sun was noticed as the center of the Solar system, the astronomers were just in bliss and science moved very very quickly because they didn't have to create a kind of nonsense system to fit a prior belief. So when people are comfortable looking at their selves, they begin to be both kinder to themselves and kinder to others. And that makes you know, what else are we working for? Well?

I agree, I agree. You have a section on tools, techniques, and strategies for selves work. Can you leave our listeners with some practical strategies. I don't want to give away the book with that, but we have lots of strategies, and the basic strategy is noticing. And the question is am I in the right self? Now? You know, if I just yelled at my kid, my kid didn't do it anything or didn't do anything very bad. Or you know, or I'm I am aware that I am enjoying my

second cocktail. The waiter has just said, would you like a refill? Sir? I know that I'm good at two and i'm and I think I'm terrific at three, but nobody likes me for so it's noticing and it's not blaming because there's no there's no judgment in that, which is and the parts of you that say, well, I I the parts of you that said, no, I don't need a third because I had two cocktails before I came tonight. Okay, very normal alcoholic response is you try

and work with that part. And there's lots of ways to work with that part. In the book is full of kind of tricks and methods, but the fundamental one is noticing. Once you notice. You know, none of us quite remember, but there was a point when we noticed that the other sex was worth noticing, and we had to learn a whole lot of new behavior. Okay, but we could tell the difference between who we were turned onto and who we weren't. That's also when people discover

they're gay. When they again they're finding out who they're turned on to. And then you work but that observation is a fundamental one. And what I've said to people, if you want to remember, because most of us can probably remember, can you remember when the idea, even just the idea of somebody else's tongue inside your mouth was so disgusting and an a little while later you found out, well, you know there's something to that. There's a whole other

way of looking at that. So it's not about techniques as much as it is about starting with observation, and then there are there are lots of techniques. Well, I'm sure that this episode has wet people's appetite more than enough to go ahead and buy your book. It is really great. I highly recommend it's called Your Symphony of Selves. Discover and understand more of who we are. Jim, You're

such a legend. I always love chatting with you, and I hope we can we can do this again sooner than last time, because it's really fun to see you again and that I'm delighted that we have this time together. Likewise, likewise, I love you. Man. Yes, thanks for listening to this episode of the Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at thus psychology podcast dot com.

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