56: Sacred Stress. A conversation with George Faller. George is an outstanding person to connect with during this virus crisis because while when it comes to whether or not the virus is here, we do not have any choice in the matter. However, we can choose how to respond to the chaos and sense of disconnection that it brings. George’s role with the New York City Fire Department positioned him as a first responder to the Twin Towers on 9/11/2001. In the aftermath of this trauma, through education, training, and personal exploration, he began to understand his mission and purpose to be supporting others through crisis and trauma. Currently, as a marriage and family therapist, speaker, and writer, George works to bring his message to others. The most simplified form of this message is that we usually find the sacred within the stressful. But first, we need to find out which kind of stress we are talking about in the first place. In this conversation, George and I explore the two different kinds of stress - distress and eustress- the value within the function of the various ways in which we approach stress both approach and withdrawal, the hidden costs of our attempts to protect and defend ourselves, misconceptions surrounding our interpretation of stress, the influence between our individual perceptions of stress and the physiological consequences to that stress, the science behind coming together for support even when the larger part of our defenses are oriented to retreat, post-traumatic growth and the meaning that often accompanies the most devastating moments of our lives. Bio: Prior to a career in the field of mental health, George spent 20 years as a NYC Firefighter and NYC Police Officer. George received his M.S. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Iona College, where he graduated at the top of his class. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from Queens College. His experience as a FDNY Peer Counselor, particularly following the events of 9/11, sparked his passion to help those impacted by trauma. He is a certified Trainer/Supervisor/Therapist in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and founder of the New York Center for Emotionally Focused Therapy where he serves as President. He is a Supervisor with the American Association for Marriage & Family Therapy (AAMFT) and teaches classes at the Ackerman Institute for the Family in Manhattan. He is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist currently practicing in Connecticut and New York. George is the director of training at the Greenwich Center for Hope & Renewal in Connecticut and is on the Board of the Porter Cason Institute at Tulane University in New Orleans. George brings a unique and varied experience to his practice. Whether he is providing marriage therapy to Wall Street executives, leading a conference for the United States Military or equipping therapists from around the globe, his ability to inspire is far-reaching. George is also committed to bringing EFT to underprivileged populations and pushing the leading edge of effective therapy. https://www.georgefaller.com https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/foreplay-radio-couples-and-sex-therapy/id1083324677 Band of the Week: Keanu Leaves https://www.facebook.com/Keanuleavesband/ Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/album/antigravity-machine-single/1475012751 Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

In this episode Dr. Stuart Kauffman and I discuss human population, creativity, the consequences of the exponential growth of the modern economy, consumerism and consumption: a model for overwhelming our environment, the choices “asked” of humanity within a consumerist culture, reductionism and the center of our humanity, increases of GDP and the relationship to individual identity, creating meaningful tools and goods that sustain, shifting our understanding of work and widgets, the modern notion of a well-lived life, comparing COVID with other viruses, solutions to the pandemic, efficacy of our responses, definition of a virus, several theoretical options to cure COVID currently underway including: phage display, monoclonal antibodies, and the repurposing of other known drugs, combinatorial models for creative solutions to disease, ways to understand systems and biological networks, self-reflection in a time of chaos, the axial age and pivotal changes in humanity through different stages of civilization. Band of the Week: Tycho https://tychomusic.com Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/album/weather/1461523692 Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

Like many of you, I watched Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s TED talk back in 2008 with astonishment and excitement – so this conversation is a long time coming. Dr. Taylor’s personality is without pretense, and her gift of switching between a scientific worldview to the view of an experiencer sets her up as both an accomplished observer of the measurable and an excitably playful experiencer of the miraculous. She holds this tension well and I only wish that we had more time to talk. Thankfully, she agreed to share another conversation once her next book hits the bookstores. This conversation explores the evolution of Dr. Taylor’s thoughts following her stroke 20 years ago. She is currently working on her forthcoming book that is preparing her to speak about the more practical and theoretical application of how she views various archetypes that each relate to specific aspects of our brains. From Dr. Taylor’s perspective, we each possess 4 distinct characters within our psychological and neuroanatomical self, that are each capable of interacting with each other. At times this can be overwhelming and full of conflict, or we have the ability and power to source these personalities to support each other. She states that we can purposefully and intentionally transform and shift the patterns of our psychological, spiritual, behavioral, and relational lives. Bio: Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor is a trained and published neuroanatomist. Her research specialty was in the postmortem investigation of the human brain as it relates to schizophrenia and the severe mental illnesses. Because she has a brother who has been diagnosed with the brain disorder schizophrenia, Dr. Taylor served for three years on the Board of Directors of National NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) between 1994-1997. On December 10, 1996, Dr. Taylor woke up to discover that she was experiencing a rare form of stroke, an arterio-venous malformation (AVM). Two and a half weeks later, on December 27, 1996, she underwent major brain surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) to remove a golf ball size blood clot that was placing pressure on the language centers in the left hemisphere of her brain. It took eight years for Dr. Taylor to successfully rebuild her brain - from the inside out. In response to the swelling and trauma of the stroke, which placed pressure on her dominant left hemisphere, the functions of her right hemisphere blossomed. Among other things, she now creates and sells unique stained glass brains when commissioned to do so. In addition, she published a book about her recovery from stroke and the insights she gained into the workings of her brain. The New York Times bestselling memoir is titled My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey and spent 17 weeks on the NY Times Bestseller list. In February 2008, Dr. Taylor gave a presentation at the prestigious TED Conference. A video of that presentation was posted on the TED website which was immediately viewed by millions of people around the world. The response to the video launched Dr. Taylor into becoming a highly sought-after public speaker. She was chosen by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World for 2008, and was the premiere guest on Oprah's Soul Series web-cast. In addition, she was interviewed by Oprah and Dr. Oz on The Oprah Winfrey Show in October, 2008. http://drjilltaylor.com https://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_my_stroke_of_insight Band of the Week: HiFi Drowning Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/album/rounds-the-rosa/1494697284 Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

How each of us takes in, and adapts to, the experiences of our lives create various preconceptions about the world and our place in it. Dr. Winborn, psychologist and Jungian psychoanalyst, works as a psychotherapist a vocation that he believes helps to free us from those preconceptions, or limitations to our lives. In the conversation we discuss: the nature of our psychological experience and how psychotherapy, in particular, psychoanalytic therapies aid in the integration and assimilation of aspects of the unconscious; the value of everyday language so that concepts are not reified and thereby extracted from their context; the concept of reverie as a state of mind that gets out of task mode, wherein we direct out thinking, and into a state that allows the images, affects, perceptions, memories, etc. and more. Bio: Dr. Mark Winborn is a licensed clinical psychologist, Jungian psychoanalyst, and nationally certified psychoanalyst with over 30 years of clinical experience. He provides individual psychoanalytic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis for adults in Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. Winborn is a training/ supervising analyst of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts. He has served as the Training Coordinator of the Memphis Jungian Seminar, is on the faculty of the C.G. Jung Institute of Zurich and the Moscow Association for Analytical Psychology as well as visiting faculty at a number of institutes and seminars both in the USA and internationally. He is available for clinical psychoanalytic supervision and speaking engagements. http://www.drmarkwinborn.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Band of the Week: Juke Jones Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/album/bluff-city-breakdown/1495562311 Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

In this conversation Dr. Erik Goodwyn and Dr. John Price discuss the foundation of Jung and his place as both a mystical thinker and an empirical thinker; the structure of the psyche; how evolution and structures of language and literature connect; the philosophy of mind – where Jung fits in the analysis of how mind and matter interact; where science and religion interact; ways brain physiology shapes and informs subjective experience, symbols, and stories; cross-cultural links between similar stories; definition of terms such as archetype and collective-unconscious; the nature of reduction and this tendency influences mind and the body; qualia; the genome; epigenetics; dreams and their structure; and more. Bio: Dr. Goodwyn received his undergraduate degree from Western Kentucky University in 1996, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude. He received his Master's Degree in Anatomy and Neurobiology from Western Kentucky University in 2000, where he published two articles. In 2005, Dr. Goodwyn received his Medical Degree from the University of Cincinnati. He completed his Psychiatry residency at Wright State University in 2009, where he received a "superior" ranking in every category from Academic/Clinical Evaluation covering residency training. Dr. Goodwyn has Post-Residency in Psychodynamic Training Psychotherapy and Supervision, which is ongoing 2-4 hours per month (since 2008). Topics include psychodynamic methods, analytical psychology, dream analysis, and relationship between spirituality and psychology. He also has formal accredited post-graduate training in Cognitive Processing Therapy and Prolonged Exposure Therapy for PTSD. Presently, Dr. Goodwyn is an Instructor at the University of Louisville, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He supervises long-term psychotherapy for psychiatric residents, is an instructor for medical students and residents, provides clinical care (including medication management and psychotherapy for diverse populations) and completes research and academic writing. His previous work history includes Clinic Chief at the Minot Air Force Base Mental Health Outpatient Services in North Dakota. He was a supervisor and manager for Mental Health, Family Advocacy, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment Clinics. He was a Quality Assurance Provider, which supervised, evaluated, and monitored civilian contractors (including mental health technicians, licensed social workers, and clinical psychologists). He was Chief of the Traumatic Stress Response Team at the Minot Air Force Base. He led Mental Health programs for 11,000 beneficiaries at the largest Personal Reliability Program base in the military. He evaluated hundreds of pre- and post-deployers for mental health symptoms or illness, thereby increased Air Force readiness and reduced risk of trauma. He also performed Sanity Boards for service members under investigation at Whiteman AFB and Grand Forks AFB. University of Louisville profile: https://louisville.edu/medicine/departments/psychiatry/faculty/faculty-1/erik-goodwyn-m.d Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Band of the Week: Ansley Instagram: @ansleytxmusic Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/ansley/546947596 https://open.spotify.com/album/3lY9YTCjI21vd4ztnkJv7i?si=IEKHRLuqQuuNXPi12D4nQA Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

The podcast delves into the importance of listening to how our body communicates with us, exploring the limitations of the thinking mind and the nature of communication. It discusses integrating psycho-emotional energy, the interconnectedness of body, mind, and energy shaping our experiences, and the transformative impact of yoga. The dialogue emphasizes embracing vulnerability, respecting and understanding our bodies, and connecting with our inner teacher for holistic healing.

In this episode of The Sacred Speaks, John Price speaks with Dr. Thomas Moore. Through the conversation, they discuss Dr. Moore’s early development, James Hillman and Carl Jung’s influence upon him, and his work with soul as an author and psychotherapist for most of his life. Throughout the conversation, it becomes clear that the psychotherapeutic approach that Thomas grounds himself in is not typical of modern psychology. What he seeks is to broaden how each of us views our lived experience. His approach is one that works to expand how each of us imagines our psychological experience. Thomas speaks less from the perspective that many of us have come to expect from a modern psychotherapist, as he draws more from the wells of philosophy and religion. From his perspective, the psychotherapist is tending to the nature of soul. In modern psychological approaches, the movements of our psychological, social, spiritual, and biological selves are often reduced to pathologies. One consequence: we each may interpret our inner experience in a negative and undesirable way, as opposed to relating with those parts of ourselves in a deeper and more imaginative way. Tending to the soul is a way of noticing that how we imagine our world and ourselves has enormous power in our lives. Therefore, Thomas seeks to help those with whom he works, reimagine themselves and their world. Bio: Thomas Moore is the author of the number one New York Times bestseller Care of the Soul. He has written twenty-four other books about bringing soul to personal life and culture, deepening spirituality, humanizing medicine, finding meaningful work, imagining sexuality with soul, and doing religion in a fresh way. In his youth, he was a Catholic monk and studied music composition. He has a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Syracuse University and was a university professor for a number of years. He is also a psychotherapist influenced mainly by C. G. Jung and James Hillman. In his work he brings together spirituality, mythology, depth psychology and the arts, emphasizing the importance of images and imagination. He often travels and lectures, hoping to help create a more soulful society. His family members are also deeply involved in spiritual approaches to the arts: His wife, Hari Kirin, is an accomplished painter and teaches a course she has created on Yoga and Art; his daughter Ajeet is a musician and recording artist and spiritual teacher; his stepson Abraham is an architect focusing on design related to the social aspects of building. Thomas also writes fiction, arranges music and plays golf in New Hampshire, where he has lived for twenty years. http://thomasmooresoul.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Band of the Week: www.ianmoore.com Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/album/ian-moores-got-the-green-grass/119833547 Learn more about this project at: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

What happens when people are provided a place and the space to ask questions about their lives that, up until that point, they assumed could not be explored? Maybe nothing, or perhaps life takes on new meaning. When have you been able to question the meaning systems of your life freely, that each tends to possess enormous influence, but that also may have been adopted from others close to you? As a child, Stuart moved all over the world, encountering new experiences and foreign territory, which positions him to have a unique lens through which to see everyday experience. On some level, these early experiences guided him into graduate studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, under the renowned Dr. Anne Taves, for his studies in religion and cognitive sciences. There, and under her guidance, he began to integrate different academic systems and philosophies of thought, further broadening and strengthening his pursuit of the mysterious and meaningful. Stuart Nelson is the vice president of The Institute for Spirituality and Health (ISH), a nonprofit located in the medical center of Houston. The mission of I.S.H. is to explore the various gaps between spirituality, religious practice, health, and healing. Stuart mines multiple theories and methods found primarily within the humanities with the belief that these theories reveal immense, untapped value for the health care industry, business practices, legal concerns, nonprofits, and other professional settings. Bio: Stuart Nelson has served as the Institute for Spirituality and Health’s Vice-President for the past six years. In this capacity, he uses his training in both the sciences and the humanities to creatively organize and execute a broad range of programs and services, as well as to help manage the Institute's long term vision, strategic plan, and general operations. Stuart grew up in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, attending international schools until college. He earned bachelor's degrees in cognitive science, religious studies, and psychology from Rice University. During this time, he realized that the scholarly study of religion has tremendous potential to inform and compliment health systems. He completed a masters in religious studies at UC Santa Barbara, where he used theories and methods from cognitive science of religion to inform work at the intersection between religious identity and mental health. This passion extends to his current work. Stuart enjoys hip-hop, classic rock, and classical Indian music, as well as impressionism, surrealism, and modern art. Additionally, he is an avid birder. https://www.spiritualityandhealth.org Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Band of the Week: Sound Team Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/album/movie-monster/715976598 Learn more about this project at: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

Erin Prophet, MPH, Ph.D., is an author and scholar who studies religious experience and narratives of self-improvement and transcendence. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Florida where she teaches about cults and new religious movements, nature and the environment, and spirituality and health. In this conversation, we explore the nature of belief, charismatic authority, reincarnation, religious studies and most importantly, how her unique childhood and development influences her studies of religion and health. Erin’s parents were the leaders of a new religious group whose practices were based in esoteric religious practices. The members of the Church Universal and Triumphant would eventually take the prophecy of a nuclear strike that Erin’s mother, Elizabeth Clarie Prophet, divinized from “the masters” – those mystical soul’s and leaders who, it was believed, had something to say about the way that they were living their lives. Bio: Erin Prophet is a scholar of religion with interests in alternative spirituality and medicine. She has a master’s degree in public health (epidemiology concentration) from Boston University and received her PhD from Rice University in May 2018. Her master's practicum looked at characteristics of long-term survival in non-small cell lung cancer. Her dissertation examines the nineteenth-century appropriation of “evolution” as a form of personal improvement and self-transcendence. It is entitled “Evolution Esotericized: Conceptual Blending and the Emergence of Secular, Therapeutic Salvation.” She is currently a lecturer in religion, nature and health at the University of Florida. http://www.eprophet.info Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Band of the Week: Mills and Co. Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/album/dont-ever-look-back-twice/501579556 Learn more about this project at: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

Music offers one of the most potent spiritual metaphors that exists, and Patrick Summers, the artistic and music director of the Houston Grand Opera, has plenty to say about the subject of spirituality and music. He positions the operatic voice as the expression of a unique sonic vocal print that vibrates atoms between the singer and the listener’s ears. In his book, The Spirit of This Place: How Music Illuminates the Human Spirit, he writes, “But precisely because music is both an intellectual and an aesthetic pursuit, it is the perfect metaphor for how I believe one must live: with vast respect for provable knowledge and genuine expertise, but never at the expense of the deep joy and wonder of that knowledge, using what can be learned to marvel at what can never be explained” (2018, p. 147). The science and theory of music notes that an E flat played anywhere at any time in the world is still an E flat, but the infinite ways in which this note can be contextualized and performed open the notes, timbre, rhythm, beat, and melody to communicate that which cannot be reduced to the former collection of sounds and spaces. Patrick is a champion for struggling against the dominance of our culture’s tendency to force art and aesthetic practices into a transactional container. As it would appear that the only justification for an arts program today is the capacity to measure the ways in which art increases math skills, which it does; but I would argue that nobody brought to tears listening to a piece of music or by reading a beautiful poem considers the utility of the quadratic formula in that moment. We discuss the fact that while the arts in education may not teach a person how to get a job, they may, and often do, help a person discover who they are and how to be in the world. Summers graduated from the Jacobs School of Music of Indiana University with a bachelor’s degree in music in 1986. Upon graduation, he participated in the San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera Program as an apprentice coach in 1986 and 1987, and won the Otto Guth Memorial Award for excellence in vocal coaching both years. Summers’ first professional engagement, with San Francisco Opera’s Western Opera Theater, was conducting La bohème in their 1986/87 season. In 1989, Summers began his tenure as the music director of the San Francisco Opera Center, a training program for young singers; his first mainstage production, Die Fledermaus, was in 1990. In 1998, Summers was made Music Director of Houston Grand Opera, a position he has held since. 1998 also saw Summers’ Metropolitan Opera conducting debut in Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus. As Music Director of Houston Grand Opera, Summers oversaw the foundation and development of the HGO Orchestra. Prior to the orchestra’s foundation, HGO hired outside orchestras for its productions. Since 1998, Summers has conducted over 50 productions at Houston Grand Opera, including seven world premieres (notably Carlisle Floyd’s Cold Sassy Tree in 2000). In 2011, following Anthony Freud’s move to Chicago Lyric Opera, Summers was named Houston Grand Opera’s Artistic and Music Director. In 2002, he won a Grammy Award for his audio recording Bel Canto, with soprano Renée Fleming and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Summers's book The Spirit of This Place: How Music Illuminates the Human Spirit released in 2018 from University of Chicago Press. https://www.houstongrandopera.org Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Band of the Week: Renee Fleming and Patrick Summers, Bel Canto Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/album/ren%C3%A9e-fleming-bel-canto-scenes/1452542018 Learn more about this project at: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/