#1 Neuroscientist Explains How to Manifest Love & Happiness In Your Life

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You know, when I'm in that mode of like everything's manifesting, I sometimes say be careful what you wish for.

My brain is limited by what it thinks I can get or I deserve.

If you had to break down the science of manifestation in the simplest terms as a neuroscientist, what would you say that would be?

Okay, so please help me welcome Dr.

Tara Swart, medical doctor, neuroscientist.

A best-selling author, a podcast host.

Tara, it's so good to have you here.

Are there any secrets of neuroscience or the universe that you feel people aren't taking advantage of enough?

Some of the research that I've been looking at recently is about smell.

I feel like it's one of the most underrated senses.

Really?

Yeah, smell is the most emotive sense that we have.

Wow.

I'm not just safe because I tell myself I'm safe, but I'm safe because I believe in something greater.

Yes.

There's a lot of people suffering.

And like I said, you can sound like you're crazy if you start talking about stuff like this.

So you think we attract people based on our psychological wounds?

100%.

You meet people on the same level of psychological wound wound as you.

Oh, man.

You also leave people if you evolve out of that and they haven't been able to.

Wow.

For someone listening or watching this right now, what do they need to know about their brain, their mind, and how the universe works to support them?

Is there anything else?

I...

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Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness.

I'm very excited about our guest.

We have the inspiring Dr.

Tara Swart in the house.

So good to see you back.

Hi, so lovely to be back here.

I'm fascinated by you as a human, but also by your brain and how you think.

You're a neuroscientist, but you also study the universe and kind of the untold mysteries of the universe and how the brain actually manifests things and works within the universe, what the source of things is.

And you just have such a wide range of wisdom and knowledge.

And so I wanted to dive into...

manifestation and the science of manifestation to start.

And if you had to break down the science of manifestation in the simplest terms with a few steps on how people could start to apply it to their life as a neuroscientist, what would you say that would be?

Okay, so thank you for the lovely things that you've said about me.

And one of the things I really pride myself on is making complex subjects simple and accessible.

Yes.

Because I genuinely think what is the point of knowing anything if you can't help somebody to understand it and use it where it's going to make a really big difference to their life.

And I actually received a similar compliment on Instagram today and I don't I don't always write back.

I don't always have time to write back, but I said that is the best compliment.

Thank you.

So I'd like to approach this in a few ways.

The practical

road to manifestation, which is based on neuroplasticity because of my background, and that means the ability of your brain to change and grow, and therefore your ability to think differently, manage your emotions differently, act differently in the material world.

So based on that, manifestation is really just setting a goal or choosing an outcome and taking the actions that you have to to make that come true.

It's as simple as that.

But the neuroscience process starts with raised awareness.

So you know, if your life hasn't panned out exactly like you always dreamed it would, or you find yourself stuck or you find yourself repeatedly making the same kind of mistake, then you need to understand why, because you can't change it if you don't understand why you're not achieving the things you want, or, you know, what's holding you back, what's a barrier, what's an obstacle,

and indeed, what you could do differently.

So once you think, okay, this is not working for me, this is how I would rather my life should be, it's.

This is my vision, this is my dream, my goal, this is the outcome that I want.

Yeah.

It's not immediately a case of doing something.

Really?

It's not about taking action right away.

Not right away.

And, well,

I will like, you know, use you as an example of all the mental rehearsal that you did when you were doing the decathlon.

Yes.

You know, you know what you want to achieve with that decathlon, let's say with the pole vaulting.

Then you spend all those hours just like playing it over in your head.

Then you actually go out and do the practice pole vaulting, and then you compete.

So it's kind of like that.

So it's mental rehearsal visualization, then the physical practice, then the moment.

Yeah, and that's that makes sense for sport, right?

And I wanted to use something tangible so that people could get it.

But when it might be something more to do with I want to manage to regulate my emotions better or I want to stop,

you know, choosing the same kind of guy where the relationship always ends up badly,

then because it's a bit less tangible, the process that I've laid out is start with raised awareness and then a phase of being, not doing, which is focused attention, which is just notice when you fall back into old habits or notice

either the thought patterns or the behaviours that have, you know, been repeated over time and led to the same outcome that you don't want.

Once you've gathered some data, because

you know you have the awareness piece, but then you do kind of want to test, is this really true?

Like, you know, know, is that bad?

Or will it change if I do something differently?

Then you do the deliberate practice.

So that is going out, dating, applying for jobs or, you know, looking into starting up your own business,

maybe changing some health habits.

You actually then do them and see, like, what changes.

So do you sleep better?

Do you meet different types of people?

Um, does your network increase?

That kind of thing.

And the last part isn't so much a stage, but it's accountability, because as we we both know, people set a lot of good intentions and then don't always achieve them.

So it's either that you can achieve that yourself, like I'm really loving this app at the moment called Habit Share, and I've got 12 micro-habits on it, and I have to like tick them off every day.

And I find that if I do that and I focus on three for each quarter of the year,

then by the end of the year, I'll have at least 10 habits that I don't even think twice about anymore.

Yeah.

What are three of the most important habits you're focusing on right now?

Eating more protein, doing more weight-bearing exercise,

and

they're all so good.

I'm just trying to pick one.

I think one I'm really into at the moment is like listening to chanting or doing a mantra or doing tapping or like a hypnosis audio.

If I do one of those each day, I'm quite pleased with myself.

What is the ultimate mantra to start manifesting more of what you want?

And do you need to believe you're worthy of manifesting first before you can achieve it?

Yeah.

So I'll pick up on that second point because it is really, it's a really important factor in why people don't achieve the things they say they want because deep down they don't believe.

Yeah.

And if you bypass the belief, can you still manifest?

I don't think so.

Or not as well, let's put it that way.

So

let's, I'll give you an example of visualization and vision boards.

So you know I call vision boards action.

Vision boards.

I love that.

And that's to do with you going out into the real world and you know doing the actions that will bring your goals nearer to you and not just sitting at home fantasizing about things.

But I have come across quite a few people who say I've been through the magazines, I've cut out the pictures, I know exactly what I want, I can't bring myself to glue them onto the board.

Why?

Well, the first time someone said that, I challenged them really strongly and I said, I think that's because you don't believe you deserve them so we had a whole conversation about that and it turned out to be true so a couple of times again when I've heard people say that or I check more now I'm like have you actually stuck them down and put it somewhere prominent

because the putting it somewhere prominent is a risk as well I don't know if you recall that my first one was in the bathroom of my apartment and I was in a one-bedroom well I was in a studio apartment at the time so you could see it every moment yeah but also anyone that came to my house could see it

you know it's slightly uncomfortable particularly in Britain to be putting, this is how much money I want to earn.

Right.

This is the house I want, the dreams, the relationship.

Exactly.

The status, all of it.

But I said to myself, if you, you know, obviously only my like close friends were coming to my apartment.

If you can't even show it to them, how can you tell yourself that that's what you really want?

And that you're going to go out into the world and say, this is what I want.

And what was really lovely was actually my best friend's husband came over once and he obviously looked at it when he was in the bathroom and he said, oh, actually, I've got someone I could introduce you to about, you know, one of the things.

So it already helped me that I let other people see it.

Yeah, I've heard different research of like, don't tell anyone your goals because when you tell someone, you get a false sense of accomplishment of like excitement and joy that it's like, so you don't actually have to go make it happen because you're talking about it.

And then I've seen the other side where it's like, Let people know about your goals so that they can support you in accomplishing them.

Yeah, I mean, I think letting people know so they can support you is one thing, but talking about it does not necessarily mean that you don't have to go and do something.

You can talk about it and go and do something.

And because the brain doesn't like uncertainty, you may have some fear around actually grasping opportunities that are related to the things that you want.

But if you've done the visualization, if you've talked about it, if you've felt in all your senses what it feels like for it to be true, and you've given gratitude for that, you have set your brain up to be in the love trust end of the emotional spectrum with oxytocin flowing around your blood, making you much more willing to take a healthy risk, to collaborate, to think outside of the books and reducing because it's kind of a seesaw effect

the cortisol, the stress hormone, that will drive your amygdala and hippocampus, the emotional and memory centers of your brain,

in fear or stress, what happens is that your brain brain will bring to the front of your mind every single time you asked that girl out and she said no.

And it will say, don't, don't go and ask anyone out because you remember what happened when you were that geeky teenager.

You got rejected.

Yeah, exactly.

So we have to really set our brains up to override that because that's kind of a survival safety mechanism.

So gratitude moves us from cortisol to oxytocin.

And talking passionately about what you want moves you from cortisol to oxytocin.

Is there ever too much gratitude someone can express where it actually hurts you or doesn't benefit you?

I don't think so.

I mean can you give me an example of that?

I mean I feel like it's one of those things that is just always good for you isn't it?

Well yeah that's why I'm I'm asking is because I feel like I'm incorporating gratitude throughout my entire day from the moment I wake up

to after activities, to when I see people that I'm talking to or in person.

I'm I'm expressing it, feeling it.

When people say, how's your day?

I say I'm very grateful.

I'm just constantly trying to focus on that emotional state because I know the more gratitude that I focus on, the more abundance comes my way.

I truly believe that gratitude is the gateway to abundance.

It's the gateway to peace, to health, to freedom, emotional freedom.

And it creates a lot of perspective.

If I'm not grateful, it means something's lacking.

It means something is off.

It means something's negative.

Or it's neutral, which I guess is fine too.

And so it doesn't mean I should bypass spiritually when something is broken or when something is off or I'm being emotionally triggered or abused or a boundary is being crossed.

It don't just say, ah, la-di-da-da, everything's okay.

But it is reflecting on those painful moments and saying, oh.

Those were challenging and hard moments, but I'm grateful for the lessons and the wisdom now.

So it's finding the meaning in the mess as well.

I was going to say exactly the same thing.

So I think I was going to use the term spiritual bypass as well.

If

something very bad or difficult is happening in this moment, if you are suffering in this moment, of course we are not expecting people to say, I'm grateful that I'm in emotional pain or loss.

But it is about

getting to the point where you can say,

what did I learn from that?

And one of the things I've started doing recently, I've had a gratitude practice for a long time, is when I've been feeling particularly low and thinking, I don't know what I can do now to like

deal with these emotions, I think, okay, what are 10 things I'm grateful for?

And that really helps.

So it doesn't have to be about the difficult situation itself.

Yeah.

I'm not grateful for this pain that I'm going through, but I'm grateful for my dog.

I'm grateful for my parents.

I'm grateful for something else near life.

I mean, to be honest, sometimes it's just, I'm grateful to be alive and and I'm grateful that my health is in good shape because that's such a, you know, if you've got those two things, people that don't have those two things would want that so, so much.

Give anything for their health.

Exactly.

Right, yeah.

I'm curious, are there any secrets?

Because I feel like you study the secrets of neuroscience and the secrets of the universe and spirituality.

You kind of blend them all, which I think is powerful with your book, especially The Source.

Are there any secrets of neuroscience or the universe that you feel people aren't taking advantage of enough that they could be?

This is a very interesting question with potentially a massive

array of answers.

Some of the research that I've been looking at recently through my academic position at MIT is about smell.

And so I feel like it's one of the most underrated senses.

But the pandemic kind of made people realize that actually when you lose it, it's noticeable.

You know, you kind of take it for granted.

But then if you don't have it, it's really noticeable.

And

smell or olfaction, as it's called in neuroscience, is really

special because of our five senses, the other four, so for example the optic nerve, has to travel from here all the way around your skull to the occipital lobe because our visual cortexes are here.

Interesting.

Yeah.

But the olfactory bulb, which comes out to the top of our nose, the nerve only goes back about an inch to go to,

it goes through this like netting area at the top of our nose called the epithelial cells or the epithelium and then right behind that are the amygdala and hippocampus and that's why smell is the most emotive sense that we have so if I ask you what smell most strongly evokes a childhood memory for you what would you say oh man let me think

I'm thinking of like

hot chocolate, cookies, baking.

I'm thinking of like, you know, Christmas time, something like that.

Yeah.

Like pumpkin pie, some type of smell like that.

Very warm, homely smell.

Yeah, yeah.

And do they remind you of your parents' home or your grandparents' home?

My parents' home.

Yeah, my parents' home.

So they say when you smell something that reminds you of your parents' or grandparents' home, you get what's called an avalanche of memory because there was so much going on in those formative years, you know, and you are learning about the world through your relationship with your primary caregivers.

And so smells that take you back to that time actually like release a whole torrent of memory.

That's interesting.

And so I I guess if you had a traumatic experience growing up around those smells, then that smell could recreate trauma within your nervous system as well.

Or it could recreate a nostalgic, loving, homey feeling based on the memory, correct?

Absolutely correct.

And so one of the reasons that kids who got car sick when they'd had family holidays, road trips, usually hate the smell of petrol or diesel or what you call gasoline.

Wow.

Because it reminds them of that sickness.

Because they felt felt, yeah.

Wow.

That's fascinating.

So I'm one of those.

I really dislike the smell because I would get car sick

on those little...

I love a road trip, but I hate that smell.

Interesting.

Yeah.

You got to go electric then.

You got to get the electric.

Yeah, yeah.

I'll have to.

So what is it about smell then that we should be thinking about and how we can use it as a superpower for our life?

So there are people who are super smellers and the professor that I was talking to actually said he thinks I'm one of them, which is really interesting.

What is a super smeller?

Because Because I feel like I have a very sensitive nose.

Do you?

I feel like I do.

Like I notice smells all the time.

Okay, that's quite unusual because more women are way more women are super smellers than men.

I think a part of it was, I don't know,

nurture because my dad used to smell everything.

So maybe I started picking that up as a kid of being like, oh, let me smell everything that I'm like drinking or eating or just...

When I enter a room, I just kind of emulated what he did, I guess.

So I don't know if that's

nurture as well as nature, I guess.

I mean, that's neuroplasticity, right?

So maybe you wouldn't have been such a super smeller if you hadn't learned that as a child.

Exactly.

So interestingly, olfactory enrichment is beneficial to your brain, and that means smelling lots of different things like you do.

Really?

Yeah, it helps to improve memory and cognition as we age.

So it's actually implicated in dementia research now.

Okay.

So how does someone develop the,

what do you call it, a super smeller?

Yeah, they call it a super smeller, but it may not necessarily get you there, but in your house, if you have flowers or, you know, scented candles, but obviously ones with natural waxes and essential oils rather than false perfumes.

Yes.

Diffusers,

maybe in your bathroom, you have a lot of like, you know, products that smell nice as well.

The more you expose yourself to different smells throughout the day,

you're enriching the olfactory senses and that part of your brain.

And because they're so close to your memory centers, it's actually inducing neuroplasticity in that area and improving your memory.

Now, how does smell

support you or hurt you when you're trying to enter new relationships?

Either romantically, career, business, you know, friends?

How does smell,

how is it incorporated in relationships?

Brilliant question.

So we're very visual.

So I would say that that's probably the top one in terms of attraction or even if it's not sexual attraction if it's in a team at work then kind of knowing who your tribe is

is primarily visual also

secondly I would say we're auditory so if you like someone's voice or accent that can have quite a strong impact on you as well so I like being around you

my friend Lily actually sent me a voice note saying Tara, darling, I'm listening to you on a podcast and your voice is like up there with David Attenborough, so relaxing.

So that was a huge compliment.

But thank you.

Yeah.

I'm just going to text you.

Please send me a voice note today.

Tell me something positive.

I'll send you an affirmation every day.

There we go.

Yeah.

And I think third, we come to smell because

yeah.

I was just thinking about taste and touch.

You're obviously not going to go there.

You smell the person, right?

So think about it like this.

Let's say there was, cool, let's keep it real.

Let's say there was a very famous, beautiful actress that you were super attracted to.

And then, and this is not about Martha, but then you met her and she had really bad breath.

Oh, interesting.

That would put you off, right?

Yes.

So it's more of a detractor than particularly a primary attractor.

You know, you're not going to

choose someone because they smell really nice if you don't like what they look like.

Right, right.

Probably.

But if they look good, but they don't smell pleasing to your nose, then it's going to push you away from them.

Possibly.

And there's a scientific explanation for that, which is called the major histocompatibility complex.

And that is actually the

imprint of our immune system.

And non-consciously, we can smell that in a potential partner.

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So if someone has a bad smell where they have a smell of anxiety, stress, and overwhelm,

do we attract that if we're also overwhelmed, stressed, and anxious?

Or do we repel that and want someone else who has a smell of peace and a healthy immune system?

Well, I just want to be really like, I want to stay very clear.

I love this analogy, but in terms of the science, we're not necessarily smelling those words that you've used.

Sure, sure.

With the stress thing, I think we talked about this last time, that cortisol is contagious.

So you would be impacted by the cortisol having a

physiological impact on your stress levels.

From someone else.

Yeah.

So you can smell the stress on someone.

No, I want to separate those things.

So

the stress hormone leaps out around us and it affects each other's blood levels of the stress hormone.

Wow.

I wouldn't say that we can't say scientifically at the moment that you're actually smelling that, but it's having an impact on your blood levels.

The smell thing is more to do with the immune system.

And so what's super interesting is that we're more likely to be attracted to people who have a very different immune system pattern to us because of the benefit on potential children of having a much broader immune system.

Also, the people that you live with, you actually start to

give each other immune cells.

So usually it goes from the person with the healthiest microbiome to downwards basically.

And that's because you are either like sleeping next to them in bed, you're sharing the same crockery and cutlery, you're sharing the same bathroom, you're kissing, you're having sex.

So there's a lot of exchange of bodily fluids.

And in that is

the gut micro, the bacteria as well.

Wow.

Wow.

So

are we more attracted to people with different immune systems then?

Yeah.

Through our sense of smell?

Is that what it is?

Like if they have a diverse immune system from us, we will find that more attractive.

Really?

That's interesting.

So how do we know if someone has a diverse immune system outside of smell if we don't have that ability to smell?

Well, it's not conscious.

So you're not saying, you're not kind of like saying, I can smell that

different immune system.

You're just like loving the smell of this person.

Interesting.

Is that pheromones or what is that?

Is that like a...

Yeah, I guess.

Is that hormones?

Pheromones, hormones, everything that's leaking out of the sweat.

That's interesting.

Yeah.

And I sweat a lot, so I'm glad Martha likes me.

Yeah.

Oh, hopefully it smells good.

As long as it smells good to her.

Yeah, it's all better.

That's right.

Yeah, exactly.

What else should we know about

smell in relationships?

Is there anything else we should know about this?

In relationships, I wouldn't say that there's that much more, but just bringing it back around to this super smeller thing,

do you know about medical detection dogs that can detect cancer?

I've heard this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the research that I'm very interested in, that's the reason I was having this discussion with this guy is that he's actually made a simulated nose that can detect cancer to the same level as

well.

Wow.

It's amazing.

That's fascinating.

I know.

And also in

nursing homes, cat where they have cats and dogs, you know, just to like give people company and comfort, they go and sit outside the doors of people that are about to die in the next few days because when we're dying our organs start to die off in a certain order and that lysis of cells cell death otherwise known as apoptosis or um

lysis

they they can smell that because obviously they're they're down on the ground they've got a lot more smell receptors than us because in the animal kingdom they're not finding their partner attractive because of visuals they're doing it more on smell interesting yeah wow so what cats and dogs will sit outside of a nursing home of like the door of someone who's about to pass yeah really even if it's not yet known by the medical staff that that person is

they just do this intuitively why

through smell but why do they are they trained to do this or do they just kind of do this because they want to bring comfort to that person or

so the medical detection dogs are obviously trained to detect detect cancers but what we see in nursing homes is there's no training involved.

It's just that because they can smell it, they go and sit, yeah, they go and sit there, they want to offer comfort, maybe they want to signal to the staff that this is something that's happening.

That is fascinating.

I know.

Wow.

So what I think is, in terms of us being able to expand our consciousness,

is that if there are biological models, and by that I mean cats and dogs that can smell death or bats that can hear things that we can't hear, dolphins, you know, flies that can see things that we can't see.

If there are biological models that can do that,

is it possible that we can do more of that?

That's interesting.

And I'm applying that to cognitive science, because obviously that's my area.

And the question I love asking people is, have you ever thought of someone that you haven't been in touch with for a while and suddenly they message you?

Has that ever happened to you?

Yeah, of course.

So everybody says, of course.

Is that why you messaged me the other day?

No, that was because it was your birthday.

Exactly.

But if it was the birthday.

The beauty of everyone.

That's why I'm getting messages.

I know.

So

if that phenomenon happens.

Why is that?

Why does that happen when you're thinking of someone and then the next day they text you or call you?

Well, we don't know, but that's what I'm so excited to dive into now.

Fascinating, right?

Because if you can control that, then what are the possibilities?

So if you had a hypothesis on why we think of something and then that person calls you or, you know, someone, or two people are talking about you, and then you call those people,

what do you think, based on neuroscience, that is, if you had a guess?

I'm going to give you a science answer and a spiritual answer.

Because, you know, it has to be a lot of people.

Let's go.

The science answer is mostly based on Carl Jung's psychological theories about the collective unconscious, which means that on some level that we are not consciously aware of, there is a connection between our psyches.

And a couple of examples of this are at the start of the pandemic, there was a global phenomenon of vivid dreaming.

And that hasn't happened in the world since the last world war.

Globally, this was happening.

Yeah.

So literally, like, you know, me in my country house in England, you in LA, someone in a tiny village in Africa, we were all experiencing that, and it was mostly anxiety-based, which completely makes sense, right?

But for people

in very, very different circumstances, and dreaming is a huge part of our emotional processing,

that was going on.

Then there's the example of people saying you thought of somebody and then they messaged you.

Twins definitely seem to have a higher level of being able to know if the other one's thinking about them.

So that is to do with

the only explanation that we have for that at the moment is this potential collective unconscious idea.

And then,

because I've been doing some research into the First American cultures,

one of the things I've learnt is that our construct of time as linear, which is that there's a past, a present and a future, Well, that's a man-made construct.

We don't actually know how time works.

A lot of the First American nations believe that time happens in a spiral and so as you are progressing through your life you are passing by times and things and people that you've passed by before

and most people just have blinkers on and aren't aware of that at all but if you're more open to the fact that time works in a different way then you would understand that there's no such thing as coincidence or serendipity.

It's because

you're mentally passing through places that you've been been past before.

At the same time?

Or you're going back in time?

Or

it's no, not at the you're not going back in time.

I don't think we can do that yet.

But you're passing close to, you know, let's call it memories or emotions or intuitions that

we're not normally...

they're not in our brain.

They might be...

What we're thinking now is that the brain is filtering our mind down to survive in this material world, and that actually our consciousness could be much bigger than that.

And areas of research I've looked at around that are things like, I'll explain these terms in a minute if you don't know what they are, terminal lucidity, near-death experiences and past life memories.

So terminal lucidity is when someone who's got dementia or they've had a stroke or a brain injury suddenly becomes completely lucid.

So they go from not recognizing their own children, not even knowing that they have children anymore, to suddenly saying, Louis, son, come here.

I want to say something to you that's really important to me.

And usually they die within one to 24 hours of that happening.

It's like when they come back to like who they were or where they are now, it's like quickly the end is coming soon.

The end is coming.

Why is that?

We don't know why, but there's a lot.

Basically, there's this amazing doctor called Dr.

Alexander Bathiani, this is his life's work.

He's

head of of the Viktor Frankl Institute and from that lineage of Austrian psychologists that are kind of super famous.

And so he's documented many cases of this.

That means that a brain that, if you scanned it, would show a lot of damage, can fully retain its consciousness.

But we can't control that yet, but we can see that it can happen, right?

People who report near-death experiences, and this includes some high-profile doctors and scientists now

basically

say that and this is proven through you know they were in cardiac arrest for a certain amount of time they flatlined their EEG also flatlined for longer than you would think anyone could survive without oxygen

come back and they're alive again and they have you know a lot of A lot of stuff happens around that in terms of like spiritual awakening and like how you view life and death.

But the main point is, your brain became completely inactive and starved of oxygen for a length of time that we don't believe is possible to recover from five ten twenty minutes and then you did yeah fully back to full consciousness

it's and it just

so so

you can't we can't all have a near-death experience right

yeah

but in tibetan um buddhism They do dark retreats to stimulate a near-death experience.

In the really ancient cultures like the Greeks and Egyptians, they used to bury people for days.

But these people became the mystics and the seers of those communities.

So

just the fact that we've got, I'm so excited about this, you know, that we've got brain scanning technology now.

We've got really sophisticated technology.

We know about, we're becoming, we're remembering some of these things that we knew a long time ago.

The thought of putting those two things together and, you know, especially with AI rising right next to to us like it is,

I just, I just feel it's got so much potential for humanity.

How many dimensions is our mind capable of being in?

So

I was just at this conference, which is a super spiritual one, a little bit even on the edge for me.

Fringe, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And

yeah, so there was a speaker talking about going from three dimensions to five dimensions.

And I...

Because we're in 3D right now.

Yeah.

But the goal is, I guess the goal to manifest would be to get into 5D

more frequently, isn't that correct?

Yeah.

And when I really sort of tried to pin her down on how do you actually do this, it comes down to...

And what is the difference between 3D and 5D as a neuroscientist?

I have to say, I'm not an expert on this, but it's obviously

opening up the dimensions of your mind and your consciousness to

one of the things that she mentions, and I'm not saying that there's science to this right now, but I think it's very interesting, is opening up channels of communication to the angelic realms.

So

actually, I didn't really give you the context for this, which is that since the pandemic, people have lost loved ones to actual death.

A lot of relationships broke down, and I'm talking marriages, friendships, working relationships, and

A lot of, you know, mental health problems are massively on the rise.

And that involves this loss of sense of self, this loss of purpose.

I don't know who I am anymore.

I can't trust my gut anymore.

And so, I'm trying to find the answers to help people who've been through that.

And if you take grief as an example,

if you think that somebody in your family or a very close friend died, and you're never going to see them again, and you're never going to hear from them again, and you have to carry on in this life,

that must be so painful.

And I don't know how people can ever necessarily get over that.

If you believe that our

consciousness doesn't disappear with physical death, and that if we learn how to expand our minds

to

access different planes, that potentially you could remain connected and bonded in some kind of way to a person that you loved very much in this life,

wouldn't you want that?

So how do we start to train our brain to

unlock new dimensions outside of this three-dimensional world?

I am going to take it back to this raised awareness that we talked about

because

I guess you'd have to be open to thinking that it's possible.

Because if you're closed-minded to it, then you're not going to be able to create that.

No.

And you'll just think

that it's going to be a waste of your time because it's not going to work.

Yes.

So I would like to pose hypotheses to people like the one that I just said to you.

Like if you thought that there could be some way that you can remain connected to someone that you'd lost, wouldn't you want that?

Well if because your answer was yes and your answer wasn't well of course I would but it's not possible.

You know like

there's going to be all sorts of answers that people would give.

Then I would ask you to operate on the basis that that might be true.

And so that could look like different things for different people that could be have a conversation with that person in your head or have a conversation with that person out loud i mean i think that richard e grant very famously says i was married to my wife for so long that i kind of know the answer that she would give so i have conversations with her in my head as if they're between me and her but obviously it's my brain that's kind of creating the answer but it is based on what I think she would say.

So that's

that's acceptable to most people.

Yes.

That would be acceptable.

You could take it further and people often report that they experience

words or thoughts in their head that they don't believe are theirs.

However, you're now veering into how I would diagnose someone with schizophrenia.

Right, I'm hearing voices.

Yeah, yeah.

And thought insertion is also a diagnostic symptom of schizophrenia.

Thought insertion.

Yeah, so that's there are thoughts in my head that aren't my own.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Are all of our thoughts our own thoughts?

I mean, I just think this is becoming questionable.

I can't give you the definitive answer to that, but if I...

And where do our thoughts come from?

Exactly.

I mean, that's called the hard problem of neuroscience because it

isn't a full understanding of whether our thoughts only arise from neurons and chemicals.

or whether we're a higher being than that and we have the ability to feel these emotions and have thoughts and then the neurochemical response is a consequence of that.

Something that people have been arguing about literally forever.

So, you know, without all the answers, I would just ask people to explore.

Another thing that you can do that is just like a very joyous one is,

so I'm, I've got this hashtag that I often use called I find hearts.

And I literally like

everywhere.

And it's just, you know, it's just so sweet.

And people love it and they send me their pictures of the same.

So up until recently, that's always been random.

Like I'll be walking and then I'll see like a,

you know, like a defect in the pavement, but it's heart-shaped kind of thing.

But one thing that I've started experimenting with is asking for specific signs that are really unusual things that you wouldn't expect to see in certain places and then just seeing what happens and writing into my journal.

Like almost asking for a sign to confirm something or to say, show me something unusual or show me this if I should take this direction or what do you mean?

Yeah, so I wouldn't say show me something unusual.

I would specify what it is.

Show me a pink elephant

in the middle of the night or whatever.

Maybe not that specific.

Maybe just a pink elephant.

It's too unique to you.

Show me a pink elephant if I'm supposed to take this action.

Yeah, that kind of thing.

Okay.

And you could easily say that really it's just your intuition.

And we understand how intuition works now.

But you could also extrapolate it to being about something else.

And that's kind of where I want to push our thinking.

What does neuroscience tell us about signs, signals, and synchronicities?

Are they

something we should be paying attention to based on neuroscience and brain chemistry?

Or is it more spiritual woo-woo?

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Well,

neuroscience doesn't tell us anything about that or much, let's say, about that at the moment, but that's why I'm probably going to write another book, which I said I would never do.

But I'm just so fascinated by this.

So when I get back

to London, I'm going to start like properly doing the research on this.

So far, it's been kind of something I'm interested in.

And I have to say, I wasn't sure if my book publisher would be okay with it.

Um,

and about these things, science, signals, synchronicities?

Yeah, well, that's fascinating.

I love that stuff.

And I think that it coming from a neuroscientist is a new angle.

It's not that there aren't books out there on this kind of thing.

Um,

but I really want to open up that conversation as well because there's a lot of people suffering.

And

like I said, you can sound like you're crazy if you start talking about stuff like this.

So I want to open up the conversation,

being open, but trying to keep it as rigorous as possible to give people permission to come forward and share these stories.

Because I think that's only going to be good for everyone.

Wow.

That's cool.

So when someone sees the signs, signals, and synchronicities happening in their life, what do you think that's telling them?

That they're on the right path, that they should be paying attention more, that they be trusting their intuition more when they're seeing these three things.

Google.

So

I feel like what it says, and somebody said this to me actually the last time I was in LA, but it had to land really emotionally for me to

believe it.

And that's what I want for everyone, is it tells you that you are being guided and it tells you that you're safe and protected.

All right.

And one of the things I picked up from you a couple of years ago was that you said

sometimes, you know, if I'm feeling like in an emotional crisis, I just say to myself, I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm safe.

And I can't tell you how many times I've used that in the last two years.

Wow, that's beautiful.

But that's kind of like self-soothing the inner child, right?

Yes.

With this kind of interest and more esoteric things that I've had like since I met you that time,

I'd like to think that it's not I'm not just safe because I tell myself I'm safe, but I'm safe because I believe in something greater.

Yes.

And I'm tapping into it and I'm allowing it to make me feel safe.

Because

however good you become psychologically at soothing yourself, you can still feel very alone.

So feeling like...

Unless you have a deeper spiritual connection to something.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that's what I meant to say.

Wow.

That's fascinating.

Do you believe that we can

be in

beautiful, healthy, loving relationships?

And we can manifest everything we have on our vision or action boards if we have yet to heal the wounds of our childhood

as a neuroscientist?

No.

Really?

Wow.

So if we have these visions and dreams and goals that we want to go after, if we want to have a beautiful relationship, but we are wounded still, the inner child is wounded inside of us as adults, what will happen to us?

So this is really about inner child and shadow, right?

So I think people understand that you've got an inner child that maybe didn't get over things that you experienced in your childhood.

Shadow is about the parts of yourself that you've rejected because as a young child, you rely on your primary caregivers for survival.

Yes.

And if there is something that they don't love about you, you want to hide that for all the world so that they will still love you and like not let you die.

You don't want anyone to know this about you.

No.

That's shame.

So you hide it away in childhood and often find yourself in adulthood no longer even aware of what those things are because you've rejected them so deeply.

Wow.

Yeah.

But that's driving a lot of your unconscious behavior.

Right.

So if you put together the inner child and the shadow, then what happens is you meet people on the same level of psychological wound as you.

Oh, man.

You also leave people

if you evolve out of that and they haven't been able to.

Wow.

Which I think goes back to one of the things, one of the pieces of content I heard you talk about, which is like the sense of smell connecting to someone's stress levels or anxiety levels.

Like you'll kind of attract a similar nervous system or I guess a certain similar like, I don't know, stress level.

Yeah, it's not, it's not, it's not smell.

It's it's it's sensing, sensing, not through smell, the level of the stress hormone.

Yeah.

Interesting.

But that's short term, right?

But the inner chard and shadow stuff is longer term.

Gosh, that's fascinating.

Yeah.

So you think we attract people based on our psychological wounds?

100%.

Wow.

And as we start to heal and grow, if the other person's not healing and growing, we kind of pull away.

Wow.

That's interesting.

Oh, I can see the cogs moving in your head.

I I just think it's fascinating.

Speaking, I guess, about relationships and men and women, with all of your expertise on the brain, is the process of manifesting love and falling in love different for men versus women?

I think if it's love you're really looking for, then it's not different.

Not lust.

Yeah, exactly.

The issue is to what you're actually looking for.

So you think men and women manifest love the same way, similar ways?

Yeah, I think if, you know, if you want that sense of partnership and friendship and intimacy and you want to be loyal and you want it to be for the long term, then it doesn't matter what gender you are.

But if the disconnect is often, and you know, this is a bit of a stereotype, but usually it's more that men, sorry, that women want a loving, stable relationship and men perhaps, you know, don't want that as much.

Want sex or whatever it is.

Yeah.

Or don't, you know, just don't want it right now.

Go through periods where that's what they want and go through periods where that's not what they want, which I guess could be true of any gender as well.

But overall, more likely women will want to like be in a monogamous relationship.

Why is that based on kind of the brain slides?

Um so it comes from evolution.

So when we lived in the cave women did need men to protect them from predators and to hunt for food.

So women.

Especially if they were pregnant too and they weren't able to go out and hunt or gather or whatever it might be.

They I mean, they generally didn't hunt as much, so they gathered more.

But then it's hard to get protein from what you gather rather than what you hunt.

So for survival, and you know, they use the

fat and the skins and everything.

So it wasn't just food, it was shelter and

fire and you know, all of that kind of stuff.

So although we don't necessarily need

a man for those physical things now,

it's a very strong survival wiring in the brain.

And so what we have, you know, in the cave, we lived nomadically.

So often the men would go and hunt and be away for a very long time.

Or if they went far enough and they found a cave

of the same tribe, they would just stay there and not go back.

Why risk your life to travel back for, you know, six weeks?

Right.

But over time.

A lot of societies in the modern world have asked people to live in unit families.

And so we have seen men's brains be rewired.

Right.

Yeah.

Quite recently, relatively recently, like maybe in the last 10 years, research has showed that when you become a dad for the first time, oxytocin rewires your brain so that you're more into bonding and less into the testosterone competitive stuff.

Because if you think about it, lions and tigers, they'll eat their own children.

You have to tame that in some ways, right?

Yeah.

But how do you tame it?

but also harness it in other ways.

You know what I mean?

It's like a dance of like having drive and testosterone.

Yeah.

Like, I never want to lose that drive, right?

I get this question all the time.

But I also want to be like a great, loving parent and partner and all these things

and not let testosterone drive me in doing damaging things.

Yeah.

So, well,

so from about the age of 35, your testosterone will have started dropping significantly already.

Not mine.

No, it's gone.

Once testosterone tends to have drop from that age.

So

when you do become a dad.

It drops after you become a dad?

For the first time.

Oxytocin goes up, testosterone drops.

You become much more about like cuddling and bonding and wanting to stay in the home and look after the

mum and the baby.

Less about like lifting and like hunting, right?

Yeah.

Interesting.

If you keep lifting, then you would actually like keep your testosterone levels higher.

Also, if the baby sleeps in the same room as you, then your testosterone levels drop even more.

Come on.

So you might want to move out for three months to a different bedroom.

Yeah.

I've already told her I'm getting my sleep, you know, the first few months.

So your testosterone drops?

If you sleep in the same room as the baby.

Why is that?

Because you're because the oxytocin's becoming like, you know, higher and higher because you've got this cute little warm thing that smells so nice and is so like vulnerable and dependent on you and it's like in the room with you the whole eight hours, you know, just oxytocin boost.

But are women attracted to men with less testosterone um they are when they're not fertile but they are not when they are at peak fertility

really so mid-cycle when you're ovulating you're going to want a bad boy and the rest of the time you're going to want a nice man that will stay at home and help you look after the baby so if you're not a bad boy when you're at peak fertility as a woman Is that going to hurt the relationship if you don't give women what they want?

Hang on, say that again.

So if a man is not a a bad boy, not a bad boy, when a woman is at peak fertility

and the man just wants to cuddle and chill and not be driven by testosterone and give the woman that that testosterone feel,

will that ultimately hurt the relationship long term if the woman doesn't get what she wants sexually?

I mean, I think if she's chosen him by then.

So this is more about when you're like in the choosing phase.

Once you've settled down with someone, then you have like a logical conversation about are we trying for a baby or not, right?

Um, but logic and emotion are two different things

in relationships, you know.

You might logically say, Okay, I'm safe, but emotionally you want something else.

This is a reason that people cheat, right?

Right, because they're not getting what they want sexually.

Yeah,

and so it's like, how do you suppress the thing you want sexually to be like, oh, but he's such a good guy, or he's this.

And but if he's not giving me what I want, then I'm going to go find it from this other younger testosterone German man, right?

You're getting really jealous here.

Not getting jealous.

This fantasy, younger, high testosterone man.

Well, I'm just thinking, is this what women deal with?

I know.

Is this what women deal with?

Yeah, to some extent, you know, more consciously or less consciously, depending on the woman.

Yeah.

It's interesting, right?

So let me kind of explain the physiology behind it from the research that we know the best.

Yes.

Which is in prairie voles.

So there are two types of voles in America.

Marsh or mountain voles.

Voles?

What's a vole?

Vole.

It's a little rat-like creature.

Prairie dogs?

No.

Not prairie dogs.

It's a vole.

It's more like a mouse or a rat.

Okay, cool.

Yeah.

The ones that live in the marsh or the mountain, they have plenty of food and plenty of shelter, and they're super promiscuous.

The ones that moved to the prairie, where there's like scarce food and shelter, they snuggle in and settle down and become monogamous for life.

The same rat.

the same mouse, but just living in different areas.

Yeah.

Come on.

So wait, you're telling me rats are monogamous?

These voles.

These voles are monogamous.

The voles are monogamous.

If they live in the prairie.

If they live in the prairie, but not if they live in a market.

But if they have a...

But if they have all the food and abundance, they're just...

And lots of female voles that they can go and visit.

They're just little polyamorous voles.

Because they know that if

they get

one vole pregnant and she's left on her own to look after her young, they're going to survive because they're well sheltered.

There's plenty of food for her to nip out and bring it back to the babies.

Yeah.

But in the prairie, if he was promiscuous, then the chances of his offspring dying are quite high because she can't defend the nest herself.

She can't find enough food for herself and them without help.

And so let's extrapolate this.

How does this help humans, right?

Okay.

Well, first off, which mice are happier?

The ones that are more promiscuous or the ones that are coupled?

I think it depends on the bowl.

So you think the female mice are happy if they just, you know,

are pregnant, but then their partner just leaves?

No, they're not happy.

No.

How do we know?

Can we test that?

Okay, so how do we apply this?

No, no, no, no, no.

There is an answer to that.

We test it through levels of oxytocin and and vasopressin.

Come on, have we done this?

Have people done this?

No way.

From these mice?

Yeah.

Wow, that's crazy.

And actually, just to be serious, the research has done more to help with loneliness, grief, and heartbreak.

But obviously, it's got implications for dating.

Wow.

So, because one of the things that we saw with the receptors in the brain is that...

Like if

if I'm in...

No, it's got to be the other way around.

If you're in love with me, you've got more vasopressin receptors in your nucleus accumbens, which is on the reward circuitry.

And then every time you see me, you get a reward.

And the longer that we've been dating and stay together and become closer, that reward becomes more intense every time you see me.

However, if we then had a prolonged separation,

Time can down-regulate the effect of those receptors.

So obviously there are implications for that in a breakup or grief, right?

Right.

But one of the things I think is like so, so important for dating

is that if

a woman, if a couple are getting to know each other, and this is all on like heterosexual couples in research,

then as a woman is sexually interested and liking the guy and enjoying the dating, her oxytocin levels is like slowly, slowly starting to go up.

When they start actually having sex, she's going to be releasing higher higher levels of oxytocin every time she orgasms, and that's going to make her bond to the guy much more.

If you have sex on the first date,

the guy's vasopressin levels will plummet straight away, and all he'll be interested in is testosterone.

If you make him wait, his vasopressin and oxytocin levels go up,

and then when you do actually have sex, he's already bonded, so it's more likely to become part of a loving relationship.

Wow.

So, if a woman sleeps with a man on the first date or two,

is a man

driven to want to bond long-term with that person?

No.

Why not?

Because the vasopressin levels drop as soon as he has sex.

What does that mean?

So vasopressin is the one that makes the prairie bowl monogamous.

The higher the levels of that.

and that the receptors appear in the reward circuitry of your brain.

And so basically, if you see your partner in distress, it

affects your brain, those neurons, and you want to comfort her through physical touch.

So that's oxytocin.

But

if you haven't had time for those receptors to appear in the correct place to make you bond, then it's just, it's just, you know, it goes back to lust.

So

what I say about love and relationships is that

the genetics and the receptors will load the gun,

but sexual activity will pull the trigger.

So based on neuroscience, if you sleep with someone quickly,

you're less likely to bond long-term together.

You're more likely to be promiscuous or just not be as interested in that person long-term.

Is that right?

Okay.

That's fascinating.

No.

But you hear a lot of people just be like, you know, just sleep with them on the first day.

It's fun.

Just have fun.

You know, it's all good.

But I just feel like you're setting yourself up for

let down.

But if that's what you want, that's fine.

But I think don't expect the guy to keep liking you after that.

No.

And don't say it's fine and it's fun if you actually want a long-term relationship and then be disappointed that they didn't want that too.

Yeah.

So the brain chemistry within a man changes after if they have sex earlier with a woman.

And it changes in a different way if they wait and they actually like

create a bond and then first yeah and then have sex yeah what changes within a woman when they have sex with a man

do they become more bonded to the person

yeah so for the woman it's not so much to do with whether they are already in love with the person or not if they're having sex and they're releasing oxytocin because they don't we don't have as much testosterone as you you've got at least seven to eight times as much testosterone as me and that buffers the effect of oxytocin whereas i would get the full effect of oxytocin

That's fascinating.

So a woman, when they have sex with a man, they're bonding quicker.

Yeah.

But when a man has sex with a woman, he's not necessarily bonding right away.

He has to have more time connecting with her until he bonds.

That is interesting.

And then sex will...

Then the oxytocin isn't as buffered by the testosterone.

So when you've got the vasopressin and the oxytocin high,

then the testosterone has less negating effect on it.

This is fascinating.

Okay.

What else about neuroscience and relationships should we address since we're on this topic that you think is really interesting?

So I think, you know, the whole like visual and smell thing at start is quite interesting.

And then the receptors and hormones to do with bonding and sex is really interesting.

I would say that because we live so much longer now, you know, we're using these cave analogies, but to be honest, in cave times, you and I would both be dead.

Die at 30, yeah.

So relationships potentially have to last for longer.

And I think there's two things to say here.

One is that you can use neuroplasticity to keep growing and changing in a way that keeps a relationship fresh

if you are holding on to this fantasy that a relationship has to last forever, even if we're now living till we're 100, right?

So I think another way to look at it is about being in the present, not necessarily putting this intense pressure on yourself, your partner, and the relationship that it has to last forever.

Understanding that

even if a relationship breaks down and that's obviously difficult to handle at the time, that there are potential possibilities for something that's more right for you at a different age than maybe a choice you made in your 20s.

So,

you know, nothing, you don't have to be a neuroscientist to say those two things.

It's kind of like just using your brain to understand that there's a certain amount of time,

there are,

you know, benefits to being in long-lasting relationships,

but there are possible alternatives as well.

Yeah, that's interesting.

I want to go back to what we were talking about a little bit before in terms of

3D, 5D brain states.

I guess my question is,

what is the,

you know, we're in the three-dimensional world right now, 3D.

But from my understanding,

5D allows us to manifest faster.

It's like skipping time.

It's not saying you have to push things forward in the physical, the material world.

You're

jumping time, in a sense.

That makes sense.

And when we use our brain to think about something,

we're sending a signal into space, into time, space, our environment, consciousness.

We're putting a signal out into the world.

And maybe sometimes when we think about someone, we're sending that signal to the other person, right?

Potentially.

And if we send the signal out consistently, we're signaling to the world.

And if we fill our hearts with love and gratitude and harmony and peace in a beautiful state, a flourishing state of abundance, we're signaling something out and we're drawing it back in through the heart.

Is that a bunch of baloney or is that something that you can back by science to support our energy, our thoughts, our way of being, and connect it to the actions we take on a daily basis?

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That's a really beautiful way that you've put it and a great question as well.

And so I just want to start that story with a few things like, if you think about what you and I watched as sci-fi when we were kids, so much of that is true now.

It's happening.

Yeah.

And things that we used to think about the brain, like one way that we used to treat mental illnesses was by doing a frontal lobotomy or cutting the corpus callosum that, you know, like bridges the left and right hemispheres.

And we thought we were doing a good thing.

I have actually given patients electroconvulsive therapy in my career.

So not that long ago.

And not because I wanted to, but I had a patient that came to me

and said, you know, I've got a long history of depression.

And when it gets to the point that I don't want to eat and drink, the only thing that helps me quick enough that I don't have to suffer for weeks is ECT.

And I said, are you sure you don't want to try?

You know, there are some modern antidepressants now that, you know, have an effect in a couple of weeks.

And she was like, no, I'm not eating.

I'm not drinking.

I'm totally depressed.

I just want ECT.

So I was like, okay.

But we don't generally do that so much anymore.

So our understanding of psychiatry, psychology, and then with the advent of brain scanning,

how healthy brains function, has come a long way.

Even at this conference at the weekend,

all the speakers were amazing, but a few of them mentioned right brain, left brain.

And I said, I'm sorry, but I've got to stand up here and say we really can't talk about the brain like that anymore.

It's so much more complex and sophisticated with these amazing

networks and subsystems.

And it's just doing a big disservice to the brain to talk about it's all connecting

yeah um

so

in in that sense the research that most bucks up what you're talking to uh speaking to is we can't prove all of that yet but how we're getting there is through two main ways one is looking at what happens in the brain with psychedelics

and um

how they can induce neuroplasticity.

So I keep my eye on the research at Johns Hopkins, because it's like

to me the best lab that's looking into that stuff.

And so, there are really great benefits from one or two doses spaced one to six months apart of certain psychedelics in mental illnesses like depression and schizophrenia, potentially in grief as well.

But what's really interesting to me is that

everything that you see that a psychedelic can achieve relatively quickly,

you can achieve yourself

by sleeping right, eating right, breathing right, and meditating.

Let's go.

So happy you're saying this because,

you know, I have a lot of friends that swear by psychedelics.

They say like, oh, this changed my life and it's opened me up and it's allowed me to see things differently.

But I've been to many meditation intensive retreats that I feel like I'm seeing visions and I'm seeing like geometric shapes and pulsating and,

you know, all these different things that

we are creating ourselves within ourselves.

You know, it's the chemicals, the pharmacy that we have in our brain and body

that can manifest and create these things are so powerful

that I think if trained continually, it's hard work, but if trained properly and continually with the right teaching, it can have just as powerful effects, if not more powerful, healing benefits than an outside pharmacy.

That's just my belief.

I may be wrong, but it sounds like from your research, that's true.

I'm so glad you said that because I know it's particularly popular in LA as well.

Oh, yeah.

Everyone's talking about micro-dosing and

ayahuasca and everything.

And my concern is that they're swearing by it, and it's helping them immensely.

And I'm like, cool, if it's helping you, cool.

But can you try other things too that that aren't

changing your brain chemistry from the outside in, but rather from the inside out?

And I think there's a couple of other things around that.

One is that

if it's not, you know, in a hospital or a lab under like proper supervision with qualified people, then A, how do you know how pure the source of whatever you're taking is?

You know, in the 60s, there were so many bad like LSD trips that happened to people.

So what happens if something goes wrong and there's no one trained there that can help you?

Neuroplasticity, as I remember we discussed before, is not always good.

It can be bad.

You know, you obsess over a breakup.

You're just wiring into your brain.

You stay in it for years, this grief, yes.

Yes.

And so can the psychedelics do that as well.

They can keep you trapped in a depressive state.

They can even like, yeah, like they can make things more negative.

Because how do you know where that mushroom or whatever it is that you're taking is going to induce neuroplasticity in your brain?

How are you directing that?

If you've got no experience of that, you know?

so that is a bit of a concern when they did the ayahuasca research at johns hopkins they used the pure ayahuasca when you do it in ceremony it's mixed with something that makes you purge makes you throw up and feel sick and and have diarrhea potentially as well yeah so the purging i don't want that and no no i know

it completely puts me off some people don't mind it so much but it's it's done because it symbolizes a massive release yes and that's part of and a rebirth Yes, exactly.

But

you're taking something

that you don't need to take.

You could just take the ayahuasca and have the actual mental process without purging.

Interesting.

So, yeah, I mean, I'd volunteer for Johns Hopkins, but not for the ceremony.

So what do you think is the best way to rewire our subconscious mind to benefit us, to feel healthier, happier,

and whole as human beings versus taking drugs or some type of psychedelics.

So I wanted to put that together with the research on both the Buddhist monks and the US Marines that Amishi Jar did at the mindfulness base.

Amishi, she's great, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Training with.

So all of that research shows the impact of different types of meditation on the brain.

And

however, so before we get to the meditation even, this temple needs to be in the best, you know, it needs to be clean, it needs to be

polished.

And so that means that you're sleeping sufficiently, you're eating a really good nutrient-dense diet with the good fats and enough protein,

all of that.

The dark-skinned foods, you know, that I think I've mentioned before.

That you are not sedentary.

Not necessarily that you do lots of high-intensity exercise, but that you move, you breathe, you know, you breathe deeply.

That you're well hydrated.

Then we come on to the meditation part.

And meditation is, you know, I remember even the first time I spoke about it at a bank thinking, am I going to get away with this?

You know, but people found it really interesting.

And then it really was about sitting cross-legged with your eyes closed and, you know, doing a certain kind of form of meditation, whether it's guided or breath.

So the nature piece is that because we've existed in the palate of nature since we were in the cave,

we do find it, most people find it beautiful unless you've got like terrible allergies or something.

When you walk past trees, particularly certain trees that you have a lot of in LA, I've noticed, so

pines, firs, cedars, cypresses, palms, they release something called phytoncides that actually interact with your immune system and boost the release of natural killer cells that help you to fight off cancers.

Trees.

Wow.

So being in nature helps you fight off cancers.

Yeah.

Wow.

And but the beauty of it as well.

So that's a chemical thing that's going on.

Not just the actual

chemicals that are being released from those trees, but you actually being in the environment and viewing it.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Yeah.

So so that's beholding beauty.

Making beauty is also important.

So things like

singing, playing an instrument, dancing, drumming, chanting.

Because if you you think about it, in the cave, we danced and drummed and chanted, but we didn't have resources to do anything that wasn't essential to our survival.

So I still haven't quite worked out why, but those things are obviously essential to our survival.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Okay.

So back to,

I guess, reprogramming your subconscious mind.

Eating, sleeping.

What was the other thing you said?

Meditating, breathing.

Well, I want to come to that one last.

So the physical foundations are eating, sleeping, drinking,

and breathing.

Then when we come into the realm of mindfulness, we're taking it now to the next level and saying it's not just necessarily sitting down and doing a meditation, but it's spending time in nature.

It's beholding beauty.

It's gratitude.

Art.

It's art.

It's music.

It's dance.

Yeah.

And so when we're not incorporating a healthy lifestyle, eating, sleeping, drinking enough water, breathing, meditating, if we're not incorporating that, it's just going to be harder to accomplish what we want.

It's going to be harder to manifest.

It's going to be harder to attract healthy relationships.

We're going to feel in a more stressed out state, is what I'm hearing you say.

And it's like buying a Ferrari and then putting the wrong gas into it and never changing the oil or the water and expecting to like win Formula One.

Right.

It's not going to happen.

How can someone tell if they are in a

lower energy state

and

it just might seem so daunting to take on something new to improve their life?

They might be in scarcity and they might be struggling in relationships.

They might be feeling emotionally depressed, physically depressed, financially depressed.

And they're just getting by minute by minute and day by day.

How can someone get out of themselves when they're in a

scarcity state or lower energy state, suffering state, and into a more beautiful state of being.

I really feel like I'm the wrong person to answer that question because you've been there and you've written the book about it, which I've read, The Greatness Mindset.

There's so many amazing science-backed tips in there about this exact question.

But I just want to give one really easy thing for people that they can start doing today, which is the micro-habits that I mentioned.

So just, if you're in that place and, you know, you and I have both been in that place, just start drinking some more water.

If that's the only thing you can do today, you will actually feel better if you're hydrated.

Try to go to bed half an hour earlier or an hour earlier.

Try to

just go and do 100 steps after your meal.

Really, really small things.

But these kinds of things, and you know, I always say change 10 things by 1%, not one thing by 10%.

They accumulate and they make you feel better.

And it's not about sort of having the dream home manifestation straight away it's about it's about building yourself up to that

why do you think some people

manifest quicker than others if some people feel like man he or she they just like everything they do it just like turns to gold and it just seems to be happening so quickly and they're so much farther ahead than me

why does it seem like some people do it faster and other people are just like working so hard to create some momentum in their life I mean, again, I'll bring this back to, because with you, I always like to use sports analogies.

It's practice.

Yes.

There's no secret answer to that.

It takes time.

And I also find, even though it's something I practice all the time, that I can have like months in the desert where nothing's happening.

And then I have like periods of time where

everything is like falling into place.

And I've started saying to my friends, when that's happening, ask for everything that you want because it's like a magnetic time.

So when you see that it's happening anyway, then think okay what else was i wanting the last few months that i didn't manifest and really like put that out there

you mentioned magnetic how do we become more magnetic to the things we want so i want to answer that in a relationship way because i feel like when people are looking for their partner they've usually got a very good idea or maybe even a list of what they want in that partner yes i'm going to make a list of all the things i want this person and then i'm going to go find it and i'm or i'm going to wait for it you know this to come along But do you ever make a list of what you have to offer in a relationship?

Do you ever check if you can match up to everything that you're asking for on that?

All right, all right.

Preach it.

I like it.

I mean, I think if you do make a list, you need to look at it and ask yourself if you're bringing that to the table as well.

Because if you're not, you're not going to get that.

That needs to be the standard you are.

Yeah.

The things you want, you have to be that standard.

If you're not, then there's going to be a disconnect at some time.

There's going to be something that's off.

That's good.

Or you're just going to get continually disappointed because if this super kind, generous, you know, person that always has your back, finds that you don't always have their back, why are they going to go out with you?

Exactly.

They're not.

Yeah.

What do you feel like has been the most magnetic time in your life where everything was just, you were a vortex of possibilities and opportunities, just people coming to you.

Everyone was saying yes, opportunities were flooding in your way.

When has been that time?

I mean, I would say that I've had several experiences of that, but, you know, they're not lasting all year.

But because I do

an action board every year, I've got, you know, several times when it's felt like a lot of those things came true.

And then equally probably more times where it doesn't feel like any of that's happened.

Yeah.

When you create an action board or a vision board every year,

how much of it usually comes true that year or some year down the line?

Yeah.

Is it 20%?

Is it 50%?

80%.

Oh, because I'm very realistic and specific, I would say that 80% will come true within the year.

Wow.

And some things might have to like leap over into the next year.

And, you know, I'm just going to be really honest with you, because you're my friend, that some of those things just have never come true.

Right.

And maybe they weren't meant for you.

Yeah, that's how that's how I've had to like.

So 80% of the things you put down on that vision board yearly, on average, come true within that year.

Yeah.

Wow.

Do you put a specific date

next to the thing that you want by?

No, but I'm I know I'm doing it for that year, and I know that some of them are quick wins that I can do a lot to push forward, and that some of them are bigger things that I'm gonna have to wait a bit for the magic of the universe.

Interesting, and I also leave quite a lot of space because what I've begun to realize is you know, when I'm in that mode of like everything's manifesting, I sometimes say be careful what you wish for.

So,

what I also learned was that

my brain is limited by what it thinks I can get or I deserve.

And so I do want to be open to the fact that something could come up that I haven't thought of yet.

And for that reason, I leave space.

On your vision board.

So you'll have like an empty white space that's just like...

Well, I'll just have things, you know, they're not crammed together.

So there's space between them.

No.

Interesting.

I'm going to have to come to your bathroom and check out your vision board one day.

See what it looks like.

So how many things do you put on there?

Is it like 20 things or is it more like five or six kind of big things?

You mentioned kind of smaller wins.

That really changes from year to year.

So I have had one year.

I only had one image on my vision board.

What was that?

It was a beautiful horse kicking up water.

And it was the year that I was incorporating my business.

So it was all about like stability and loyalty and trust and like a team, but then also causing a bit of disruption in the industry.

Yeah.

All right.

So wasn't it actually like a bunch of people in an office space of like, this is the team, how it's going to look and feel?

It was more of an emotional image.

Mine are very metaphorical.

So actually, if you did come to my bathroom and look at my vision board, you probably wouldn't know what everything meant.

But I know.

Interesting.

Yeah.

So it's not like, okay, I want the dream home.

I'm going to put up an image of a home, but it might be

something else that feels like home.

So with that one, I did have...

You did have the home.

I had had like an interior.

So I had like a bathroom with particular bath and candles and rugs and kind of,

I don't know if you call them poofs, you know, this little Moroccan leather.

Like a chair or something or whatever.

It's like a little low stool thing.

Okay.

So it was a vibe, which was kind of like a...

It's like a mood board.

Bit of a hippie vibe, yeah.

So that represented home one year.

I did have...

When I wanted outside space, I had a particular picture of sort of the house was in the distance, but the picture was more of the garden.

What was the most incredible thing that you manifested that wasn't on your vision board?

Oh, that wasn't on it.

That was empty space.

That ended up coming into your life

that you didn't even dream of, but you're like, wow, this is even bigger than what I could have imagined.

I'm not making this up.

But being on your podcast and then being on Stephen's podcast were things I never thought were going to happen to me.

Wow.

I wouldn't have put them on

because I wouldn't have thought that that could come true.

Really?

Yeah.

Well, if you think, we were first in contact in 2019 when my book came out.

And

you did want me to come on the podcast, but then the pandemic happened, so I couldn't.

So it happened like much later.

And then like my career had changed quite a lot by then.

And, you know, it had a very big impact on me and my platform and my work.

So,

but I hadn't, before the book came out, said, I want to go on School of Greatness because I just thought I would do a few small podcasts in London and, you know.

Go along with your day.

Yeah.

Interesting.

What is saying, you know, what is saying yes to something that you didn't even think was possible and do for you?

You can reference the School of Greatness or something else, but just like, what is saying yes to something that you didn't even think about putting on your vision board?

But being open to the universe's possibilities of an opportunity and saying yes to it, what does that do for you?

What does it unlock?

So I think it comes back to the reason why I started leaving space on my board, because it made me realize

I can, you know, things can happen to me that are better than what I thought could happen.

So it unlocks your sense of self-worth, your self-esteem, your

self-confidence

and makes you

think, okay, well, and it's very practical because obviously now I can say I've been on this podcast twice.

So if I approach like another really big podcast.

Easier to get on your stuff, stuff, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Of course, yeah.

Yeah.

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What about the negative side of vision boards?

What if someone puts something so big on there that just seems like so unrealistic that this will never happen?

And they put it on there.

Yes, I want this thing.

I want this money or this relationship or this opportunity, but they don't believe they're worthy of or deserving of it.

So they say they want it, but really they don't believe they're worthy of it.

Does that have a negative effect?

Or does it draw them closer to the worthiness of having the actual thing?

I've got an example of this that I'll share with you first, and then maybe we can decide together if it's like the answer to that question,

which is that I was on an Instagram live with my friend who's very successful in the fashion industry and who's very humble.

And she said at one stage when her career was really you know getting traction that it was her dream to have a house in the Hamptons now you can imagine the comments that then started coming up well I'd like a house in the Hamptons

yeah

but she was working incredibly hard in an industry that was lucrative enough that that was realistic for her that's a possibility and I've been to that house and when I went when I walked into the house I thought I know what it took you to get this and that that this was a dream that you worked so hard for.

It's not overnight.

No.

So I think that kind of thing really for people will just lead to disappointment.

I would say you shouldn't, you know, you should start with, I'd like to own my own home.

It may just be an apartment.

It may not be, you know, Beverly Hills Mansion, but sort of take it step by step.

I mean, if I

think back to the amount of money that I put on my first vision board when I had just stopped being a doctor and started up, you know, my coaching practice,

it was realistic.

And so when it then became true, I could like increase it over time.

But if I'd put like a million dollars on it then, I would have failed.

Right, right, right.

Yeah.

For some reason, I think you're going to get along very well with Martha.

And I got to, you got to go on her show sometimes.

She's got one of the biggest shows

in Latin America, but she does English as well.

Okay.

But she would talk.

everything about like the spirit realm and like near-death experiences.

That's like her geo.

That's all night she's reading books and watching YouTube videos about near-death experiences and what happens to the brain and things like that.

So she would love to dive in with you on this.

I was actually very impressed that you knew as much as you did.

I wasn't sure.

When you're sleeping next to someone who's watching these all day long, it's like, okay, I've got, you know, I'm on the,

I'm able to like listen a little bit and be like, okay, I don't know about this, but I'll take it in.

Yeah, yeah, I'm open to it.

I mean, I'm super grateful to you and therefore

through her that you wanted to have this conversation with me.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

she would love to have you on i think if she knew this about you so i'm going to connect you guys later but

um has she watched surviving death on netflix she must have she watches all these youtube channels on this stuff but i'll you know she's reading all the books yeah she's like deep in this work i'm starting i'm gonna start a course and she's almost like media mask you know she's connecting with

i would love to see you know yeah yeah i'm sure it sounds like she could maybe really help me to understand that better because i'm just on that journey but i'm gonna start this sacred geometry course.

Maybe I could discuss that with her.

Come on.

That's cool.

Yeah.

When are you starting that?

Well, it's on an app that I've already got, but because I'm so busy in LA, sure.

So I would just wait till I get home.

That's cool.

But I might do one on the plane.

No, I'm going to connect you guys for sure.

Okay.

Gosh, what else do we need to know?

What else do you feel like people need to know right now at this time in the world?

For someone listening or watching this right now, what do they need to know about their brain,

their mind,

and how the universe works to support them?

Is there anything else?

It's probably going to be a bit of a recap, but I think it's important to do.

Like I said, at the beginning of the pandemic, I realized very, very quickly, like within two weeks, there is going to be a horrific mental health consequence of this.

And then a couple of months in, I started trying to sort of say, you know, does it have to be a mental health crisis or could it be a spiritual revolution?

And I don't even really know where that was coming from.

It was just a phrase I was using.

I didn't really have much to back it up.

Obviously, I've subsequently spent three years kind of, you know, delving into that personally for my own spiritual evolution.

And I want to share that with people because

what I'd really like to say is:

if you are feeling lost and broken, if you've lost relationships, if you have actual, you know, actually lost people and are are in grief, the answer actually is in your brain.

And that there is so much that you can do to reconnect with yourself, to bring an amazing tribe of like angels and supporters around you,

and to

navigate grief in the most graceful way beyond what you could think possible.

And

all the things that you speak about, you know, that I speak about,

to believe that and hypothesis test it because

you will feel better.

And there's no harm in trying.

Wow.

Do you ever feel worried being a neuroscientist and being in the science world talking about spirituality and things that you,

I guess, essentially cannot measure?

Do you ever feel worried about, oh, are people going to take me seriously or my credibility?

Or, you know, are they going to laugh at me if I'm talking about spirituality?

Yeah.

One of the things things I said before, because a question that I get is like, how do you survive in a man's world?

You know, how did you do a PhD in neuroscience 30 years ago?

I didn't really realize that as a girl, I wasn't.

30 years ago?

Come on.

You're not asking me about my age again.

Come on.

Stop it.

That was like 70 years ago.

Come on.

So

I just never thought like, oh, a girl shouldn't do that.

I was like, I'm interested in everything Neuro, so I'm going to do that.

And was it a risk when I gave up being a doctor and started a business from nothing?

I guess so, but the big, the bigger risk for me would have been staying stuck in something, you know, that wasn't stimulating me and, you know, intellectually and wasn't going to open up a whole new world for me.

And some people made comments when I wrote the source about, do you think, you know,

are you worried about how this is going to affect your career?

I'm just such a no regrets person.

And like now more than ever, I am now talking about things that are properly woo-woo.

woo-woo you know the source I could back up but and

I genuinely believe it's going to help people and I'm going to find something and I feel very guided and I'm like living in trust at the moment wow that's beautiful I want I want people to get your book it's called the source and it's really about the secrets of the universe and the science of the brain which I think is just such a powerful thing And I think a confusing thing.

The brain, the mind, the universe, spirituality, I think it's, you know, confusing for a lot lot of people to understand.

But you bring modern science, ancient wisdom together in simple terms for us to understand.

So I want to acknowledge you, Tara, for your consistency and being, listening to the call within you.

Yeah.

It's what I'm hearing you say.

It's like you were called to leave, you know, modern medicine, I guess, and tap into these new.

approaches.

You've been called to put your voice out there, called to write a book, called to keep tapping into sacred geometry and all these different geometry and all these different things.

So I want to acknowledge you, Tara, for your listening to the call, no matter what people think or say.

And I don't think people are criticizing you, but that might be a fear or concern that you might have.

So I acknowledge you and I want people to get the source.

I want them to follow you on Instagram and social media, Dr.

Tara Swart,

anywhere on social media.

You've got a lot of things that you're working on so they can follow you there and stay in touch with you there.

I want people if they're watching or listening to leave a comment of their biggest takeaway but also on YouTube leave a comment but also leave a comment on your Instagram to see what resonated the most with them what spoke to them the most you know what they want to hear more about from you so make sure to do that on on our YouTube and on Tara's Instagram as well

is there anything else we can do to be of service to you today?

Oh, Lewis, you're such a kind person.

You've done so much for me already.

So, no, but I think I am going to need a lot of help with anecdotes for this research that I'm doing.

So, yeah, that would be the best thing.

You've got so many followers.

If people have stories to share of experiences like that, I would love to hear them.

Wow.

Okay.

Where should they message you or stay in touch?

They would send you a DM or email or

websites.

DM is probably the best.

I'm most active on Instagram.

Okay, cool.

So they should DM you stories about our anecdotes about.

I'll put comments under my

posts as well.

Okay, cool.

Awesome.

Yeah.

I think I asked you this last time.

Someone asked you this about the three truths because you're at a different energetic state this time than you were then.

So I'm curious to see what your three truths are now.

But I asked you this last time.

If it was your last day, many years away and you got to create anything you wanted to create.

But for whatever reason on this last day, you have to take all of your content with you.

So no one has access to this conversation or your books or anything you ever create.

But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world from all the things you've learned, whether it be from science or just personal experiences.

What would be those lessons or three truths for you?

So I actually,

as well as doing vision boards, I choose like one to four words each year that are like words that are going to guide me for that year.

So I think I might as well share.

those with you because

they'll be the most authentic.

So the first one is peace.

And I don't give too much meaning to the word.

I allow it to show up in my life, but I think it's definitely like inner peace, but also peace with the people around you.

And then beauty is a big one for me since I'm researching the neuroaesthetic stuff.

So just, you know, seeing beautiful things, smelling the flowers.

Just like, you know, appreciating the beauty in everyone.

And then

freedom.

And I think this is really related to the last question you asked me which is that is not having that fear of criticism or skepticism and just really trusting myself and going with what i want to wow yeah you know what's interesting uh and i wish that for everyone that's you know that's those are my words but that's what i would wish for people you know what's interesting uh for the last four years

i have had uh set intentions as well for each year and i've had different words oh

and four years ago they were peace, clarity, and freedom.

Wow.

Peace, clarity, and freedom.

Well, I didn't, I actually had four, but you asked for three, so I didn't say my other one, which is truth, but that's like clarity, isn't it?

So they're really close.

Wow.

Yeah, that was where that was my intentions, I guess, three and a half years ago.

But

yeah, peace, clarity, and freedom, because I didn't feel like I had them.

Wow.

So I was like,

and I was searching on the outside to have them as opposed to becoming them.

Becoming clear, becoming free,

being free, being peace.

And,

you know, I was always searching for things on the outside as opposed to developing them from the inside.

Totally the same.

So not to quite the same extent as you, but it was where I was feeling I was getting close to those things, but I couldn't quite, you know, and I was just thinking, I was struggling with something and thinking I just so need peace in that area.

And then I had this light bulb moment, which was like, I give myself peace.

Peace does not come from the outside let's go

yes I am peace yeah that's beautiful

final question what's your definition of greatness

so something else that's come up in the research recently that's become really important to me is about having a purpose that's greater than yourself so doing something that doesn't benefit you directly

So, you know, something altruistic, something that's for the benefit of others.

And you obviously get a benefit from doing that because it makes you feel good.

But it's about kind of,

you know, your life is your life.

But if you want a life of greatness, I think you've got to do something bigger than that's

something that's just about your life.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

That's beautiful.

It's about a life of service.

Tara, thank you so much for being here.

You're amazing.

Thank you.

Appreciate you.

Thank you.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness.

Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links.

And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

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And I want to remind you of no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.

And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

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