February 1, 2024 • 37 mins
Discover a radical new perspective on mental wellness as Dr. Fred Moss, the "Un-Doctor," joins us for a fascinating journey beyond the bounds of traditional psychiatry. Get ready to challenge everything you thought you knew about mental health as Dr. Moss shares his approach to undiagnosing, unmedicating, and unlocking the true potential within ourselves through authenticity, connection, and creativity. His insights will not only intrigue but also offer actionable steps toward aligning your thoughts, speech, and actions with your core self.
Embrace the flaws and quirks that make you unique in our heartfelt discussion on authenticity and self-acceptance. Dr. Moss invites us to dismantle the inner "integrity police" that often handcuff us to societal expectations and instead step into a life where every choice mirrors our truest selves. We explore how shedding the imposed beliefs about our worth can liberate and empower us, encouraging self-compassion as we navigate the winding road of life. This episode promises to spark a transformation, helping you to recognize that your imperfections are a part of your perfection.
Lastly, we delve into the profound impact of non-verbal communication and creative self-expression. Learn how silence can speak volumes and witness the incredible ways in which creative pursuits like art, music, and even three minutes a day can heal and connect us on levels words cannot reach. Dr. Moss opens our eyes to the therapeutic power of creativity, not just as a means to feel heard, but as a catalyst for profound personal and communal growth. Join us on this enlightening episode that's sure to reshape your views on mental health and the beauty of authentic living.
This is a show where ideas come together. The guest statements expressed on The Savvy Communicator Podcast are their own and not necessarily the views of The Savvy Communicator.
Thanks for joining us! Become part of the conversation at www.savvycommunicator.com, and follow me on social media: my handle is @savvycommunicator.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Savvy Communicator podcast.
I'm your host, amy Flanagan,and today I'm very excited we
have a very distinguished guest,dr Fred Moss.
He is a psychiatrist, he is ahealer and a teacher and he's
sometimes called the undoctor.
And welcome, dr Fred.
I'm glad to have you here today.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah, it's really great to be here.
Thanks for having me, amy, it'swonderful.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Absolutely so.
You're called the undoctor.
Would you tell me a little bitabout that?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, the undoctor is a friendly, affectionate
moniker I picked up from afriend.
It basically is built on thisnotion that I have developed in
being a doctor who is supportiveof undiagnosing, unmedicating
and then frankly and ultimatelyundocternating people from the
psychiatric system, theconventional psychiatric system.
So in other words, workingourselves out of a job is the
(00:47):
goal of the undoctor.
The undoctor really is theconventional track when you have
a mental discomfort orpsychological pain or imbalance
is to show up at theconventional psychiatric office
psychological or psychiatric,the mental health office and
ultimately get a sense of, get atreatment or a protocol that
(01:09):
usually can often be associatedwith medication and almost
always is associated with thediagnosis.
Both of those things I havesome difficulty with.
It's actually landing that onanybody.
So when we take away thediagnosis, then there's nothing
to fix and therefore themedications leave.
And if there's nothing to fixand there's no end of
medications leave, we can startworking through whatever is at
(01:30):
the root cause of the imbalanceor discomfort and we can start
getting to what's really so asfar as getting people in contact
with nothing less by the waythan human conversation and
human communication and humanconnection, which I feel is at
the source of all human healing,of all conditions, of all types
.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
That's really fascinating because I agree with
you that a lot of times it goesfor the diagnosis and the
medication and then it stops.
People check in to make sureyou're on some kind of baseline,
but it doesn't really go beyondthat.
And it sounds like that you'verecognized that and sort of
attacked it at the source, andthat's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, and it would be great if people stated a
baseline, but generally peopleactually continue to deteriorate
slowly as they do with theircondition.
So, yeah, people do not enterthe psychiatric system picking
that they're going to heal orcure.
They think the very least thatthey might do, the very best
that they would do, might bepatch it up.
But they have the condition andnow have it for life,
(02:32):
chronically and ultimately untilthe day they die.
And that is simply not the case.
The psychiatric orpsychological or emotional
imbalances that we go through inlife are absolutely healable,
and they're healable in theworld of communication,
connection and conversation, aswell as creativity and
resonating harmonically withanother person.
(02:53):
And in that connection comeshealing, comes love and comes
the possibility of trulyrecovering.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
That's wonderful.
I'm glad you mentioned that,because I want to talk to you
about your book about creativityas well as communication, and
one of the things that reallystood out to me when I started
reading about you was the wordauthenticity and how one of the
main things that you do ishelping people find their own
authenticity.
So a lot of times I thinkpeople, a lot of people, know
(03:22):
the word I know for a whileuntil I really researched it
Just kind of like, well, itmeans being true to yourself,
but there's a lot more depththan that, I think.
And so when you say the wordauthenticity, what is it that
you're hoping to communicate topeople that work with you?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, that's a really great question and not an easy
question to take on in onesentence and not an easy
question to think about usinglanguage as a matter of fact.
So what authenticity is is astate of being, and it's a state
of being whole and complete.
But a state of being whole andcomplete with your thoughts,
your speech and your actions,the idea is that all of those
things are consistent with somesort of core value or sense of
(04:02):
self that has been with you yourwhole life.
In most cases, like that,you're speaking your truth,
you're speaking your honest coreexperience, and when I say
speaking, I'm using the broadestterm of the word speaking.
It doesn't have to be throughwords.
It can be through non-speaking,it can be through
non-verbalization, it can bethrough creativity, through the
(04:23):
creative and performing arts.
It can be through art, music,dancing, singing, drama.
There are many ways ofcommunicating.
But what's clear is that whensomeone is authentic or
approaches authenticity becausea very significant theory out
there holds that one is neverauthentic it's only a direction
to point to that, ultimately,we're always inauthentic,
(04:44):
because that's what the worldrequires us to do, because we
speak in linear terms and theworld is simply not linear.
So we actually presentourselves in a light to be heard
in a particular fashion, ratherthan presenting ourselves and
being the whole person or thewhole human or the whole living
being that we are and because ofthat, we kind of cut into our
(05:07):
authenticity, picking andchoosing what we present and
then therefore not taking on thewhole nature of what it is to
be ourselves.
So when we are aligned with ourspeech, our thoughts and our
actions and that alignment isconsistent with something that
is emanating from our core,central self, that's getting as
(05:30):
close as we are gonna get inthis lifetime to being authentic
.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Wow, that's really amazing.
I'm really feeling that becauseI know, certainly for me
personally, there are a lot oftimes where it's just like, well
, I can't say what I'm thinking,I can't.
You know, I have to presentmyself professionally or
something like that, and youknow it can feel really rough
when you don't feel safe to dothat.
(05:57):
That's really interesting andyou teach courses on.
You have a book specificallyabout authenticity, your true
voice, and you also teachcourses on this right.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yeah, I have a couple books you've mentioned about
the creative eight healingthrough creativity and
self-expression and I have myother book, which is called Find
your True Voice, and what thatdoes is really assist people in
getting the things out of theway that are in the way of
discovering what is at this core, central self of ours.
Like what is authenticityversus identity?
(06:28):
I like to use identity likewhat we have taken on our
personal persona of how wepresent ourselves.
So when we start really justshaving away the things that are
preventing ourselves fromspeaking our true self or
presenting ourselves orexpressing ourselves
authentically, we can get downto what's already here.
In other words, we don't haveto go out there to find our true
(06:51):
voice.
Our true voice is alreadyemanating and it's here to be
discovered rather than exploredand found out there.
It's something that alreadyexists in each and every one of
us and we know it because, likeyou said, there's a sense of
rottenness when we actuallyexpress ourselves differently
than who we are.
We have learned over time toaccept pretending to be someone
(07:15):
that we're not in order toprotect the person that we are.
We pretend to be somebody thatwe're not in order to protect
the person that we are Now.
When you look at that hoveringover the top as an observing
vantage point, you can see thatthat's truly an absurd way to
manage life.
Pretending to be somebody thatwe are not in order to protect
(07:37):
the person that we are is reallya way of assuring failure.
Ultimately, of course, whenwe're pretending to be someone
we're not, we're not going to beheard or seen as who we are,
and it doesn't even naturallyprotect the person that we are,
because either way, you're goingto have haters.
You're going to have people whodismiss you, people who
(07:59):
disregard you, people whodisrespect you for what you
presented.
So if you're attempting toprotect yourself from being
disregarded or disenfranchisedor opposed or thrown off the
island in some way, pretendingto be someone that you're not is
not a very useful or effectivemeans of getting there, and we
(08:20):
learned how to do it when wewere children.
We learned how to do it when wewere in school, and we learned
how to sort of present ourselvesin a favorable way so that we
could get a good grade or makefriends or be in the right group
, et cetera, and we never wentback and fixed it.
So now the generalunderstanding in public is that
(08:41):
people do that.
We all expect that from eachother, and because we haven't
gone back and fixed thatever-growing crack in the cement
, we are left with a life thatis fated to have quite a fair
amount of inauthenticity.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yeah, I absolutely agree with you.
One of the things when I workwith medical students to try to
teach them is about thatauthenticity and saying you know
, we tend to think a good doctordoes this and you get that idea
from somewhere and you think,okay, a good doctor is going to
focus on the statistics or agood doctor is going to just
(09:18):
focus on the person, or whatever.
And I try to communicate tothem.
I said, no, a good doctor isyou and you have to figure out
what that is.
Is it scary for some of yourstudents when they start to work
with you?
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Yeah, sure, it's always scary, but life is scary.
It's scary when you're notdoing it and it's scary when
you're doing it.
So the truth is you can beafraid and not approach your
authenticity, or you can beafraid and approach your
authenticity, and you're notgoing to have less fear either
way.
So the opportunity here is toactually incorporate fear and
move in the direction of what'sbeing called from you in the
(09:55):
first place, and I think you geta much richer life.
You know, I think it was HenryDavid Thoreau who said that the
massive men go through life inquiet desperation and then go to
the grave with their song stillin them, and that, to me, is
one of life's greatest tragediesgoing through life and having
nobody actually know who you are.
The opportunity really doesexist to approach presenting
(10:17):
yourself as the person that youreally are, and then a lot of
things happen.
You don't have to rememberanything anymore, like there's
no.
You don't have to remember whoyou told what, you don't have to
remember different lies or fibs, or you know fabrications that
you have delivered, and insteadyou can actually be who you are
in any given moment and be happywith that, and be happy with
(10:37):
how you're expressing and, infact, how you're resonating with
other human beings.
Yeah, yeah, it almost soundslike a fantasy but it's actually
achievable, for sure it'sachievable, yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Yeah, so for somebody , for our listeners, who may not
have had the chance to readyour book, I've started to read
it.
It's wonderful, and we'll makesure that all that's in the show
notes so that everybody can getaccess to it and to your
website.
For somebody that's listeningtoday, if you want to just start
them off on a journey towardsthinking about becoming their
(11:10):
authentic selves, what would yousay to them?
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Well, I think the key thing to really get is that
your authentic self is alreadyhere.
You don't have to go very far,you're already in touch with it.
You know when you tell and tella truth or when you are in
authentic.
There's a part of you thatrings that bell.
You know when you're not sayingsomething that you should or,
even worse, you know when you'resaying something that even you
don't believe.
Yeah, how crazy is that, by theway, that us humans, at this
(11:37):
point, that we even say thingsthat we don't believe.
Yeah, like that is just out ofcontrol, and that is what we
humans have developed ourselvesas.
So we already know that.
We know what the truth is.
We know how do we become goodliars.
We become good liars bycreating something that sounds
close enough to a truth to beacceptable.
(11:58):
So we know what truth is.
We know what the experience oftruth is.
We know what the experience ofour core self is, because when
we tell a lie or we saysomething that is misaligned
with what we know to be true, wefeel that you know, there is an
integrity police in each andevery one of us that rings that
bell for us and lets us know.
(12:19):
So if we first get you know ina student form that we don't
have to go very far to find thisauthentic self of ours, all we
have to do is kind of move outthe things that are in the way
of us being that particularperson, that's one good thing to
know.
The next really good thing toknow is that there might be
nothing wrong with you at all.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
That's wonderful to hear.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
No, it really might be that there is nothing wrong
with you.
Like, even if you've been toldthat there is by a big time
professional, there still mightbe nothing wrong with you.
Even if you are carrying adiagnosis that three
professionals have agreed with,you still might have nothing
wrong with you.
It could be that you're justbeing a human and that your only
(13:03):
diagnosis is that person you'reseeing in the mirror.
That's it, the exact personthat is you.
If you can get that, there'snothing wrong with you in the
first place, that you're justbumbling through life like each
of us are, without a road map,without a cookbook, without a
manual.
When you really get that,that's all you're doing and the
(13:24):
difficulties you're having arefairly equal to the difficulties
that the person next to you ishaving and also trying to hide.
When you get that going on thatthere might be nothing wrong
with you.
That might leave you a littlebit of room to actually explore
what is what, who you are reallylike, what in who you are
really.
Because if you can start doingthat, you can start seeing that
(13:48):
you have come to be youauthentically, that your ride to
become you has been entirelyauthentic, everything that
you've said and done has beenyou.
Everything that you're about tosay and do is still going to be
you.
Who you are being right thisvery minute is you and that's
all you are, and we don't haveto actually put ourselves into a
(14:11):
box and be declared differentthan, or less than, or defective
or deficient or afflicted ordiseased or with a deficit of
any nature.
We, in fact, don't have to callourselves sick or ill or
syndromeed at all.
We can get that.
Who we are, just like we are,is exactly who we're meant to be
(14:32):
as perfection, like straightperfection, including, of course
, all of our imperfections.
Once we start giving ourselvesthat level of latitude, that
level of grace, of compassion,of acceptance and forgiveness,
we honestly have an opportunityto explore what is this real
self of mine anyways, and maybeI don't have to be making up and
(14:54):
fabricating a story about who Iam in order to please other
people.
Maybe the person that I reallyam is the person that I'm most
comfortable being ultimately, ifI would allow myself to fall
into who I really was born to, Ihave to say you are good at
this.
Yeah, not my first ruck.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Because you've, yeah, no, because I definitely, you
know, without you getting into asession or anything.
You know, there's certainly alot of times, you know, in my
life, and I think in everyone'slife, like you're saying where
you're just like, well, I can'tsay that, well, I better smile
here or I better do this insteadof what I'm actually thinking,
(15:36):
because we're in a public placeor whatever Right.
And you know, you just get usedto that.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
And that is not necessarily inauthentic, by the
way.
You have to take everythinginto consideration, and being
authentic is not telling yourtruth, even when the face of
safety becomes an issue.
I'm not telling people to beyou know to be so authentic that
you go to the mountaintopscreaming how much you hate your
mother-in-law or a particulargroup of people.
That is not the level ofauthenticity I'm talking about.
(16:05):
I'm talking about weighing andlistening closely to what's
being called from you.
How can you move that needleforward in your relationship
with the person that you're withor with the people that you're
attempting to you know,attempting to impact, or the
group or the event or thecircumstances that you are
(16:26):
embedded in?
How can you make a differencein that?
And that might meancommunicating.
It might be not communicating.
What it probably doesn't mean,however, is saying something
that even you don't agree with.
That's probably not your bestchoice of all the choices out
there.
I do suggest that you don't dothat one very often, because
(16:46):
that one naturally leads to asense of diminishment of self,
you know, to a depletion.
When we actually speak and saysomething that even we know we
don't agree with and all of ushave had that experience, then
it is just a really difficultsituation that diminishes from
our core self.
It leaves us feeling less.
(17:09):
Here's the other thing that Ireally want to make clear Most
people think there's somethingwrong with them.
In fact, almost everybodythinks there's something wrong
with them.
In fact, everybody thinksthere's something wrong with
them.
Now, when the truth is and youstart looking, there's nobody
who thinks there is nothingwrong with me.
You have to develop that nature.
(17:29):
It is not a default.
You have to actually grow intothe notion that there's nothing,
because we have been told overand over again by our
authorities, by teachers, bypolice, by our parents, you know
, by our siblings, by ourfriends there's something wrong
with you, you're wrong, you know, and then we take that on to
ourselves.
So it almost can be like.
(17:52):
One of the ways to look at thisis it's very, very normal to
know that there's somethingwrong with you and therefore,
when you know there's somethingwrong with you, that just only
shows that there's nothing wrongwith you.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
I like that a lot.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yeah, I do, and one of the things that you touched
on that I want to go back to alittle bit is talking about not
doing verbal communication thatyou can show a lot of these
things through nonverbalcommunication or through
creativity.
And you have your book Creative8, that I love to hear more
about because it sounds justfascinating To bring in the arts
(18:33):
.
Of course, I'm a former actor,a former director, all of those
things.
So when you say bring increativity to it, I just go nuts
, because that's really on mywavelength as well.
Tell us a little bit about howyou see that nonverbal
communication or creativecommunication or anything like
(18:54):
that comes into this.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Right.
So the ways to communicate arereally vast, nearly infinite
numbers of ways of communicating.
We have leaned on the defaultof being words, using words in
our hearing, so what we say andwhat we hear, and then what we
actually process about what wesay and what we hear.
And we have also really cutourselves into no slack.
(19:20):
So once we say something, theother person holds us to it,
even if we think we didn't saywhat they thought we said.
So we say something, someonehears whatever they say.
Then they say oh, you just saidthis.
And you say no, I didn't saythat.
They say yes, you did, yes, youdid.
And now you're held to actuallysaying what someone else heard
you say rather than what youreally said.
(19:40):
And if you look back at thetape, if you actually looked at
the review, the replay, youwould see that you actually said
what you thought you said.
They heard what they heard.
But because they heard whatthey heard, they're holding you
to what they think you said andbecause of that, you end up
defending something that youdidn't mean to say, but you said
(20:01):
anyway, spontaneously, or maybeyou didn't say it all and it
got heard in a different fashion, as you could see this whole
thing, which actually took placein less than two seconds.
So this event that I justdescribed for you is an instant
event, right?
Yes, I say something.
You heard me say it.
You heard my expression, youheard the circumstances, you
(20:22):
heard the context, you developedwhat you heard me say.
You said, oh, dr Fred said this.
And then I think, well, notreally, that isn't what I meant.
And you're like, look, you saidit.
I guess I'm held to it now.
So that is not really a veryefficient way of communicating.
Ultimately and frankly, like Ialready mentioned, in the world
(20:44):
of verbal communication it'sextraordinarily linear.
I am streaming together, like astring of beads, a bunch of
words that I'm designing on thespot.
I am picking these things outof my repertoire, out of my
vocabulary, on the spot.
I'm not sure what my next wordis that I'm going to use, but,
(21:06):
boy, better be good, becauseit's going to represent my soul
in your eyes and other listeners.
So it has to be perfect.
And I get one shot at it, likeI got to be picking it
spontaneously and I got to pickit now.
And it's linear.
How do I know it's linear?
Because it's one after theother, it's one word after the
other, it's one thought afterthe other, it's one after the
(21:28):
other Latin, that's whatlinearity is headed towards.
A point, if you haven't noticedthe world is not linear, but
experience is not linear.
We don't have a thread calledexperience.
Experience is a vast,overwhelming experience,
(21:49):
ontological event, and to useour singular, linear way of
binary language to create astring of words that then gets
interpreted as a truth is thelast thing from Shirley
Effective.
This is why creativity can beused so effectively, because
(22:11):
when we start splashing paint oncanvas, or we start making
music, or we start dancing, orwe start singing, or we start
drama, like you said, or, inmany cases, cooking or writing
or gardening, when we startcreating, we create that vast
(22:31):
experience without wordstainting it, and a new level of
expression can be made.
I don't know about you, butwhen I see a Van Gogh, when I
see a Dalai, when I see aPicasso, it's an experience that
far exceeds any words.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
When I hear Bing.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Tobin, when I hear Mozart, when I hear even Led
Zeppelin in my case I hearsomething that's entirely
expansive, way more than whatJimmy Page might have been able
to say to me on a singularsentence.
There's something inside.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Oh, that's such a good point yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Like Jimmy, I would love to have lunch with Jimmy
Page, and if you can make thathappen, that'd be really cool,
and I'll work on it.
And it's not Jimmy Page per se,but I really appreciate watching
Jimmy Page play guitar and Iespecially appreciate Led
Zeppelin putting it all togetheras they did.
This is also true with some ofthe classical musicians, as we
(23:28):
jump out of Led Zeppelin alittle bit and go to some of the
artists that have stood thetest of time, where listening to
a symphony can certainly drawyou to cheers or to arousal, or
to happiness, or to fear, or tosadness or multiple different
life experiences, just in thelistening of the vibration that
(23:51):
people call music.
And this is true with all formsof creativity.
And non-spoken words is also adecision.
In other words, if you choosenot to speak when that's one of
the options out there, you aremaking a statement and there is
a.
I think I can get this up foryou.
Let's see.
I cannot not communicate, yeahRight.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Wow, that's so true yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Right, I most definitely am communicate.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yes, yes, that is so true.
You're probably familiar withthe work of Dr Paul Ekman, who
does all of the.
Yeah, I certified with himseveral years ago in order to be
able to teach about facialexpressions and body language,
and he says kind of the similarthing, and there's been.
(24:43):
There are studies about thebiochemical reactions that we
have in our brain when we feel aparticular emotion, and there's
a lot of question over whetherwe feel the emotion first or
have the facial expression first, because it's so deeply
intuitive.
So you're talking about how toexpress and, yeah, I would
(25:03):
imagine I loved what you saidabout how watching Jimmy Page
play guitar and then if youasked Jimmy Page, well, what
does this mean here?
He probably wouldn't be able todescribe it.
He shouldn't be able to describeit, yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yeah, I heard quotes from Jimmy Page.
I recently posted somethingthis week from Jimmy Page
talking about his notion thatLed Zeppelin is the best rock
and roll band of all time andit's a really beautiful piece of
about of a paragraph of himputting words together about who
they really were together, themojo that they put together as
the foursome, and that him andPlant were really great together
(25:41):
.
But putting all four of themtogether created something that
had never been done and neverwill be done again, and he
really did speak to the beautyof that.
It was really remarkable, aremarkable quote that was
inspiring in its own right, butthe furthest thing from hearing
black dog or steroid to heavenfor sure.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Yeah, yeah.
So what we have to do isremember that each of us is like
that as well.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Exactly, that's right .
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yeah, we all are.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
We're all artists and we may not be Jimmy Page
proficiency in a particular area, but each and every one of us
is entirely creative.
How do I know that?
Because if you got through thelast second of time, it took a
lot of creativity to get thatdone.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
That is fantastic.
That is fantastic.
Make me feel better aboutmyself, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
So if you don't mind giving us a little more detail,
so your book, the Creative Eight.
What are the eight things aboutcreativity that your book talks
?
Speaker 2 (26:34):
about.
We've spoken to the eightalready.
I did drop them in,incidentally, so here they are
in order.
They're art, music, dancing,singing, drama, cooking, writing
and gardening are the top eight.
Wow, that came on later andthose were cleaning and
photography, and ultimately thebook is about the tenth one, or
the ninth one, or the eleventhone, the last one, the trump
(26:56):
card, if you will, and that ishelping anyone do anything.
The idea here these things wereput in place because what I
learned when I was treating mymultiple thousands of patients
as a psychiatrist was thatsymptoms or the sense of
symptoms despair, misery, pain,discomfort, imbalance all
(27:16):
disappeared when we were in theact of creating.
So the therapy or the modalitythat I asked people to take on
was to take one minute a day todo three of these things.
So pick three art, music andcooking.
And if, for a minute, do someart, and that might mean tracing
or doodling, that's fine.
For a minute, do some music,and that might mean tapping that
(27:39):
same pencil on a table orplaying on a harmonica, or
picking up the guitar or tappingon the piano, whatever you have
, or pick up a third one, and Ithink I said cooking.
So I'd like to go beyond toastand ramen noodles, but something
to actually put together somecooking effort for the full sake
of its creativity.
If you do this for one minute ora total of three minutes a day,
(28:02):
my intention is to activate thecreative aspect of that
particular pathway, and whatI've noticed is that people who
do that we remind themselvesthat they're creative at their
heart and if I re remindingthemselves, they can get turned
on and buy what it really is tobe creative and how creativity,
(28:22):
in fact, can be utilized as amassive tool to alleviate the
depression and the discomfortthat comes from not being heard
for who you are.
Almost all mental illness is afunction of not being self
expressed to the point of beingheard for who you are.
If you go through theassumption or the conclusion
(28:46):
that what people want more thananything is to be seen and heard
for who they are and whothey're not, that's really what
people want.
And so ultimately, there's abackfiring of sorts that you're
not being heard for who you areor you're not listening.
Like the communicationbreakdown and communication
breakdown course is a nice leadup one song in and of its own
right, and when you have acommunication breakdown, the
(29:08):
opportunity exists to reallystep into finding a way to
communicate effectively, andthese are many of the ways that
we can get that done.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Wow, I'm trying to think of the next question,
because you explain things sosuccinctly and you've just got
me going along saying, yeah,yeah, I know how that feels, I
know how that feels.
So you're saying three minutesa day to pick three different
things.
One minute a day and do themone minute a day for three
different things.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Right, one minute per thing yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Per thing.
Okay, and then it can be assmall as you want, like just
doodling, or it can be as big asyou want, like splashing paint
on a canvas.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
And that that's going to get you the start of being
tuned in more to your authenticself, and you used a term that I
can't remember.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Yeah, just getting more to do Creative self
expression, exactly.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Creative self expression.
Okay, yeah, well, that'scertainly something I can do.
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
And when you find yourself doing that, you'll see
that, at least during thosetimes that you're participating
in that activity, during thosetimes, your symptoms or your
misery, your pain or discomfortwill be disappeared.
Now, the truth is, you can keepit disappeared or you can snap
back to where you were beforeyou started that event.
(30:26):
The truth is there's somechoice there.
You're not afflicted againstyour, in other words, you're not
enslaved.
You're not enslaved to haveyour next way of being dictated
by the past that got you to here.
It's entirely possible to choosea different direction from any
given second that we are.
(30:47):
So, if we're able to alleviatethe pain and discomfort for any
period of time, we have a choiceof where we're going to get off
that horse.
Are we going to get off thehorse and go back to where we
were directly before we startedplaying the piano?
Certainly, you can do that.
If you want to go be reallypain and depressed, it's a
possibility that you canabsolutely go and return.
(31:09):
But what's really interestingand I'm not suggesting, by the
way, that this is simple thatour habits are built very deeply
in ourselves and we tendtowards disempowered context.
But I am suggesting that thereis some choice and there is some
agency and some sovereigntyfrom that space on the back end
of your creative action, whereyou get to choose where to get
off the horse and maybe youdon't have to snap back to the
(31:33):
misery that preceded that.
Maybe you have an opportunitysince you're making up the whole
thing anyways to go into adifferent direction and create
something that's a little bitmore satisfying or
self-fulfilling Yep.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
All I can say is that I'm really identifying with
that, and I hope listeners aretoo.
So tell me a little bit.
I don't have any idea aboutthis next question but, what do
you find?
And I don't know if there havebeen studies or anything like
that, but what do you find assomebody goes through this
reconnecting with theirauthentic selves, this
(32:09):
connecting with the creativitywhat do you find happens in
their life, in their mentalhealth?
In their physical health.
Are there results that you'veexperienced I?
Speaker 2 (32:22):
think so.
I think what people really findout is indeed, if it's on they
take into consideration, theremight be nothing inherently
wrong with you in the firstplace.
People start getting in touchwith the real self and creating
a space for the people in theirworld to also get in touch with
their very real self.
So there's like a contagion, avirality to the whole thing.
The idea is, when I'm beingauthentic, I bring out your
(32:44):
authenticity just by being inyour presence.
When you're being authentic,you create a space for which
authenticity is then inventedand invited into the center
stage and because of that youget a much richer life.
You get a life that actuallyworks and not a life that's
based on all the deficiency anddefects that you thought you had
(33:04):
.
So an opportunity has to reallylaunch a life in the direction
of sheer and possible creativity, like actually creating
creativity, creating opencommunication lines and
ultimately creating the harmonicresonance that is required to
connect with humans to you, whatyou have a harmonic resonance
(33:26):
that is what's required toconnect human to human.
That is the source that we'retalking about.
That is the listening and theconnection that we're all after,
and from there comes healingand ultimately from there, I am
submitting, is the essence oflove, so that love and healing
are also a function ofconnection, and connection is a
(33:48):
function of this harmonicresonance.
And harmonic resonance is afunction of coming to grips with
your authenticity, andauthenticity is a function of
being honest with your thought,speech and action.
And all of that is a functionof discovering your true and
authentic self.
And that's literally what'shere, and we go in both
directions there.
It's clear that it becomesentirely possible to have a
(34:10):
fully transformed life, forwhich caring for yourself
becomes a function of making itpossible for other people to
care for you and to care forthemselves in your present.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Yeah, yeah, I just for a quick anecdote.
I have to say that I wasfortunate enough when I met my
husband to feel this sort ofsense of relief All of a sudden,
because I didn't have to try tobe somebody that was
particularly funny or sexy oranything.
It just sort of happened thatbecause it happened all of a
(34:43):
sudden, I was funny and I wassmart and all of those things I
said.
I'm really lucky Some peopledon't get to experience that
right away.
So, dr Fred, this has just beena really illuminating day for
me particular, and I know forthe listeners too.
So you teach courses.
Like I said, you have the twobooks, finding your True Voice
and Creative Eight, and how cansomeone get in touch with you if
(35:05):
they'd like to learn more?
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Yeah, so the brand that I've developed is a brand
that makes a lot of sense atleast now I'm, the more I speak
about what I'm about and that'ssomething called Welcome to
Humanity, and you can find me atDr Fred at WelcomeToHumanitynet
.
The person whohaswelcometohumanitycom is
offering it to me for like$10,000, and I've chosen some
(35:26):
that are not highest, so I have.
WelcomeToHumanitynet, and if youreally want to see all the
things that I'm up to withrespect to podcasting or keynote
speaking or teaching orone-to-one coaching, which I
love doing as well as groupcoaching, then you can find me
at Dr Fred drfred360.comDrFred360.com, where you get a
little taste of everything thatI'm about, including my contact
(35:49):
information and, for yourlisteners, a special offer for a
discovery call where you canmaybe see it whether you and I
can work together.
But if you and I aren't a goodfit, I know a lot of people in
the community that are coachesand therapists and doctors and
you know multiple differentprofessionals that can help you
or help whatever it is thatyou're looking for assistance
(36:11):
with, and I'd be glad to makethat referral.
That's really important to methat you get what you came for
when you reach out for me at fora discovery call.
My books are there, you can geta bunch of freebies and that
are also on DrFred360.com, andyou get access to a lot of
different things, including waysto contact me and ways to
(36:32):
utilize my services.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Okay, so that's welcometohumanitynet.
We'll have all that in the shownotes and then it's
DrFred360.com DrFred360.com.
So, drfred, can't thank youenough for being here today.
Like I said, it's beenincredibly illuminating and
you've got me feeling, you know,more cool and excited and in
(36:58):
tune with myself.
Good and when we started.
Thank you very much for that,and I'm sure our listeners have
had the same experience.
So thank you very, very muchfor being here today.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
My pleasure.
Thanks so much, I reallyappreciate it.
Thanks, rafe.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Thank you everyone for listening today.
Special shout out to listenersin Globe, arizona, hamburg, new
Jersey and Buford, southCarolina.
I appreciate you.
Remember you can find DrFred atwelcometohumanitynet.
That'll all be in the shownotes.
Thanks so much for listening tothe Savvy Communicator.
We'll see you next time.
Hello and welcome to the Savvy Communicator podcast.
I'm your host, amy Flanagan,and today I'm very excited we
have a very distinguished guest,dr Fred Moss.
He is a psychiatrist, he is ahealer and a teacher and he's
sometimes called the undoctor.
And welcome, dr Fred.
I'm glad to have you here today.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah, it's really great to be here.
Thanks for having me, amy, it'swonderful.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Absolutely so.
You're called the undoctor.
Would you tell me a little bitabout that?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, the undoctor is a friendly, affectionate
moniker I picked up from afriend.
It basically is built on thisnotion that I have developed in
being a doctor who is supportiveof undiagnosing, unmedicating
and then frankly and ultimatelyundocternating people from the
psychiatric system, theconventional psychiatric system.
So in other words, workingourselves out of a job is the
(00:47):
goal of the undoctor.
The undoctor really is theconventional track when you have
a mental discomfort orpsychological pain or imbalance
is to show up at theconventional psychiatric office
psychological or psychiatric,the mental health office and
ultimately get a sense of, get atreatment or a protocol that
(01:09):
usually can often be associatedwith medication and almost
always is associated with thediagnosis.
Both of those things I havesome difficulty with.
It's actually landing that onanybody.
So when we take away thediagnosis, then there's nothing
to fix and therefore themedications leave.
And if there's nothing to fixand there's no end of
medications leave, we can startworking through whatever is at
(01:30):
the root cause of the imbalanceor discomfort and we can start
getting to what's really so asfar as getting people in contact
with nothing less by the waythan human conversation and
human communication and humanconnection, which I feel is at
the source of all human healing,of all conditions, of all types
.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
That's really fascinating because I agree with
you that a lot of times it goesfor the diagnosis and the
medication and then it stops.
People check in to make sureyou're on some kind of baseline,
but it doesn't really go beyondthat.
And it sounds like that you'verecognized that and sort of
attacked it at the source, andthat's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, and it would be great if people stated a
baseline, but generally peopleactually continue to deteriorate
slowly as they do with theircondition.
So, yeah, people do not enterthe psychiatric system picking
that they're going to heal orcure.
They think the very least thatthey might do, the very best
that they would do, might bepatch it up.
But they have the condition andnow have it for life,
(02:32):
chronically and ultimately untilthe day they die.
And that is simply not the case.
The psychiatric orpsychological or emotional
imbalances that we go through inlife are absolutely healable,
and they're healable in theworld of communication,
connection and conversation, aswell as creativity and
resonating harmonically withanother person.
(02:53):
And in that connection comeshealing, comes love and comes
the possibility of trulyrecovering.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
That's wonderful.
I'm glad you mentioned that,because I want to talk to you
about your book about creativityas well as communication, and
one of the things that reallystood out to me when I started
reading about you was the wordauthenticity and how one of the
main things that you do ishelping people find their own
authenticity.
So a lot of times I thinkpeople, a lot of people, know
(03:22):
the word I know for a whileuntil I really researched it
Just kind of like, well, itmeans being true to yourself,
but there's a lot more depththan that, I think.
And so when you say the wordauthenticity, what is it that
you're hoping to communicate topeople that work with you?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, that's a really great question and not an easy
question to take on in onesentence and not an easy
question to think about usinglanguage as a matter of fact.
So what authenticity is is astate of being, and it's a state
of being whole and complete.
But a state of being whole andcomplete with your thoughts,
your speech and your actions,the idea is that all of those
things are consistent with somesort of core value or sense of
(04:02):
self that has been with you yourwhole life.
In most cases, like that,you're speaking your truth,
you're speaking your honest coreexperience, and when I say
speaking, I'm using the broadestterm of the word speaking.
It doesn't have to be throughwords.
It can be through non-speaking,it can be through
non-verbalization, it can bethrough creativity, through the
(04:23):
creative and performing arts.
It can be through art, music,dancing, singing, drama.
There are many ways ofcommunicating.
But what's clear is that whensomeone is authentic or
approaches authenticity becausea very significant theory out
there holds that one is neverauthentic it's only a direction
to point to that, ultimately,we're always inauthentic,
(04:44):
because that's what the worldrequires us to do, because we
speak in linear terms and theworld is simply not linear.
So we actually presentourselves in a light to be heard
in a particular fashion, ratherthan presenting ourselves and
being the whole person or thewhole human or the whole living
being that we are and because ofthat, we kind of cut into our
(05:07):
authenticity, picking andchoosing what we present and
then therefore not taking on thewhole nature of what it is to
be ourselves.
So when we are aligned with ourspeech, our thoughts and our
actions and that alignment isconsistent with something that
is emanating from our core,central self, that's getting as
(05:30):
close as we are gonna get inthis lifetime to being authentic
.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Wow, that's really amazing.
I'm really feeling that becauseI know, certainly for me
personally, there are a lot oftimes where it's just like, well
, I can't say what I'm thinking,I can't.
You know, I have to presentmyself professionally or
something like that, and youknow it can feel really rough
when you don't feel safe to dothat.
(05:57):
That's really interesting andyou teach courses on.
You have a book specificallyabout authenticity, your true
voice, and you also teachcourses on this right.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yeah, I have a couple books you've mentioned about
the creative eight healingthrough creativity and
self-expression and I have myother book, which is called Find
your True Voice, and what thatdoes is really assist people in
getting the things out of theway that are in the way of
discovering what is at this core, central self of ours.
Like what is authenticityversus identity?
(06:28):
I like to use identity likewhat we have taken on our
personal persona of how wepresent ourselves.
So when we start really justshaving away the things that are
preventing ourselves fromspeaking our true self or
presenting ourselves orexpressing ourselves
authentically, we can get downto what's already here.
In other words, we don't haveto go out there to find our true
(06:51):
voice.
Our true voice is alreadyemanating and it's here to be
discovered rather than exploredand found out there.
It's something that alreadyexists in each and every one of
us and we know it because, likeyou said, there's a sense of
rottenness when we actuallyexpress ourselves differently
than who we are.
We have learned over time toaccept pretending to be someone
(07:15):
that we're not in order toprotect the person that we are.
We pretend to be somebody thatwe're not in order to protect
the person that we are Now.
When you look at that hoveringover the top as an observing
vantage point, you can see thatthat's truly an absurd way to
manage life.
Pretending to be somebody thatwe are not in order to protect
(07:37):
the person that we are is reallya way of assuring failure.
Ultimately, of course, whenwe're pretending to be someone
we're not, we're not going to beheard or seen as who we are,
and it doesn't even naturallyprotect the person that we are,
because either way, you're goingto have haters.
You're going to have people whodismiss you, people who
(07:59):
disregard you, people whodisrespect you for what you
presented.
So if you're attempting toprotect yourself from being
disregarded or disenfranchisedor opposed or thrown off the
island in some way, pretendingto be someone that you're not is
not a very useful or effectivemeans of getting there, and we
(08:20):
learned how to do it when wewere children.
We learned how to do it when wewere in school, and we learned
how to sort of present ourselvesin a favorable way so that we
could get a good grade or makefriends or be in the right group
, et cetera, and we never wentback and fixed it.
So now the generalunderstanding in public is that
(08:41):
people do that.
We all expect that from eachother, and because we haven't
gone back and fixed thatever-growing crack in the cement
, we are left with a life thatis fated to have quite a fair
amount of inauthenticity.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yeah, I absolutely agree with you.
One of the things when I workwith medical students to try to
teach them is about thatauthenticity and saying you know
, we tend to think a good doctordoes this and you get that idea
from somewhere and you think,okay, a good doctor is going to
focus on the statistics or agood doctor is going to just
(09:18):
focus on the person, or whatever.
And I try to communicate tothem.
I said, no, a good doctor isyou and you have to figure out
what that is.
Is it scary for some of yourstudents when they start to work
with you?
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Yeah, sure, it's always scary, but life is scary.
It's scary when you're notdoing it and it's scary when
you're doing it.
So the truth is you can beafraid and not approach your
authenticity, or you can beafraid and approach your
authenticity, and you're notgoing to have less fear either
way.
So the opportunity here is toactually incorporate fear and
move in the direction of what'sbeing called from you in the
(09:55):
first place, and I think you geta much richer life.
You know, I think it was HenryDavid Thoreau who said that the
massive men go through life inquiet desperation and then go to
the grave with their song stillin them, and that, to me, is
one of life's greatest tragediesgoing through life and having
nobody actually know who you are.
The opportunity really doesexist to approach presenting
(10:17):
yourself as the person that youreally are, and then a lot of
things happen.
You don't have to rememberanything anymore, like there's
no.
You don't have to remember whoyou told what, you don't have to
remember different lies or fibs, or you know fabrications that
you have delivered, and insteadyou can actually be who you are
in any given moment and be happywith that, and be happy with
(10:37):
how you're expressing and, infact, how you're resonating with
other human beings.
Yeah, yeah, it almost soundslike a fantasy but it's actually
achievable, for sure it'sachievable, yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Yeah, so for somebody , for our listeners, who may not
have had the chance to readyour book, I've started to read
it.
It's wonderful, and we'll makesure that all that's in the show
notes so that everybody can getaccess to it and to your
website.
For somebody that's listeningtoday, if you want to just start
them off on a journey towardsthinking about becoming their
(11:10):
authentic selves, what would yousay to them?
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Well, I think the key thing to really get is that
your authentic self is alreadyhere.
You don't have to go very far,you're already in touch with it.
You know when you tell and tella truth or when you are in
authentic.
There's a part of you thatrings that bell.
You know when you're not sayingsomething that you should or,
even worse, you know when you'resaying something that even you
don't believe.
Yeah, how crazy is that, by theway, that us humans, at this
(11:37):
point, that we even say thingsthat we don't believe.
Yeah, like that is just out ofcontrol, and that is what we
humans have developed ourselvesas.
So we already know that.
We know what the truth is.
We know how do we become goodliars.
We become good liars bycreating something that sounds
close enough to a truth to beacceptable.
(11:58):
So we know what truth is.
We know what the experience oftruth is.
We know what the experience ofour core self is, because when
we tell a lie or we saysomething that is misaligned
with what we know to be true, wefeel that you know, there is an
integrity police in each andevery one of us that rings that
bell for us and lets us know.
(12:19):
So if we first get you know ina student form that we don't
have to go very far to find thisauthentic self of ours, all we
have to do is kind of move outthe things that are in the way
of us being that particularperson, that's one good thing to
know.
The next really good thing toknow is that there might be
nothing wrong with you at all.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
That's wonderful to hear.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
No, it really might be that there is nothing wrong
with you.
Like, even if you've been toldthat there is by a big time
professional, there still mightbe nothing wrong with you.
Even if you are carrying adiagnosis that three
professionals have agreed with,you still might have nothing
wrong with you.
It could be that you're justbeing a human and that your only
(13:03):
diagnosis is that person you'reseeing in the mirror.
That's it, the exact personthat is you.
If you can get that, there'snothing wrong with you in the
first place, that you're justbumbling through life like each
of us are, without a road map,without a cookbook, without a
manual.
When you really get that,that's all you're doing and the
(13:24):
difficulties you're having arefairly equal to the difficulties
that the person next to you ishaving and also trying to hide.
When you get that going on thatthere might be nothing wrong
with you.
That might leave you a littlebit of room to actually explore
what is what, who you are reallylike, what in who you are
really.
Because if you can start doingthat, you can start seeing that
(13:48):
you have come to be youauthentically, that your ride to
become you has been entirelyauthentic, everything that
you've said and done has beenyou.
Everything that you're about tosay and do is still going to be
you.
Who you are being right thisvery minute is you and that's
all you are, and we don't haveto actually put ourselves into a
(14:11):
box and be declared differentthan, or less than, or defective
or deficient or afflicted ordiseased or with a deficit of
any nature.
We, in fact, don't have to callourselves sick or ill or
syndromeed at all.
We can get that.
Who we are, just like we are,is exactly who we're meant to be
(14:32):
as perfection, like straightperfection, including, of course
, all of our imperfections.
Once we start giving ourselvesthat level of latitude, that
level of grace, of compassion,of acceptance and forgiveness,
we honestly have an opportunityto explore what is this real
self of mine anyways, and maybeI don't have to be making up and
(14:54):
fabricating a story about who Iam in order to please other
people.
Maybe the person that I reallyam is the person that I'm most
comfortable being ultimately, ifI would allow myself to fall
into who I really was born to, Ihave to say you are good at
this.
Yeah, not my first ruck.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Because you've, yeah, no, because I definitely, you
know, without you getting into asession or anything.
You know, there's certainly alot of times, you know, in my
life, and I think in everyone'slife, like you're saying where
you're just like, well, I can'tsay that, well, I better smile
here or I better do this insteadof what I'm actually thinking,
(15:36):
because we're in a public placeor whatever Right.
And you know, you just get usedto that.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
And that is not necessarily inauthentic, by the
way.
You have to take everythinginto consideration, and being
authentic is not telling yourtruth, even when the face of
safety becomes an issue.
I'm not telling people to beyou know to be so authentic that
you go to the mountaintopscreaming how much you hate your
mother-in-law or a particulargroup of people.
That is not the level ofauthenticity I'm talking about.
(16:05):
I'm talking about weighing andlistening closely to what's
being called from you.
How can you move that needleforward in your relationship
with the person that you're withor with the people that you're
attempting to you know,attempting to impact, or the
group or the event or thecircumstances that you are
(16:26):
embedded in?
How can you make a differencein that?
And that might meancommunicating.
It might be not communicating.
What it probably doesn't mean,however, is saying something
that even you don't agree with.
That's probably not your bestchoice of all the choices out
there.
I do suggest that you don't dothat one very often, because
(16:46):
that one naturally leads to asense of diminishment of self,
you know, to a depletion.
When we actually speak and saysomething that even we know we
don't agree with and all of ushave had that experience, then
it is just a really difficultsituation that diminishes from
our core self.
It leaves us feeling less.
(17:09):
Here's the other thing that Ireally want to make clear Most
people think there's somethingwrong with them.
In fact, almost everybodythinks there's something wrong
with them.
In fact, everybody thinksthere's something wrong with
them.
Now, when the truth is and youstart looking, there's nobody
who thinks there is nothingwrong with me.
You have to develop that nature.
(17:29):
It is not a default.
You have to actually grow intothe notion that there's nothing,
because we have been told overand over again by our
authorities, by teachers, bypolice, by our parents, you know
, by our siblings, by ourfriends there's something wrong
with you, you're wrong, you know, and then we take that on to
ourselves.
So it almost can be like.
(17:52):
One of the ways to look at thisis it's very, very normal to
know that there's somethingwrong with you and therefore,
when you know there's somethingwrong with you, that just only
shows that there's nothing wrongwith you.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
I like that a lot.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yeah, I do, and one of the things that you touched
on that I want to go back to alittle bit is talking about not
doing verbal communication thatyou can show a lot of these
things through nonverbalcommunication or through
creativity.
And you have your book Creative8, that I love to hear more
about because it sounds justfascinating To bring in the arts
(18:33):
.
Of course, I'm a former actor,a former director, all of those
things.
So when you say bring increativity to it, I just go nuts
, because that's really on mywavelength as well.
Tell us a little bit about howyou see that nonverbal
communication or creativecommunication or anything like
(18:54):
that comes into this.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Right.
So the ways to communicate arereally vast, nearly infinite
numbers of ways of communicating.
We have leaned on the defaultof being words, using words in
our hearing, so what we say andwhat we hear, and then what we
actually process about what wesay and what we hear.
And we have also really cutourselves into no slack.
(19:20):
So once we say something, theother person holds us to it,
even if we think we didn't saywhat they thought we said.
So we say something, someonehears whatever they say.
Then they say oh, you just saidthis.
And you say no, I didn't saythat.
They say yes, you did, yes, youdid.
And now you're held to actuallysaying what someone else heard
you say rather than what youreally said.
(19:40):
And if you look back at thetape, if you actually looked at
the review, the replay, youwould see that you actually said
what you thought you said.
They heard what they heard.
But because they heard whatthey heard, they're holding you
to what they think you said andbecause of that, you end up
defending something that youdidn't mean to say, but you said
(20:01):
anyway, spontaneously, or maybeyou didn't say it all and it
got heard in a different fashion, as you could see this whole
thing, which actually took placein less than two seconds.
So this event that I justdescribed for you is an instant
event, right?
Yes, I say something.
You heard me say it.
You heard my expression, youheard the circumstances, you
(20:22):
heard the context, you developedwhat you heard me say.
You said, oh, dr Fred said this.
And then I think, well, notreally, that isn't what I meant.
And you're like, look, you saidit.
I guess I'm held to it now.
So that is not really a veryefficient way of communicating.
Ultimately and frankly, like Ialready mentioned, in the world
(20:44):
of verbal communication it'sextraordinarily linear.
I am streaming together, like astring of beads, a bunch of
words that I'm designing on thespot.
I am picking these things outof my repertoire, out of my
vocabulary, on the spot.
I'm not sure what my next wordis that I'm going to use, but,
(21:06):
boy, better be good, becauseit's going to represent my soul
in your eyes and other listeners.
So it has to be perfect.
And I get one shot at it, likeI got to be picking it
spontaneously and I got to pickit now.
And it's linear.
How do I know it's linear?
Because it's one after theother, it's one word after the
other, it's one thought afterthe other, it's one after the
(21:28):
other Latin, that's whatlinearity is headed towards.
A point, if you haven't noticedthe world is not linear, but
experience is not linear.
We don't have a thread calledexperience.
Experience is a vast,overwhelming experience,
(21:49):
ontological event, and to useour singular, linear way of
binary language to create astring of words that then gets
interpreted as a truth is thelast thing from Shirley
Effective.
This is why creativity can beused so effectively, because
(22:11):
when we start splashing paint oncanvas, or we start making
music, or we start dancing, orwe start singing, or we start
drama, like you said, or, inmany cases, cooking or writing
or gardening, when we startcreating, we create that vast
(22:31):
experience without wordstainting it, and a new level of
expression can be made.
I don't know about you, butwhen I see a Van Gogh, when I
see a Dalai, when I see aPicasso, it's an experience that
far exceeds any words.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
When I hear Bing.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Tobin, when I hear Mozart, when I hear even Led
Zeppelin in my case I hearsomething that's entirely
expansive, way more than whatJimmy Page might have been able
to say to me on a singularsentence.
There's something inside.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Oh, that's such a good point yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Like Jimmy, I would love to have lunch with Jimmy
Page, and if you can make thathappen, that'd be really cool,
and I'll work on it.
And it's not Jimmy Page per se,but I really appreciate watching
Jimmy Page play guitar and Iespecially appreciate Led
Zeppelin putting it all togetheras they did.
This is also true with some ofthe classical musicians, as we
(23:28):
jump out of Led Zeppelin alittle bit and go to some of the
artists that have stood thetest of time, where listening to
a symphony can certainly drawyou to cheers or to arousal, or
to happiness, or to fear, or tosadness or multiple different
life experiences, just in thelistening of the vibration that
(23:51):
people call music.
And this is true with all formsof creativity.
And non-spoken words is also adecision.
In other words, if you choosenot to speak when that's one of
the options out there, you aremaking a statement and there is
a.
I think I can get this up foryou.
Let's see.
I cannot not communicate, yeahRight.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Wow, that's so true yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Right, I most definitely am communicate.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yes, yes, that is so true.
You're probably familiar withthe work of Dr Paul Ekman, who
does all of the.
Yeah, I certified with himseveral years ago in order to be
able to teach about facialexpressions and body language,
and he says kind of the similarthing, and there's been.
(24:43):
There are studies about thebiochemical reactions that we
have in our brain when we feel aparticular emotion, and there's
a lot of question over whetherwe feel the emotion first or
have the facial expression first, because it's so deeply
intuitive.
So you're talking about how toexpress and, yeah, I would
(25:03):
imagine I loved what you saidabout how watching Jimmy Page
play guitar and then if youasked Jimmy Page, well, what
does this mean here?
He probably wouldn't be able todescribe it.
He shouldn't be able to describeit, yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yeah, I heard quotes from Jimmy Page.
I recently posted somethingthis week from Jimmy Page
talking about his notion thatLed Zeppelin is the best rock
and roll band of all time andit's a really beautiful piece of
about of a paragraph of himputting words together about who
they really were together, themojo that they put together as
the foursome, and that him andPlant were really great together
(25:41):
.
But putting all four of themtogether created something that
had never been done and neverwill be done again, and he
really did speak to the beautyof that.
It was really remarkable, aremarkable quote that was
inspiring in its own right, butthe furthest thing from hearing
black dog or steroid to heavenfor sure.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Yeah, yeah.
So what we have to do isremember that each of us is like
that as well.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Exactly, that's right .
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yeah, we all are.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
We're all artists and we may not be Jimmy Page
proficiency in a particular area, but each and every one of us
is entirely creative.
How do I know that?
Because if you got through thelast second of time, it took a
lot of creativity to get thatdone.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
That is fantastic.
That is fantastic.
Make me feel better aboutmyself, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
So if you don't mind giving us a little more detail,
so your book, the Creative Eight.
What are the eight things aboutcreativity that your book talks
?
Speaker 2 (26:34):
about.
We've spoken to the eightalready.
I did drop them in,incidentally, so here they are
in order.
They're art, music, dancing,singing, drama, cooking, writing
and gardening are the top eight.
Wow, that came on later andthose were cleaning and
photography, and ultimately thebook is about the tenth one, or
the ninth one, or the eleventhone, the last one, the trump
(26:56):
card, if you will, and that ishelping anyone do anything.
The idea here these things wereput in place because what I
learned when I was treating mymultiple thousands of patients
as a psychiatrist was thatsymptoms or the sense of
symptoms despair, misery, pain,discomfort, imbalance all
(27:16):
disappeared when we were in theact of creating.
So the therapy or the modalitythat I asked people to take on
was to take one minute a day todo three of these things.
So pick three art, music andcooking.
And if, for a minute, do someart, and that might mean tracing
or doodling, that's fine.
For a minute, do some music,and that might mean tapping that
(27:39):
same pencil on a table orplaying on a harmonica, or
picking up the guitar or tappingon the piano, whatever you have
, or pick up a third one, and Ithink I said cooking.
So I'd like to go beyond toastand ramen noodles, but something
to actually put together somecooking effort for the full sake
of its creativity.
If you do this for one minute ora total of three minutes a day,
(28:02):
my intention is to activate thecreative aspect of that
particular pathway, and whatI've noticed is that people who
do that we remind themselvesthat they're creative at their
heart and if I re remindingthemselves, they can get turned
on and buy what it really is tobe creative and how creativity,
(28:22):
in fact, can be utilized as amassive tool to alleviate the
depression and the discomfortthat comes from not being heard
for who you are.
Almost all mental illness is afunction of not being self
expressed to the point of beingheard for who you are.
If you go through theassumption or the conclusion
(28:46):
that what people want more thananything is to be seen and heard
for who they are and whothey're not, that's really what
people want.
And so ultimately, there's abackfiring of sorts that you're
not being heard for who you areor you're not listening.
Like the communicationbreakdown and communication
breakdown course is a nice leadup one song in and of its own
right, and when you have acommunication breakdown, the
(29:08):
opportunity exists to reallystep into finding a way to
communicate effectively, andthese are many of the ways that
we can get that done.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Wow, I'm trying to think of the next question,
because you explain things sosuccinctly and you've just got
me going along saying, yeah,yeah, I know how that feels, I
know how that feels.
So you're saying three minutesa day to pick three different
things.
One minute a day and do themone minute a day for three
different things.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Right, one minute per thing yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Per thing.
Okay, and then it can be assmall as you want, like just
doodling, or it can be as big asyou want, like splashing paint
on a canvas.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
And that that's going to get you the start of being
tuned in more to your authenticself, and you used a term that I
can't remember.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Yeah, just getting more to do Creative self
expression, exactly.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Creative self expression.
Okay, yeah, well, that'scertainly something I can do.
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
And when you find yourself doing that, you'll see
that, at least during thosetimes that you're participating
in that activity, during thosetimes, your symptoms or your
misery, your pain or discomfortwill be disappeared.
Now, the truth is, you can keepit disappeared or you can snap
back to where you were beforeyou started that event.
(30:26):
The truth is there's somechoice there.
You're not afflicted againstyour, in other words, you're not
enslaved.
You're not enslaved to haveyour next way of being dictated
by the past that got you to here.
It's entirely possible to choosea different direction from any
given second that we are.
(30:47):
So, if we're able to alleviatethe pain and discomfort for any
period of time, we have a choiceof where we're going to get off
that horse.
Are we going to get off thehorse and go back to where we
were directly before we startedplaying the piano?
Certainly, you can do that.
If you want to go be reallypain and depressed, it's a
possibility that you canabsolutely go and return.
(31:09):
But what's really interestingand I'm not suggesting, by the
way, that this is simple thatour habits are built very deeply
in ourselves and we tendtowards disempowered context.
But I am suggesting that thereis some choice and there is some
agency and some sovereigntyfrom that space on the back end
of your creative action, whereyou get to choose where to get
off the horse and maybe youdon't have to snap back to the
(31:33):
misery that preceded that.
Maybe you have an opportunitysince you're making up the whole
thing anyways to go into adifferent direction and create
something that's a little bitmore satisfying or
self-fulfilling Yep.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
All I can say is that I'm really identifying with
that, and I hope listeners aretoo.
So tell me a little bit.
I don't have any idea aboutthis next question but, what do
you find?
And I don't know if there havebeen studies or anything like
that, but what do you find assomebody goes through this
reconnecting with theirauthentic selves, this
(32:09):
connecting with the creativitywhat do you find happens in
their life, in their mentalhealth?
In their physical health.
Are there results that you'veexperienced I?
Speaker 2 (32:22):
think so.
I think what people really findout is indeed, if it's on they
take into consideration, theremight be nothing inherently
wrong with you in the firstplace.
People start getting in touchwith the real self and creating
a space for the people in theirworld to also get in touch with
their very real self.
So there's like a contagion, avirality to the whole thing.
The idea is, when I'm beingauthentic, I bring out your
(32:44):
authenticity just by being inyour presence.
When you're being authentic,you create a space for which
authenticity is then inventedand invited into the center
stage and because of that youget a much richer life.
You get a life that actuallyworks and not a life that's
based on all the deficiency anddefects that you thought you had
(33:04):
.
So an opportunity has to reallylaunch a life in the direction
of sheer and possible creativity, like actually creating
creativity, creating opencommunication lines and
ultimately creating the harmonicresonance that is required to
connect with humans to you, whatyou have a harmonic resonance
(33:26):
that is what's required toconnect human to human.
That is the source that we'retalking about.
That is the listening and theconnection that we're all after,
and from there comes healingand ultimately from there, I am
submitting, is the essence oflove, so that love and healing
are also a function ofconnection, and connection is a
(33:48):
function of this harmonicresonance.
And harmonic resonance is afunction of coming to grips with
your authenticity, andauthenticity is a function of
being honest with your thought,speech and action.
And all of that is a functionof discovering your true and
authentic self.
And that's literally what'shere, and we go in both
directions there.
It's clear that it becomesentirely possible to have a
(34:10):
fully transformed life, forwhich caring for yourself
becomes a function of making itpossible for other people to
care for you and to care forthemselves in your present.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Yeah, yeah, I just for a quick anecdote.
I have to say that I wasfortunate enough when I met my
husband to feel this sort ofsense of relief All of a sudden,
because I didn't have to try tobe somebody that was
particularly funny or sexy oranything.
It just sort of happened thatbecause it happened all of a
(34:43):
sudden, I was funny and I wassmart and all of those things I
said.
I'm really lucky Some peopledon't get to experience that
right away.
So, dr Fred, this has just beena really illuminating day for
me particular, and I know forthe listeners too.
So you teach courses.
Like I said, you have the twobooks, finding your True Voice
and Creative Eight, and how cansomeone get in touch with you if
(35:05):
they'd like to learn more?
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Yeah, so the brand that I've developed is a brand
that makes a lot of sense atleast now I'm, the more I speak
about what I'm about and that'ssomething called Welcome to
Humanity, and you can find me atDr Fred at WelcomeToHumanitynet
.
The person whohaswelcometohumanitycom is
offering it to me for like$10,000, and I've chosen some
(35:26):
that are not highest, so I have.
WelcomeToHumanitynet, and if youreally want to see all the
things that I'm up to withrespect to podcasting or keynote
speaking or teaching orone-to-one coaching, which I
love doing as well as groupcoaching, then you can find me
at Dr Fred drfred360.comDrFred360.com, where you get a
little taste of everything thatI'm about, including my contact
(35:49):
information and, for yourlisteners, a special offer for a
discovery call where you canmaybe see it whether you and I
can work together.
But if you and I aren't a goodfit, I know a lot of people in
the community that are coachesand therapists and doctors and
you know multiple differentprofessionals that can help you
or help whatever it is thatyou're looking for assistance
(36:11):
with, and I'd be glad to makethat referral.
That's really important to methat you get what you came for
when you reach out for me at fora discovery call.
My books are there, you can geta bunch of freebies and that
are also on DrFred360.com, andyou get access to a lot of
different things, including waysto contact me and ways to
(36:32):
utilize my services.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Okay, so that's welcometohumanitynet.
We'll have all that in the shownotes and then it's
DrFred360.com DrFred360.com.
So, drfred, can't thank youenough for being here today.
Like I said, it's beenincredibly illuminating and
you've got me feeling, you know,more cool and excited and in
(36:58):
tune with myself.
Good and when we started.
Thank you very much for that,and I'm sure our listeners have
had the same experience.
So thank you very, very muchfor being here today.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
My pleasure.
Thanks so much, I reallyappreciate it.
Thanks, rafe.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Thank you everyone for listening today.
Special shout out to listenersin Globe, arizona, hamburg, new
Jersey and Buford, southCarolina.
I appreciate you.
Remember you can find DrFred atwelcometohumanitynet.
That'll all be in the shownotes.
Thanks so much for listening tothe Savvy Communicator.
We'll see you next time.
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