The Spiritual Function of the Vagus Nerve with Michael Shea

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to what is going on for New Thought from
the Edge of Arm. Each week on home Time's flagship
radio show, veteran broadcaster, author, and media consultant Sandy Sedgebeer
conducts thought provoking interviews with inspirational authors, artists, musicians, scientists, speakers,
and filmmakers who are working at the point where spirituality

(00:33):
and science meet consciousness, at the very edge of Arm.
Here is your host, Sandy Sedgeber.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Hello. Following on from a previous show in which he
outlined why spiritual suffering may be at the root of
our modern ecademic of metabolic syndrome and other widespread health issues,
Semitic psychologist Michael Shay returns today to the show to
share the latest information about the spiritual function of the

(01:05):
vagus nerve and its key role in the mind body
spirit connection. Michael, Welcome back to the show.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Thank you, Sandy. Always good to be here. Appreciate you.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
So I read an article on the BBC Science Focus
web page today that described the vagus nerve as a
sort of polymath of the parasympathetic nervous system getting involved
in everything from breathing, heart rates, swallowing, sneezing, digestion, appetite,
immune response, body weight, mood, and even orgasm. But I

(01:42):
don't think I've heard anyone talk about the role that
it plays in nurturing the seeds of spiritual experience. So
tell me more about that.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Well, Sandy, you just named all the seeds of spiritual experience.
So you know, we have a body, okay, and our
body has an instinct for self transcendence. It's there from conception.
You know, we have form, we have movement. It's incredible
that how it functions. And we're finding that the vagus
nerve in terms of how it functions, and as you

(02:15):
just name, it's connected to everything in the body in
that way. Is kind of like the soil. I wouldn't
call it the seed. I would call it the soil
in which our spiritual experience and our maturation as human
beings can take place because it gives us an inner
knowing there. It gives us a consciousness, It gives us

(02:37):
a voice that we can listen to when we pay
attention to it.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
You know, people talk about the heart brain connection. They
talk about us having two brains, one in our gut,
you know, and one in our head. Is this all
to do with the vegus nerve.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yeah, really it is. Well, first of all, you and
I are to have this conversation as if they're separate things,
but we always have to consider that it's just one
thing we're talking about it, but how things are connected.
And so the vegas nerve is the great connector in
the human embryo. When the vegas nerve develops its cells,

(03:16):
you start in the back of the head. Here they
actually come through the neck. And where do they go first,
the lung and the heart, and where do they go next?
They go the intestines, And what happens is a certain
amount of cells in the intestines they slough off and
they become the enteric nervous system. And those cells create

(03:36):
connections to our spinal cord in the back of us
to go up to the brain. And the vegas is
in front and it's going up the middle of the
body to the brain. So think of the vegas nerve
as a whole loop in terms of the gut brain
head brain connection. That we have the vegas up and

(03:57):
down the middle and the vegas had cells created the
gut brain and it goes to the spinal cord up
to the brain. So it's a looping where all this
information then is shared with the body between the two brains.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Why is it taking us so long to learn about
the vagus nerve.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
Well, now that we could get into a lot of history,
and that has to do with neuroscience and what neuroscience
has really focused on. If you maybe you remember, but
in the nineteen nineties was to clear the decade of
the brain. And so that's in the nineties when all
of this information started. The vegus nerve became very big

(04:40):
and very popular, rated about nineteen ninety or ninety one,
but it also got lost within the context of all
these other brain structures that are incredibly important because what
does the vegas nerve do when it gets to the brain, Well,
it has to send signals for sorting things out, such
as the physiog ology of self preservation. So I need

(05:03):
to be able to orient to eating, and I need
to be orienting to being able to eliminate waste products.
But it also ties into those structures of the brain
that are very very critical on assessing safety. So when
we talk about the spiritual component of the vegus nerve,
we have to first start with the foundation of the

(05:24):
vegas is providing information about our external safety from the
people around us and internal safety. So if we're eating
junk food and processed food, we're basically causing food trauma
and the vegus nervous home. I'm not internally safe, okay.

(05:45):
And that really begins to change the way we orient
to our own survival and our own healing. It also
changes our spiritual practice, and it changes the way in
which we orient to our own in for self transcendence.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
Is it changing the way that the medical profession is
interacting with the human body.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
I mean I talk to a lot of doctors in
the docs we work with, and I would say functional
medicine doctors in the United States, and then my wife
and I teach it a big alternative cancer clinic in Switzerland,
and those doctors are all familiar with the function and
role of the parasympathetic nervous system. Not so much the vegas,

(06:35):
but the way in which medical doctors learn is through
the function of the parasympathetic system, of which the vegas
is seventy five percent. But it's not presented that way
in medical textbooks. It's presented first in the category of
parasympathetic and then you have to drill down and get

(06:55):
into the specific literature which is now forthcoming. It's incredible
in the last ten years how much has come out
about the Vegas nerve. But I wouldn't be concerned about
a medical doctor knowing about the Vegas nerve at this point.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
Well, I do wonder whether you know, they're finally beginning
going to understand that we are. You know, you can't
just treat the body in isolation. You can't treat bits
of the body. We are mind, body, and spirit. And
I'm wondering how much of the research is going to
make the medical profession re evaluate that because they've kind

(07:30):
of ignored that.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
Well, and that's where we get into the spirituality the
Vegas nerve, because what's happening with the research on the
Vegas nerve is it's entering the domain of the research
on compassion. So the Oxford Handbook of Compassion Science that
came out like eight or nine years ago has a
beautiful article on the Vegas nerve and why it's important

(07:53):
in spiritual practice and how the Vegas nerve gets activated
in contemplative practices to generate compassion. Now, take that little
snippet and we see that. There's several medical schools, one
in particular in California that just got a huge funding
two years ago to start a school of compassion. So yes,

(08:17):
it's very slowly entering into the medical community from the
domain of the compassion research. And there's a lot of
compassion research. This Oxford Handbook of Compassion Science, and now
there's other prestigious books that are like three hundred dollars
a piece to buy. But that's what the medical community needs,
and it is starting, and it's very slow.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
There's a lot of research lately on altruism and how
you know, people who are altruistic and generous actually live
longer and are healthier. So you know, again it's the
same kind of thing as compassion, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
Well, altruism is kind of the end result of of
the spiritual path. So if you could say that, you know,
in life, we have spiritual formation where we have a
spiritual being, you know when we're a child, and we
have different ways of relating to our spiritual process, and
then there's the spiritual maturation that goes on, you know,

(09:17):
over time. So it's very important to appreciate the developmental
aspect of that and compassion, but it requires contemplative practices.
This is what the research now is pointing to that
in order to link together, let's say, compassion with a
vagus nerve with spiritual maturation, we need to have be

(09:40):
in the domain of contemplative practices. And so we have
the new named field of contemplative neuroscience, and the vagus
nerve is and its function is really influencing that. So
this is a very big part of the relationship between
spirituality and the vegus nerve and compassion in general. But

(10:01):
altruism is the maturation. You don't start you don't start
that way. Well, actually you do at a metabolic level,
and I don't want to get into that, but you know,
the altruism really is based on oneself. First, you have
to understand compassion and therefore the vegas nerve, because the

(10:22):
vegus nerve is giving you a lot of information on
what's going on inside your body, You've got to have
compassion for yourself first. You've got to really take care
of yourself. You've got to be your own caregiver. It's
not it's extremely difficult. Let's not use negatives. It's very
difficult to care for another person. If you don't know

(10:44):
how to care for yourself, it's called compassion burnout. Compassion
fatigue now is big in the helping professions. I had
a year of training as a multi faith chaplain and
it was very, very big. I just didn't want to
get placed in a hospital and have to deal with
that level of distress which is constant. So you have

(11:05):
to take care of yourself. So in terms of compassion
and altruism, you have to be altruistic to yourself. That is,
as you may know, very difficult to learn. It took
me a long time to learn that, and I'm still
working with that because I'm in the helping profession. So
already this morning, I've done a consult quite some time

(11:27):
with a patient with breast cancer and just the horror
of having going through that process and getting ready for
the surgery tomorrow. So it's around us all the time.
And this afternoon, when we finish, I'm going to take
a break and go to the beach because i need
time away from that level of giving and caring and

(11:47):
being compassionate and taking care of myself.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
So with all the research that's emerging and with this
knowledge that you know, we've got to be contemplative practices.
Important is that kind of throwing a bit of shade
on all of the devices that have suddenly come in
on the market, you know, to rebalance your vegas nerve.

Speaker 3 (12:12):
I hate to say this, but there was a journalist
in the late eighteen Hunderds Ambrose Biers and he said,
nobody ever lost a fortune underestimating the stupidity the American public.
I'm not saying these devices don't have value because that
those devices come out of research literature on a function
of the vegas nerve in which the vegas nerve can

(12:35):
create anti inflammatory signaling. You want to have that for
your healing process. So there are ways that you can
electrically stimulate it. It was based on research where it
would surgically implant a device by the vegas nerve. It
comes real close to the surface right here by your
collar bone, and then you could just pass a device

(12:57):
over it and it would stimulate the vegas nerve and
create an anti inflammatory response for patients with multiple sclerosis
with MS. Now on the internet, you can buy it
anywhere and you can put it on your ears, because
that's what you do, and you go from there and
to stimulate your vegas nerve. Everybody, most everyone has inflammatory

(13:21):
processes going on. So the whole idea here with with
the vegus nerve and contemplative practices because it's it's trending
right now. I have in the past three or four months,

(13:42):
I have seen more books come into my practice right
now that are integrating polyvagel theory and vegas nerve into
contemplative practices, especially yoga. That's really big. In the Compassion
Science book, the chanting is really good. And why is that.

(14:02):
It's because the immediate association with whether you buy a
device to stimulate your vegus nerve. The easiest way to
stimulate your vegus nerve is to breathe. So your inhlation
goes into your abdomen and your exhalation is slow. So
if you've been to a yoga class and you do chanting,

(14:24):
you see that, Oh my goodness, yes I'm chanting. It's
a very slow exhalation that raises vagal tone, which then
increases your capacity to calm your heart and experience joy
and happiness, which is the original function of the parasympathetic system.

(14:44):
This is in the neurological literature the vagus nerve is
built for happiness, joy, and bliss, and it's got a
default state, and that default state is stress, inflammation, disease, process,
all of all of it. What's going on, that's the default.
In with contemplative practices, we can start reorienting the vegus

(15:08):
nerve to its original functionality, joy, happiness and so forth,
compassion and the spiritual path if we want to call
it that.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
It's interesting because you know, when we look at things
like spontaneous healing in people who have been given, you know,
life altering diagnoses, a lot of people say that what
helped them heal their bodies was meditation or visualization or

(15:39):
something that they undertook to calm their systems. So they're
working on the.

Speaker 3 (15:44):
Vegas nert, they're working on the vegus nerve, and that
comes within that whole domain of contemplative neuroscience. And you know,
there's a whole lot of different ways in which that happens.
And see, any the thing is with the spirituality component
is that all of these experiences that we're trying to
induce with contemplative practices, they are already occurring naturally. You know,

(16:09):
you and I had some correspondence about this new book
that's coming out on It just came out and I've
been reading it, on the New Science of awe. You
know that that anytime we can be walking around and
all of a sudden see something beautiful, and what happens
is we get into a very spacious open awareness that
relaxes us, that creates a type of open attention to

(16:33):
something larger or deeper within ourselves that's already there and
we're just remembering it. It's innate, it's built into us.
It's critical to understand that component of that. We have
this self healing capacity that's generated from within the vegus
nerve and our state of mind.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yeah, I mean all is you know, it is a tissue.
It is gratitude, It is all the things that we've
been told about for a long long time that we
need to cultivate right.

Speaker 3 (17:09):
Well, And the thing is that again, the point being
that we need to recultivate them because they're innate. Compassion
is innate, it's within us. I mean from religious perspectives
and spiritual perspectives, they all will say it's in the heart,
you know, And I get that because the vagus nerve,

(17:29):
when its tone is correct, and really a high tone,
which means you have really low stress, you have the
innate automatic compassion responsiveness. You don't have to generate compassion responsiveness.
It's there and it will happen naturally. However, contemplative practices

(17:52):
are necessary in order to what's the best way to
help that process mature or you know, as they say,
to make sure the soil is fertile for that seed
of compassion to continue to grow. Very very critical.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
Well, it's very timely, isn't it, Because I mean, what
are we looking at in the world. People are angry,
people are depressed, people are in fear, people are you know, dividing.
There's so much division going on and people are staying
away from each other, and you know, very easy to
raise people's tempers and their hatred of things that they

(18:30):
don't even know about. What we need is exactly.

Speaker 3 (18:34):
This, well we need with us. Yes, we need to
calm down. We need you know, anger and hatred are
the most cardiotoxic emotions that there are. But we can
calm down, you know, with contemplative practices. But we also
have remembered the capacity with some of these contemplative practices

(18:57):
and especially Eastern meditation and it's our mind and our
thoughts that are creating this distress. So, for instance, when
I read world news, and I don't read a lot
of it. My wife and I have turned off the TV,
but I like to stay informed because I'm ex military

(19:17):
and I want to know what's going on, because I
made a commitment that I could be called up anytime
I was a military officer, and that means anytime in
my lifetime I can be called up. Not that I'm
going to be called up, but the point is that
I want to pay attention, but I don't drill down
in it, and I realize that it's the way I
think about things. Is this really polarization that's going on?

(19:42):
Or is this just the way the world has functioned
from the beginning. There has always been war, there has
always been trauma, and there's always been attempts to overcome it.
It seems to be like some type of balance is
always operating within the world, and so part of that

(20:02):
is being able to see anger and rage and this
incredible I completely agree. I completely agree this incredible division
that we see on the planet right now, but we
also have to tone down our thoughts about it and
our participation and are taking sides with it. So that's

(20:23):
a mental function that is also going to help the
vegas nerve. But we're also going to need other processes
where the vegus nerve interacts with our body. Okay, so
we've got the mental component that we have to calm
down and see the world more holistically as one thing,
and then we've got the body upset that's happening that

(20:45):
the vegas nerve is also functioning with. So the vegas
nerve is related to both of those. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 (20:52):
It does make sense. I want to just digress very
slightly because something occurred to me today when I was
looking over some notes from pre conversations you and I had,
and you had said that a study suggested that respiratory
symptoms related to long COVID may not be a result
of directing injury to the young, to the lungs, but

(21:12):
rather to the vagus nerve. And that made me think
about the vagus nerve. It made me think about the
anxiety and the anger and the fear that has been
getting worse since the COVID pandemic, and I wondered whether
there was a connection there.

Speaker 3 (21:29):
Well as I think I said earlier. You know, the
vegus nerve is responsible for informing us of whether we're
safe or not. And so initially the initial research was
do I feel safe with the people I'm around?

Speaker 4 (21:43):
You know?

Speaker 3 (21:44):
But when we start getting into an interpersonal dynamic, do
I feel safe emotionally with the people I'm around? And
so that's the function how the vegas works in the heart.
When you get down to the gut, it's does my
body feel safe? Just my whole body when you're eating
junk food and you've got an inflamed intestine, and nine

(22:05):
out of ten Americans are metabolically unhealthy, which means they're
intestines are metabolically unhealthy. They are not feeling safe. How
does that manifest? Well, we hear terms like brain fog.
You know, I've got brain fog. I can't think right,
you know, I fly off the handle real easily. So

(22:26):
we see that over perhaps one hundred and fifty psychological
diagnoses now are directly related to the gut microbiome, and
that's where the vegus nerve hooks in. So what I'm
saying here is people aren't feeling safe internally in their body,
and for whatever reason, changes need to happen. But you're

(22:48):
not going to get there with a contemplative practice. You're
going to get there with your knife and fork, folks,
you know, and you gotta and in your kitchen. I'm
calling the kitchen the new er. So we've got to
take better care of ourselves. And when we do that,
that's part of our spiritual maturation. We're taking care of
our body. We're taking care of our body. And this

(23:10):
is a critical component because if we're not feeling safe,
it's you can't function in the world. You buy into
the worldview of no safety. Okay, that's what these headlines
are saying. You're not safe. You're not safe. It's the
food we're eating that's not safe. It's the thoughts that
we're thinking that aren't safe. And there are ways that

(23:31):
we can take care and manage that ourselves. It's vital.
These are sandy, these are civilizational issues. Our civilization now
is at a crux, okay, and there's been an enormous
amount of loss. I just saw a statistic yesterday that
one point four million people died of COVID from undiagnosed

(23:54):
high blood pressure. Okay, And what this means is that
the level of the client that are coming in to
see me are dealing with constant loss. They've lost friends, family,
they've lost loved ones. So there's a constant like grieving
process that's underneath. And I think that's the edge that

(24:15):
I'm working towards, especially in my new book, is to
let's take care of the food trauma and getting our
body feeling safe, but also really really let's take care
of the bigger picture here that's necessary with taking care
of our body and our mind. It's incredibly valuable and
we can do that, we can control that.

Speaker 5 (24:37):
Well.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
I think it's so important that you know all of
this new research is emerging now because we really do
need to take you know, to do something and turn
the tide.

Speaker 5 (24:46):
We have to do that.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
But we're going to take a short break now. You're
listening to what is going on on Sandy Sedge Bear
and my guest today is sematic psychologist and founding board
member of the Biodynamic Cranial Safe for Syllopia Association of
North America, Michael Jay Shay. When we're talking about the
role the vagus nerve plays in the mind body spirit

(25:09):
connection and why the spiritual path is humanity's only way forward.
We'll be back with more in a few moments. Stay tuned.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
Home Times TV.

Speaker 5 (25:27):
Hello, I'm Sandy Sedbria, host of momm Times flagship radio
show What Is Going On? And as an author editor
and Thirteen Times book judge who's read thousands of books
and interviewed hundreds of authors, I'm constantly asked what's really
worth reading and what's not? So I created the NOBS
Spiritual Book Club to help you save time and money

(25:49):
by picking the brains of discerning names ho for this
path before you. There's no catch, no fees, and no bs,
just an ever growing library of ten best spiritual book lists,
some of your favorite authors and teachers, past three book exers.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
Audios, and video interviews with.

Speaker 5 (26:05):
People like Don Miguel Ruis Junior, David g Lee, Harris
matt Lepo and mon from well known classics to hidden
gems you'd never heard of. It's the only NOBS guide
to the best spiritual books to enlighten your journey of
self discovery. So why not join the club? Get inspired
and save money at the Nobsspiritual book Club dot com.

Speaker 1 (26:31):
Imagine becoming a super influencer, reinvent yourself, invest in your
brand and then manifest your success with a robust, spheric approach.
Own Times Media and Broadcasting offers a unique and multifaceted
way to become the spiritual and conscious influencer you deserve
to be. By putting your message across our powerful platform

(26:53):
with its proven record of integrity and excellence through our
produced shows, Own Times offers the opportunity to become a
social media TV personality, a radio show host, an Own
Times magazine columnist, and a syndicated podcaster all in one shot.
By live streaming your show on Home Times TV and

(27:14):
broadcasting it across the extensive Home Times Radio and TV networks,
you become more than a host. You become an ambassador
and a force for positive change. Home Times open yourself
to the possibilities.

Speaker 6 (27:30):
Everything that we do, we can do in a contemplative manner.
Through the art of contemplation, you can use the gene
Keys in a really powerful way. Gen Keys is basically
the codebook of life in the gen Keys. The book
is made up of these three levels shadows, gifts and cities,
and the journey is from is through those three levels.

(27:51):
Kind of unpicking of the shadow states, the releasing of
the gifts and then the embodying of this higher consciousness
called the city. And the cities are very exalted words.
And it's not like we kind of suddenly are all
these exalted christ like beings. But we have flashes and
illuminations along the journey. And the more we get stuck

(28:13):
into the journey, the more illumination comes to us, because
the more we're releasing the light from in these codes
inside our DNA, so all those revelations are inside us.
So the contemplative way is the inner way.

Speaker 4 (28:36):
There are sixteen million children struggling with hunger in America.
That's one in five daughters, sons, neighbors, and classmates who
don't know where their next meal is coming from. Yet
billions of pounds of good food go to waste every year.
It's time we do something about it. Feeding America is
a nationwide network of food banks that helps provide meals
to millions of kids and families in need. Visit Feeding

(28:57):
America dot org to help them feed even more. Together,
we can solve hunger.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
Together.

Speaker 4 (29:03):
We're Feeding America.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
Welcome back, Michael Shay. Interesting that Richard Rudd was just
talking about the contemplative way being the inner way.

Speaker 3 (29:17):
Yeah, it's beautiful. And you know, so many of these
religious traditions and spiritual traditions, they have spiritual maps. You know,
if you start here with this practice and then you
go to this practice, you end up with this practice.
Buddhism has it, Hinduism has it, Sufism has it. It's beautiful.
So there's maps out there, but the main map is

(29:39):
the heart and following your own heart and really following
your own destiny as you go through the process of
maturing as a human being and then maturing as a spiritual,
full of really full, spiritual human being.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
Well, what about religion. I mean, you've talked about a
lot of instant practices there, you know, is an awful
lot of religious practices that really do do not you know,
connect the body with the spirit.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
Well, part of the problem with that, Sandy, is that
there's some research literature pointing out that repetitive spiritual practice,
so repetitive praying like saying the Rosary and or different
repetitive forms of religious practices aren't valuable at all. They
don't really help. Okay, so here's what's happening. I mean

(30:32):
I read that and I was raised Catholic, okay, and
then I went into a phase of atheism, and then
from atheism, had a devastating experience in the military, and
converted to Buddhism. Converted is a really interesting word, but
I thought, I became a Buddhist, and now I'm trying
to not identify with any particular you know, religion in general.

(30:56):
And I've had a recovery around my own Catholicism. So
how is that possible? Well, the contemplative neuroscience. In all
of these religions, there's contemplations. And one of the things
that's happened is that I've got contemplations that I do
as a Buddhist practice. I've got a yoga certification from
the local yoga studio. So I love the yoga sutras

(31:19):
of Patanjali and the eight limbs of yoga, and so
I teach a class on Prachahara yoga, you know, the
turning inward of the senses. But I've also had a
recovery around my Catholicism in the sense that I am
doing different contemplations. So for example, last year, when I
wrote the book that is coming out next year on

(31:41):
the Heart, I did a contemplation on the Seven Sorrows
of Mary. So and I'm actually looking at over here
and I come from Greece that I got showing seven
swords going through Mary's heart. And this goes back to
the discussion we had a couple of minutes ago about
loss in Greece, that we are in the age of

(32:02):
loss and grief. We need to start acknowledging that. But
then I had a knee injury in the fall, actually
was it in the fall, something like that, and it
really bothered me, and I had to travel internationally, and
I decided to contemplate the Five Wounds of Jesus as
a way of managing, you know, walking slowly and just imagining,

(32:24):
you know, that there had been nails going through my
feet and so forth, and it really helped calm me
and reduce the pain. Point being that all religions have
contemplative practices that can be really really valuable, really really valuable,
and get you closer to your own sense of spiritual maturation,
in your own sense of spiritual authority. It's your spiritual

(32:47):
authority and how and where that lives, especially in your heart.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
But for somebody who has not had a religious something,
doesn't do yoga doesn't do much in the way of meditation.

Speaker 3 (33:01):
You know, when would they begin, Sandy, Anything can be
cared considered a meditation. So I'd actually have to sit
down with such a person because, for example, you know,
as being trained as a multi faith chaplain. They say,

(33:21):
sometimes an atheist that's dying will call you into the
room because they want to talk. And you go, what
are you going to talk about? If you can't talk
about God or Jesus or whatever, you can talk about love.
You can talk about your experiences of how you felt
and experienced love in your life, your loved ones. You know,

(33:42):
whether you were married, whether you had kids, whether you
were lucky at love, whether you were unlucky at love,
your experiences of happiness. What are your regrets in life?
Finding out most people have a lot of regrets on
their deathbed. It's unbelievable. So these are for an atheist.
Even these are conversations that you can have. Sleeping is

(34:05):
a meditation. Walking is a meditation, so it doesn't have
to be a formal contemplative practice. The issue is whether
or not someone is anxious or depressed, you know from
given their lifestyle. But you know, Christian there's a funny
expression in Hinduism. I like a lot and I say
it in class sometimes and it has to do with
Christian says, if you want to follow the spiritual path,

(34:28):
I will give you the tools to follow the spiritual path.
Krishna also says, if you do not want to follow
the spiritual path, I will give you the tools to
not follow the spiritual path. So it's all spiritual path.
I had to have twenty years of atheism, and it
really upset my wife the way I was bashing, especially Christianity,

(34:49):
and really upsetting because she's a minister and it's like,
you know, it's like here we are. So it was
a marriage issue. But the point is it was something
I had to overcome because I see now more the
notion of love, of kindness, of no regret, of being impartial,
all of these things that are the seeds and the

(35:10):
soil for altruism, so that we can extend that to everyone.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
Your nextport, because you just mentioned the biodynamic heart Semitic
compassion practices for a clear and vital heart, tell me
about some of these practices.

Speaker 3 (35:29):
Well, the practice has to do In the first section
of the book, is I really address the notion of
loss and what's happened in our culture, and so it's
really the practices of being able to acknowledge loss and
to be able to support each other in grief. I'm

(35:50):
reading my wife and I do a lot of reading
now on grief, and I've actually got a set of cards,
these fifty two cards I just got from Wisdom Publications.
They're beautiful contemplations about grief and so forth. And it's
being able to really get into the notion of loss
and grief and integrate that, you know, as part of

(36:10):
our spiritual practice. But then it gets into my own
particular autobiographical dynamic associated with the terrorist bombing attack that
I was in in the military, and then my own
spiritual path, you know, telling people your way is your way,
Here was my way and it was very irregular. The
path is very irregular, and it's really going to be

(36:34):
your path and finding support for your particular path. And
then I get into the different dynamics, especially associated with
the instincts. You and I have had a conversation about
the vegas and the metabolism of the human body and
the disruption of the metabolism. Metabolism is linked to our instincts,

(36:56):
just like physiology is linked to our anatomy. So the
book gets into to a very detailed discussion of the
science of interroceptive awareness and how we can feel the vegas,
how we can feel when we're hungry, how we can
feel when we're full, but especially what's called cardioception, the

(37:17):
neuroscience the science of feeling our heartbeat. So the main
meditation that I do with the vegus nerve is to
breathe and then feel my heart beat, because heartbeat, when
you're consciously aware of your heartbeat, initiates the instinct for
self transcendence and is directly linked to empathy. So over

(37:39):
twenty years now of research on empathy, the more you
can feel your heart beat and really sink into your heartbeat,
the more you can avoid trauma, the more you can
change your behavior, the more you can influence vagual tone,
and the more you can promote empathy and compassion as
the basis and and the remembering of how that lives

(38:02):
in our heart and how we can be with other
people that way. That's the key point for me with
the book. The last part of the book, Sandy, are
all the hand positions that I've developed for the cardiovascular system.
So I'm a manual therapist, and I apply the cranial
sacral therapy to the cardiovascular system, and I take it

(38:23):
towards the mystical edge of the dynamic, because in the
history of osteopathic literature, starting in the middle of the
eighteen hundreds, many of these manual therapists and osteopaths were mystics.
My main mentor an osteopath, very very mystical person, and

(38:43):
so I teach that component. In the last we're our
hands are a ministry. This is a spiritual ministry. The
heart meridian has a point here, and you can visualize
beams of light coming out of that your healing or
having your hands on people. So I teach these visualization

(39:04):
practices and also how to engage the cardiovascular system with visualization,
with movement, with touch and kindness in order to facilitate
the instinct for self healing and the instinct for self transcendence.
Now that's a long it's a big book. Five hundred images,

(39:26):
five hundred images. It's the biggest thing I've ever done.
Of the nine books I've done, this is the biggest one.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
Well, I mean it sounds like a really interesting book too.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
Oh yeah, I love it, and I'm in conversation now
because it's coming back to me next month for the
final edit, and I'll have like two or three hundred
edits that I'll have to do and really integrate everything
that I've learned since I finished writing it a year ago.
So I'm happy about it. I'm very happy because it's
about the heart and that's my spiritual path, the vagus nerve.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
And yeah, well, you know when you think about the hands,
and I immediately think about reiki practitioners, you know, who
are using their hands to feel the energy around the body.
And I've had experiences with incredible you know, hands on
and hands off healers where I have literally felt the

(40:21):
heat coming out of their hands, you know. So is
this something we can do for ourselves, you know with
these pictures in your book, can we you know, work
on our own body?

Speaker 5 (40:33):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (40:33):
Yeah, absolutely. What I teach is, you know, it's very simple,
and it's all on the internet anyway. So it's it's
first of all, to get into a place where you
can I place my left hand over my heart and
then my right hand over my belly where the vegus
nerve ends just below the the umbilicus, and then I

(40:54):
just do breathing. I just breathe into my hand and
my belly and then long exhalations, and I just start
settling myself. Once I do that, I tune into my
heartbeat and I start feeling my heartbeat. And what I
do with that is I sometimes I'll recite a prayer
or a poem that I've memorized in the cadence of
my heartbeat in order to increase empathy. And then once

(41:17):
I do that, then I start visualizing different colors. So
I like to teach visualizing, and then the book is
what I teach is visualizing the heart being white, and
then visualizing the heart being blue, and then yellow, and
then red and then green, and then letting it grow
from there. Those are the five primary spiritual colors in

(41:41):
Tibetan medicine, because I've studied Tibetan medicine for forty years.
So it's the breathing, and then it's the inter receptive
awareness of heartbeat, and then it's visualizing the heart as
the different colors and then letting that come alive because
there's a point which you deliberately visualize let's say, these colors,

(42:04):
and then there's a moment at which the vagus nerve
and everything kind of comes together and it comes alive.
Your rainbow body comes alive, and it's a very deep
spiritual process. And at that point you're given information. You're
talking to your higher self, I guess you could say,

(42:25):
or your deeper self if you're inclined to think more
along the Buddhist lines. So that's just the simplistic and
I wrote a whole book about it. But that's the
simplest instructions right now for whoever's listening to this, it's easy.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
What about the chakas? You know, where do they come
into this? Because you could also be visualizing the chakras,
couldn't you.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
Well, what happens is that when you visualize your heart
as the five colors, you're actually visualizing the five colors
of the heart chakra. Different systems, even in Hinduism and
in Buddhism, different schools have different colors for everything, including
the chakras. But I will say that the heart chakra

(43:11):
is the most important chakra within that system. Now that
being said, the reason these visualizations are important is because
they affect the subtle body and they will wake up
and they will stimulate especially the heart chakra. That's the
only one, that's the main one that I'm interested in.

Speaker 5 (43:32):
And I do have a.

Speaker 3 (43:33):
Spiritual practice where I do work and visualize the other chakras.
But anybody listening to this, it's the sum total is
always going to be about the heart and the importance
of visualizing the heart, Sandy. The reason why this is
important is that you're activating biophotons when you do these

(43:55):
color visualizations. All cells in the human body secrete or
they don't secrete, they emit colors. They emit biophotons. This
means that when you visualize the subtle body as I've
just described, whether it's a chakra or not, you can
positively affect and change the metabolism of your body. This

(44:18):
is why I'm teaching it. So in other words, you
go into your subtle body for visualization in order to
heal the cells of our body at a metabolic level,
because this is the disease du joure that we have
in our culture. We are metabolically unhealthy human beings now.
And by visualizing especially these colors, and which becomes an

(44:41):
activation of the chakras, Wow, you know our metabolism changed.
I've been teaching this for several years in Europe. We've
seen it over and over again. My teachers and training
have seen it over and over again. We've got to
have different ways, Sandy, to affect the metabolism of our body.
It's yes, I talked about diet, nutrition and all that, Yes,

(45:02):
exceedingly important, but we've got to have a contemplative practice
that affects the vegus nerve and affects our metabolism. So
that's what the book is primarily about.

Speaker 2 (45:15):
So when you talk about aligning the metabolism with the cosmos.

Speaker 3 (45:21):
Yes, right, Well, when we talk about spiritual process and
we talk about the vegus nerve, you know when we
see you and I. At the beginning, we talked about
this incredible polarity that we see in the culture right now.
But one of the things that happens the more spiritual
practice that you do is you become altruistic. Yes, you

(45:44):
feel more connected to another person and to groups of people,
and you feel really bad that a couple of a
lot of people just died in a big bombing somewhere
in the Ukraine. I get all that, and at the
same time, the new science of awe, and it's not
new science. Is the idea that we get connected all

(46:04):
the way through to the center of the Earth, through
our body, all the way to the North Star if
you're in Taoism, but we get connected to a larger universe.
So we want to feel that that total connection of
one thing or or openness to one thing. So that's
the dynamic with the cosmology of feeling one with the universe.

(46:27):
There's that old Dalai Lama joke about the hot dog vendor.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
I don't know that.

Speaker 3 (46:35):
Godama.

Speaker 2 (46:39):
I don't mix with the Delai Lama. I know you've
got a connection.

Speaker 3 (46:44):
Well yeah, I mean I like the Dali It's it's
a good message, but it's that whole joke of uh,
make me one with everything. Dalai Lama goes to the
to the hot dog vendor. Because when you go to
a hot dog vendor on Cody Island, you say to
the ven or, make me one with everything, the ketchup,
the mustard, the relish and everything. And when the Dalai

(47:04):
Lama says make me one with everything, it means make
me one with the universe. So that's that's a funny
little joke. Dalai Lama doesn't understand that joke. Somebody in
Australia told him that joke on live TV and he
looked at them like they were crazy. Okay, so what.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
You're saying is, I mean, you know, we tend to
think there's a lot of phases that are banded around
and people say that, you know, we all have the
capability to heal the suffering of the world, and we think, yeah, yeah, yeah,
but what does that actually mean. You're talking that we
literally have the ability by by doing the contemplation, by

(47:54):
connecting with our heart, we literally have the ability to
heal the suffering of the world.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
We have the capacity to heal the suffering of the
world by the way in which we perceive it and
whether it is a very disconnected mess or whether there's
part of a larger plan and so, or we just
finally give in, Sandy, we finally finally give in. This
is a mystery that I cannot understand, and I accept

(48:24):
this mystery. Acceptance therapy is very popular now, so I
accept this mystery and I no longer have to be
so upset and concerned about it because it's a mystery
and I know there's people working on trying to help
and The way I can help is by not getting
upset and getting emotionally distraught about it. When I don't

(48:48):
have to get distraught and emotionally upset, I can heal
the world because I see the world as one thing,
as an interconnected whole, and I accept that that it's
a mystery. I can't solve it. You can enter a mystery,
you can't solve it. So I know you and I

(49:08):
are living in a mystery, and it's a big mystery,
and we need tools to navigate that mystery within ourselves
and to reduce the toxicity of hatred and anger and
really see the interconnectedness of all of it.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
Well, yeah, and we know that the spiritual path is
the only way forward. We have to embrace that.

Speaker 3 (49:31):
Yeah. And again, you know earlier we talked about and
that's the problem, you know with the medical community. Back
in the Renaissance, the Catholic Church cut a deal in
Paris with the medical authorities and they just said, look,
you take the body, we take the spirit. You don't
get to have the spirit anymore. And we've been paying
a heavy price for that, Sandy, We've been paying a

(49:51):
really big time heavy price for that. And so my
work and the work of all the people I know
and and with is to bring back a spiritual understanding
and integration that we are a unit of function of mind, body,
and spirit, which we've been told forever. But we have
to realize that, and we can realize that when we

(50:13):
raise vagual tone, when we have compassion practices and contemplative
practices that allow us to really nurture that seed in soil,
that it will bear the fruit of inner realization, inner
realization of one thing and non duality, and also that
one thing of altruism of really, I need to be

(50:36):
more kind. I need to be more kind to the
people I'm around, to my wife, to my community. Wherever
I can be more kind.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
Absolutely, So, how long have you been working on this book?
Sounds like a long.

Speaker 3 (50:50):
Project, Sandy. You know, it's interesting you say that, and
thank you for asking that, because I started writing this
book twenty years ago, and it took like four or
five years, and I was working on it with my sister,
and we got a contract from a big time publisher,
and then it went through the editorial process and something

(51:11):
triggered the publisher and they canceled the contract. So it
just sat. It sat for a long time, and then
COVID started, and my previous publisher at North Atlantic Books
had moved to Inner Traditions. My current publisher and out
of the clear Blue. Out of the clear Blue. He

(51:32):
writes me and he says, do you have any books
we can do? And I said, yeah, I got two
because with the COVID my cohort of students and so
forth said, you've got to write about the immune system.
So that's my current book, is the Biodynamics of the
Immune System. And I really wanted the heart one done,

(51:52):
but they said, no, we'll do the immune system because
of COVID and blah blah blah. But so then finally
they that yes, we'll give you a contract for the
Heart book. And that's really where I'm at right now.
It's the fruition of twenty years of contemplation and writing

(52:13):
about the heart and looking at research literature, the vagus nerve,
all of the things that we've just talked about. It's
a fruitional piece for me because I really feel it's
important to shift the whole discussion and dynamic of how
we heal, how we heal the body, how we heal ourselves,

(52:34):
and how we integrate the spiritual component and how easy
that is. It's an aptitude that's different for you. It's
different for me. I've got practices that I've learned that
I've rejected. They don't work for me, but now I've
got the ones that do work for me. It's trial
and error. You've got to keep going, whoever you are
that's on the spiritual path.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
I would imagine in that twenty year period where the
book was sitting, the science, I mean, you have to
go back and re visit it because the science has
changed so much.

Speaker 3 (53:05):
Oh, it's amazing. And then all of a sudden you've
get compassion science. So you have all the science on empathy,
all the science now on compassion, and that's that's going
to be integrated, you know, into medical schools and so forth.
And you've got loads of literature now, research literature on gratitude,

(53:26):
all of these things. It's just incredible. And yet we
have to remember, Sandy, it's innate, it's there, it's already
built in, and these practices allow us to remember it,
to recover it, to recognize it, and to nurture it.
We have to sweep our garden, as they say in Zen,
and nurture these this possibility, so it's it's a beautiful

(53:49):
time we're in. I think this is a beautiful time
we're in.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
Agreed. Five hundred pages is a lot, not for someone
like me who devours books, but for a lot of people.
What are you doing to help those who might be
intimidated by such a big book? Are you doing offering
free events? You you know, online, etc. Yeah?

Speaker 3 (54:12):
Well, Sandy, that may be the way you and I
got connected because my first publisher and I did six
books with them, never signed me a publicist. So I
write a book and bingo, I'm onto the next one.
I don't even promote it, you know, because bookstores in
talking at bookstores was fading out at that point in time.

(54:34):
So I write The Immune System book and Intertgerson says,
we've assigned you a publicist. You are now going to
be given podcasts and all sorts of things to promote
your book. And I'm an introvert, and I'm like, oh
my god, I've got to promote myself. So I had
to begin learning how to promote myself. And the first

(54:55):
two or three interviews were like, you know, it's like
because I don't I'm not a good salesperson. But at
any rate, I learned. I learned to be able to
talk about the book from the perspective of altruism and
self compassion and really how to help ourselves. So I've
been assigned a publicist and as soon as this next

(55:17):
book comes out, there'll be a whole other round. And
actually I've already lined up a number of podcasts and
interviews and so forth, because I'm actually enjoying the process.
I'm really enjoying the process, and I want to thank.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
You passionate about it, and that comes across and you know,
you don't need to have anything else other than patchan
or what you're talking about. When is it going to
be published?

Speaker 3 (55:39):
The publisher just told me last week that it'll actually
be a year from now, in August. And you know,
with the Immune book, I went, no, we've got to
get it out now. People are sick, people are dying.
And I realized when the book came out, oh it's
it's getting worse. It doesn't make any different. And Sandy,
there's a lot of good books coming out now. There's

(56:01):
a lot of good books coming out on the Vegas
nerve and contemplative practices and so forth. So, and especially
with a focus on the cardiovascular system and heart. So
I'm part of a trend that's happening and I'm really
enjoying being a part of that worldwide international trend.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
You have to cut you there, Michael, because we are
almost out of time. Thank you so much for joining u.
I'll look forward to that book. We'll have you on
the show when it comes out. And yeah, we'll talk again.

Speaker 3 (56:33):
Okay, thank you, Sandy.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
Thanks Michael's book Biodynamics of the Immune System, Balancing the
Imergies of the Body with the Cosmos, and his new
book The Biodynamic hert published by In the Traditions. That's
it for today. That's all we've got time for. I'll
be back at the same time next week. Thank you,
Michael Shea, Thank you Andy.

Speaker 3 (56:55):
Pleasure

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Crime Junkie

The Brothers Ortiz

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Spiritual Function of the Vagus Nerve with Michael Shea

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Crime Junkie

The Brothers Ortiz

All Episodes

The Spiritual Function of the Vagus Nerve with Michael Shea

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang