This pre recorded show furnished by Matthew Matern.

Hi, this is Matt Matern. I’m here with Dr. Mark Goulston on the Unite and Heal America program on KABC 790. I’m excited to have Dr. Goulston on the show. Great to have you here with us. Dr. Goulston. His background is varied and wide. He’s done everything from hostage taking negotiations to working with organizations, to their therapy, to writing books to the OJ trial to suicide prevention, to homelessness. So we’ve got a lot to talk about this hour. And welcome to the show.

Thank you, Matt. Really looking forward to this.

Okay, tell us, how did you get started on your journey in this field of psychiatry, and?

Well, I don’t want to belabor the point. But you know, one of my greatest personal accomplishments is I dropped out of medical school twice and finished. And I think I dropped out because I had untreated depression. Second time I dropped out, they wanted to kick me out because they were losing matching funds. But the head of the school sent me to the dean of students because they wanted to kick me out. But they didn’t want me to kill myself.

So the Dean of Students who cares about students more than he cares about funds, I was at a low point, because in my mind, you’re only worth what you do. And I had kind of reached a low point. And when I met with him, he said, you know, the main Dean wants you out. And, and I was a little bit confused. And I said, What does that mean? He said, You’ve been kicked out. And something happened, Matt, I kind of created in front of him. And then he said something that changed everything. So I’m, I’m I’m in a broken point. And I’m there with him.

And he said, you know, Mark, you didn’t screw up your passing, but you are screwed up. But if you got unscrewed up, I think this school would be glad they gave you a second chance. And then he said something that just changed my life and sent me down the path that I’ll tell you about very quickly. He said, even if you don’t get unscrewed up, even if you don’t become a doctor, even if you don’t do anything the rest of your life, you have a streak of goodness in you that we should grade in medical school, but we don’t.

And you have no idea how much the world needs that goodness, and you won’t know it till you’re 35. But you have to make it till you’re 35. And you deserve to be on this planet. And you’re going to let me help you. If he had said, If I can help you give me a call, I would have gone back to my apartment. And I’d probably not be here today. But the fact that he saw a future for me, based on just something about who I am, as opposed to what I was capable of doing, which didn’t seem like much.

And he went to bat for me against the whole medical school. It just flipped a switch. So I took that second year off, came back trained in psychiatry. And then I started becoming a boots on the ground suicide prevention expert. And for 25 years, I just paid it forward. I just saw the goodness in people that they couldn’t see, they weren’t a burden to me. I wasn’t a burden to him. And I wouldn’t let go of them. And that combination, seeing the future, and not letting go of them.

And there’s a book I have called just listen, which became the topic enlisting in the world is in 27 languages. And it’s all about how do you cause people to feel felt, which is different than feeling understood. When people feel felt they feel less alone. And suicidal people feel really alone. And when they feel felt by another person, they collapse into it.

And that’s a powerful and inspiring story, Mark, and really appreciate you sharing that with the listeners because I think that many of us go through tough times and feel like hey, we’re in a bad place and feel alone and isolated. And particularly during this pandemic, I think there’s probably more of that than than normal. And it’s important to hear these messages that hey, there’s goodness in you.

You know, somebody’s there for you. And so each of us could probably use to reach out to people around us who are in similar situations now and say we see that in each other and and what how do you recommend that we do that?

Well, I’m working with some veterans groups and looks like firefighters and healthcare workers. So my latest book is why cope with You can heal how healthcare heroes of COVID-19 can recover from PTSD. And it’ll work without changing it a word with first with firefighters, police officers, anybody who has been really deeply traumatized by anything. And I introduce a we introduce in that book surgical empathy, which is going to where people are at.

And when, when you go where people are at, and they’re really, really hurting, and they’re feeling hopeless. And here’s an interesting observation. Death is empathic to hopelessness. That’s why when people feel hopeless, and they just want the pain to go away, death is like a sirens call to sailors pulling them on the rock saying, I’ll take your pain away, because death, understands their pain and will take it away. But if you can get where people are at, and they feel felt by you, they’ll attach to you away from the death.

And one of the things that we’ve developed with the veteran community is something we call The Hurt Locker. So here’s a tactic you can use at home. Every day in your family, maybe at the end of the day, you pick at the end of the day, and you ask each person, what was the most upsetting thing that happened to you today? And they’ll tell you, and we have a little acronym called hada Ha, da. And you can say when that happened? Did you feel hurt? angry, disappointed or afraid? hurt, angry, disappointed or afraid?

And then when they tell you whatever it was angry, afraid. The next question is, when that happened, and you felt angry, how angry. So what you’re doing is you’re draining the pus, which which takes away the impulse. Because when they say that, then you then say, when it happened, what did it make you want to do? And that’s when they’ll talk about an impulse. And it will be a destructive impulse. And you don’t jump down their throat. But they’ll tell you what they felt like doing. And then you can say, What did you do? If they didn’t act on it? Well, maybe they acted, I got drunk, and you know, and I passed out.

And but what you’re doing is you’re letting them express how they feel. They’re giving a name to it. So they feel it safely with you. And then what you say to them is, when it happens again, what would be a better thing to do. And what you’re really teaching them a better thing to do is to talk it out, just like you’re just like you’re doing with them. And they might even say, you know, I don’t know, but I’m feeling a little better now.

That’s a great practice. I’m here on Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern. And my guest today is Dr. Mark Goulston, KABC 790. Back with Dr. Goulston. Regarding that, that question that you were asking them was the foundational question was, what was the toughest part of the day? Was that it? Or did I get that wrong?

I would say what was the toughest or the I would say the most upsetting, okay, because what you really want to do is have them reach into something that was upsetting, but demonstrate that there is a way to talk it through where they don’t have to react to the upset and do something destructive.

Right. So, just pivoting a little bit to some of the things that you’ve you’ve worked on, I know you’ve worked on homelessness, that issue and that’s something that I’ve worked on a bit myself, and I’d like to get your take on what you’ve done in the area and how you think we can work as a community to address this issue more effectively.

Well, I’ve done talks at the Union Rescue Mission to homeless teens, but I have a story that I want to share with you. So even though that demons are goodness in me, you know, there’s also a dark side, everybody has a dark side to their personality. And I don’t like shame, but it always motivates me to be a better person. So I have this homeless story. I got to share it with you. I was on some I think television show and and the interview went well and I was so full of myself. I was just struggling.

And I leave the studio and I walk past a homeless person didn’t even see him. And frequently I’ll give something to homeless people but a lot of times I’m sorry, I’ll feel intruded on it, you know. And so I just walked back past him. And he yells out to me, he said, Hey, mister, and you’re I’m still feeling high on life. And I look at him. And he looks me right in the eye. And he said, I wasn’t always this way. I used to be a person. Wow, you’re right, wow.

And I was still, you know, stuck, stuck on myself. And I walked about a half a mile, and I looked into an abandoned building, looked into the window. And I saw shot, I saw my own reflection, I looked at myself, and I said, you know, you weren’t always this way. You used to be a person. So I walked back to the homeless person. And they do have names, you know, they may be homeless, but they’re not nameless. And I went up to him. And I said, my name is Mark, what’s your name? Joe. And I said, Joe, I’m so sorry.

You are a person. I gave him $20. And then I joined an organization called Health Corp, you can go to healthcorps.org. And it’s like the Peace Corps. What it does is it works with, you know, disadvantaged kids to teach them mental resilience, healthy eating, healthy exercise, because I had to do something. And I thought, if we can catch young kids early, before they go down the wrong path, maybe we can prevent them from becoming Joes.

And that’s a that’s a powerful story. And as you had asked me, before the program started, what was my journey in this to get interested in this problem, and my story is maybe a little bit similar to yours is that I was here in the Venice area for business meeting, and I was coming out of a parking lot and into an alleyway. And there was a homeless guy in the alley, kind of sleeping there. And, and it didn’t run him down. But it was close to him.

And I was thinking, wow, I’ve just got to do something, I have not done anything really substantial. And so then we started reaching out to different organizations in this area, and came across a couple that we really liked, safe place for youth, which helps with homeless youth, ages 12 to 25. And Allison has, has started Allison her started this organization 10 years ago, out of her car, getting peanut butter sandwiches and socks to homeless kids.

And now it’s an organization that employs I think, 75 people, and they’ve housed hundreds of kids all over the city. Great story. And, you know, and we started helping out with some organizations here around the city and, and now, we’re proposing some legislation, which is to give a stipend to families or individuals or sober living facilities, who group homes that take in homeless people and say, $1,000, or approximately that amount to defray the cost of bringing somebody in, and hopefully giving that person a home and treating them as a person.

And I think that could be very healing to for the community, obviously, helping people get housed, and also probably giving to some of the people who take homeless people in, I think we’re going to hear some a lot of great stories coming out of that, too.

You know, when I when I coach a lot of people and how to get through to people. And, and in fact, the subtitle of my book, just listen is discover the secret to getting through to absolutely anybody actually spoken Moscow a year and a half ago with a Nobel Prize winner named Daniel Kahneman. He wrote a book called Thinking Fast and Slow, because five of my nine books are bestsellers in Russia. And I’m not there to help the politicians or whatever, I’m there to help people who are just like you and me. It’s amazing how, you know, we have much more in common with the other people in the world than any of us have with our leaders.

But that’s a whole other story. And so one of the things because when you’re one of your challenges, and one of the challenges of great organizations is how do you how do you get people to care? And one of the things I talked about in Russia is focus on what people are listening for. See, if you focus on what they’re listening to you rattle off a bunch of bullet points, and it’ll be very transactional and they’ll nod politely and do nothing.

But if you can get what they’re listening for, and you answer that, and you get it right, they’ll lean towards you. That’s that’s surgical empathy. And what I’ve been suggesting to people is what people are always listening for. So I hope it’s okay if I’m making these suggestions because I want what people are listening for, is, why this, why now? Why you? Why this? Why now? Why you? And because I’m also passionate about the homelessness. I’d say why this?

Walk through the streets of any city? Do you see homeless people? Do you avoid looking them in the eye? Do you get annoyed with them? When you go to church or temple, Did it bother you that you get annoyed with homeless people?

And why now? It’s growing. It’s growing. And if someone asked me why you? I’d say, Well, I, I owe it to the homeless people that I discovered a shame inside me that I didn’t like. But it motivated me. And, and, and that’s why me. But But if all I’m saying is I think they want to hear that.

Because a lot of times they’ll we throw a PowerPoint at them. Death by PowerPoint, you know, and we show all these numbers, and we show such in church, and they’re going uh huh, uh huh. Uh huh. And you know, they’re just waiting for you to look away so they can check their text messages.

I think that’s accurate many times. This is Matt Matern with Unite and Heal America. I’m here with Dr. Mark Goulston, KABC, 790, we’ll be back in a minute after the break. Welcome back, everybody to the Unite and Heal America program with Matt Matern on KABC 790. I’m here with Mark Goulston, talking about homelessness and other issues facing our community.

And there’s a lot of sense or maybe apathy that we’ve tried a lot of different things and homelessness is still growing. So trying to get people’s attention in that environment, what suggestions would you have along those lines, so I have this phrase, be compelling to open people’s minds, and be convincing to get them to take action.

The problem is people with great causes in great companies, they they right out of the gate, they’re convincing. And the problem with trying to convince people is you’re pushing them to have to do what you’re saying. And people don’t want to have to do anything. And if you’re appealing to people have money to donate to this, those people feel entitled to not do anything they don’t want to do. So the key is, how do you switch it so they can choose to do it?

So here’s a suggestion, I might say is and you can share this, you know, this observation? And you might say to people say Would you believe that people don’t do what’s important, they do what they care enough about. And people will pause. And you can even say, you know, it’s important to me to take care of myself, but I don’t care enough about it to do the greatest job. Would you agree with that? So you’re getting by and and then once you say it’s something I call assertive humility.

You say, I’m glad you get that. Because I need your help. You make it personal. I need your help. You walk around the city, you see all the homeless? And you know, it’s an important issue. How do I get you to care enough about it? So that we take some steps other than other than you came here, and maybe you donated something because it was a charitable thing. And yeah, and that’s all you need to do. And I need your help. Because I can’t make you care about this.

That’s a great suggestion. I’m a fan of Daniel economists as well. So it’s must have been a lot of fun to have a chat with him. What what did you guys talk about there?

Well, we were both headliners. So you know He didn’t come to mind. I didn’t come to his and but we did have dinner. No, but he’s a regular guy. And he’s charming. He’s not in the best of health. And we didn’t even talk. We didn’t talk about high, high fancy ideas. We just, we just talked about a kind of mutual admiration respect. I have a podcast called my wake up call, which you’re going to be a guest on and my wake up call is I talk to people about their calling in life, their purpose, and what they think will matter to them at the end of their life.

And then I asked people, what were the Wake Up Calls that led you there? And we have 165 episodes. And 120 of the people said it was the most vulnerable they’ve ever been in public. You know, I’m a shrink. You know, I pulled this out of people. But I’ve had Larry King on twice Norman Lear, Tom Steyer. David Shulkin, Ernesto Jicky, Guy named chip Connolly, Ken Blanchard.

And, and it’s interesting, I had breakfast with Larry King for two years every day. And so he was my last mentor, and he just died recently. And I’m trying to learn from him about how to be a good interviewer because he was the best.

He certainly was.

And I think here’s the key. And I’ll just tell you, if you’re listening, and you want to be a better interviewer is and, and one of the things he said is he never prepared. Sometimes you didn’t even know the guest was that’s coming on, it could have could be a former president. He said, Because if he prepared then he felt, you know, constrained. He said, I just have genuine curiosity and ask the questions that my audience would like answered, but would never dare ask, like, Why is your hair green?

But he could be talking to a dictator and, you know, why don’t you push into that other country. But he with no criticism. He never cornered them. And, and I’ve had eight mentors, they’ve all passed away. He was the last one. And I’m going through this period of sadness, gratitude, and I’m internalizing him. So I’ve internalized all my mentors into my DNA. And it’s starting to show up, and I can hardly wait to channel my inner Larry King.

That sounds great. Well, I’m here with Dr. Mark Goulston on Unite and Heal America and KABC 790. And we’ll be back in a minute. Imagine all. Welcome back, everybody to the Unite and Heal America program with Matt Matern. I guest again is Dr. Mark Goulston.

One of the things that intrigued me, doctor, as your work in helping people who were suicidal and talking about how you, you help them through that process, I think something that is incredibly important and the audience would appreciate hearing about.

Yes, and I’ll refer the audience look up teen Mental Health Webinar, teen Mental Health Webinar, and you look around and it’s, you’ll see a black screen and you’ll see the letters. A friend of mine, he became a friend of mine is a serial entrepreneur named Jason Reed. And he reached out to me because two years ago, his 14 year old son killed himself.

And he reached out to me because he felt it was his fault. And in teen Mental Health Webinar, he he shows a nine minute video that he presented to 12 Male founders, about how he blew it with his son. And he said, what I did wrong is I’m the dad, you know, I’m not supposed to show fear. I’ve got fear. I’ve had many failed businesses. But I’m not supposed to show that. And I made it impossible for my son to share how afraid he was or down he was because I had rushed in with solutions.

And after he killed himself, he left he left the passcode to his computer, and he’d been tried looking for ways to kill himself for six months. And, and he says, You know, I think I blew it by not showing vulnerability because I’m the man. And it’s a chilling, but I think life saving video and he talks to these male founders and none of them show vulnerability their family and so it makes kids who feel are vulnerable, especially young boys who, who feel like they’re so weak compared to their dad, it makes them feel isolated.

And if they turn to their moms, they feel like they’re the mama’s boys and they’re weak as little boys. And then the last 20 minutes of it is me giving tips to parents about how to reach kids. And I’ll give you a couple because we’re all worried one of the things that Jason told me is, and I collect these observations that I think are fascinating. He said, You know, when you ask someone, when you ask your kid, or you ask, you’re out of work, spouse, how you doing?

And when they say they’re great, they’re good. But when they say, I’m fine, they’re not. They just want you to leave him alone. And I thought that was so accurate. So if you’re worried about when you have kids, and they say, I’m fine. One of the things we talk about, in why coping you can heal is the 12 words, and the 12 words are emotions. And so you can say to them, you know, if you’d said you were great, I think you were okay.

But if you said You’re fine, you’re not humor me, I’m gonna, I’m gonna list a bunch of words. And when you’re at your most unfine, pick the word that fits. And we talked a little bit about that earlier. But the words like anxious, depressed, overwhelmed, angry, frustrated, exhausted, Nam, ashamed, alone, lonely. And when they pick the word, they’re starting to open up. And if they say something like alone, you say, tell me, tell me when you most recently felt that?

And they tell you it. And then and then what you say to them is, you know, what did it make you want to do? And then you talk about the impulse. And here’s the interesting thing, when you get someone to talk about something specifically. And you can see it with your eyes, they really feel it, but they’re not alone. So if your teen says, Well, I was angry and alone, tell me about the last time you felt that way. 230 in the morning, because we heard you you’re stomping around the room. And then if they start to say, Yeah, I couldn’t get back to sleep.

And I didn’t know whether to put my fist through the wall or my head through the wall. And you keep them talking, well, then what happen? Well, I kept looking for some of your outdated sleep medicine Dad, do you find any, because we’re out of it now. And I couldn’t find it. And I just kept walking around my room, I couldn’t get back to sleep. And I thought it was gonna go out of my skull. And then the sun rose. But you can see that as they’re sharing it with you, they’re not alone.

And then what you say to your kid, is, I’ve a request from you. Whenever you’re feeling that you do whatever you can to get your mom or my attention. I mean, you don’t do something destructive. Don’t throw a chair out the window. But you know, we’re caught up on what we’re thinking about. But when you’re feeling that way, do whatever you can to get our attention.

You could say, Dad, Mom, I’m feeling it again. So we can talk. And they might say, why would you want to do that. And that’s when you come back from your solution oriented dad position. You look in the eye and you start to cry, and you say because I don’t want you to be alone in hell and I love you.

It’s super powerful. And, and I think in our world, it it’s we’re told from the time we’re, you know, born as men to as boys, males, to be strong, and to be able to stand up and not cry and to hold it in and to not let people see us be vulnerable or not to be vulnerable. And so even though many of us have learned the value of being vulnerable, there is a default.

I think for many of us that goes back to that, being tough and showing how you can take it and just letting kids know Hey, being vulnerable with them, like you said, crying and letting them see your vulnerability is super powerful.

So I’m gonna unpack that for you because, yes, we tell them to be strong. So look, I’m a shrink, I go deep down into people. One of the main reasons we tell them to be strong and tough. is because we don’t know how to comfort them when they’re hurt and afraid because nobody comforted us. And what happens is it starts to stir upset inside us.

And so we run away from it into be tough and strong. And see, that’s what starts the wound that needs surgical empathy. And the more you can enable them, draw it out of them, the less likely they are to act on it, and the less likely they are to get depressed later in life.

Doctor, you’ve also worked with adults, populations, such as veterans and firefighters, who are going through difficult times. What type of work have you done with them?

We’ll see, here’s the issue. And one of the things we talked about, and why cope when you can heal is that when you’re a firefighter, when you’re a first responder, when your healthcare worker, when you’re a veteran, we talk about some of the stuff that you’re seeing in health care workers who were used to maybe you know, two or three deaths a month, you know, when you just saw six, including one of your supervisors. And you’ve been up for two shifts, and you walk to the back of the hospital.

And there are storage units with bodies because the morgue is full. What we talked about in the is you, you go through what we call the horror terror fragile trifecta, which means you’re horrified. And then when you go away from the hospital, and you go back to your apartment, you just start to feel terrified by what you’ve seen. And you start to feel fragile.

And when you start to feel fragile, it makes you feel like you might panic. But because you’re so duty bound, and because you don’t want to let down your fellow healthcare workers or fellow firefighters or fellow military. What happens is, the danger triggers a big surge of adrenaline. So not just excitement triggers adrenaline danger does. That’s why an NBA player can play a whole half of a game with a broken leg because of the adrenaline.

But then when the game ends, when the danger goes away, the adrenaline goes away. And the adrenaline is what enables you to push away your thoughts and your feelings. But you know, as you’re pushing them away, and on the surface, you feel superhuman, you know, it’s messing you up inside. I mean, why would veterans who are no longer in a war zone?

Why would they come home and get depressed and become the 22 who killed themselves every day. It’s because all the horror and terror and fragile thoughts and feelings they had that they pushed away to survive and function are threatening to come up and out and eviscerate them. So one of the analogies we use is every time you’re going through that. As a first responder, healthcare worker, veteran firefighter police officer, every time you’re going through that, it’s like you have a pet cat that just starts screaming at you, when you put that cat in the cellar.

Because you got a function, then you put another cat in the cellar, then you put 10 Then you put 50 Then you put 100. In over a lifetime. As a career, firefighter, you put 500. And see the fear is that once you’re past the danger, and the adrenaline to survive goes away, that those cats are going to rip that door open. And they’re going to eviscerate you. And so surgical empathy is a way to let one cat out at a time.

So how do you do that, doctor?

Well, one of the things that we have in why coping, you can heal something we call the distress we leave exercise in over journal. And you can do this by yourself with a journal. You could do it with a therapist, what we’re hoping to do, and we’re starting pilot programs with health care workers who are either burnt out or approaching it. And looks like we’re adding firefighters and veterans creating groups is you get them together and you share with them all the steps.

They all went through. You know, horror, terror, fragile, overriding panic. You know, push away thoughts, push down feelings, focus function, you know, get through the war. The war passes the insulation from all that passes, and it feels like they’re going to rip you apart. So all the symptoms of PTSD are ways to keep what you went through from coming back and ripping you apart, you numb you drink, you socially isolate, you have these negative feelings about life because you can’t lower your guard to enjoy it, you have something called an increased startle reflex.

So there you are as a veteran or a police officer, and you’re riding your pickup truck, and you’re away from people and you’re just feeling relaxed, and then a car next to you backfires. And so just when you lower your guard, and you feel pretty good, that backfire makes your head want to go through the roof. And then you have nightmares, because we can’t control our dreams, and the nightmares, visualizations of thoughts and feelings that we pushed away.

But we can’t push them away when we sleep. So, so one of the ways you go through those is first of all to know that those steps happen. And if we do this in teams, we’re going to say what was the first horrific moment you saw, like beyond anything you could imagine? Did was there a moment when you got terrified by it. So we’re going to have them speaking with each other as they get through it.

We don’t recommend it now, because we’re still in a war. What we do groups now to get through the war, is we talk about best practices for pushing away the thoughts and feelings so you can function. Because when you’re in the middle of a war, you can’t allow yourself to think those things or feel them. But then when you get past it, we’re going to help people share those things. And we have something called the distress relief exercise in journal.

And literally what it is, it’s a journal. And I have one. And I have a picture of that Dean of Students inside the cover. And when something upsets me, and he died many years ago, I imagined him saying these things to me. Mark, you can get through this, and I am right now I’m getting a little emotional because I’m just remembering him. He may have saved my life. Mark, you can get through this. Next step, write down the date and time.

Because this is a journal, you’re going to hold on to what just happened. Write that down. Mark, would you think when it happened? I think it’s the end. I think, you know, I’m screwed my career’s over what you feel when it happened, Mark? Really scared. Really at a loss. What does it make you want to do? Feel like running away? You know, I’m on the wagon. I feel like just getting smashed. Mark, take three slow breaths.

And I’m just feeling in talking to me. He’s dead. He’s in he’s in my mind talking me from DEFCON one to DEFCON four. And after three breaths, he looks to me and he says what would be a better thing to do? And actually, what the better thing to do is to talk to someone like this living or dead and let them talk you through it. And then the end thing he would say is why is it better? Well, because I feel less like doing that impulsive thing that would be stupid and self destructive. And here’s, here’s a little bit of neuroscience, which is you don’t want to dwell on it.

But what’s happened is when you remember someone like that talking you through it, and you feel grateful appreciative, and in my case, you miss them. You get a surge of a chemical in your body called oxytocin. That is the bonding hormone. That’s what new mothers feel so that they don’t scream at their screaming infant who won’t go to sleep. And oxytocin, the bonding hormone counteracts something called cortisol. And cortisol goes up when you’re stressed. And the higher it goes, it can trigger your brain to act in a very reactive, even primitive way. There’s a term for that. It’s called the amygdala hijack. So high stress equals high cortisol, high cortisol equals it triggers your amygdala to actually shut blood to your lower brain to survive. It shunts blood away from your thinking brain.

It’s pretty amazing. And Dr. Mark Colston is here with us today and we’re talking about a number of different issues. Obviously, this is very important that many of our health care workers are veterans, firefighters have been through a really tough period. And so we all owe it to them to reach out and to provide resources to have them help to help them get them get Get through this very tough time.

You’re on. You’re listening to Unite and Heal America and KABC 790. We’ll be back in a minute after the break. Welcome back, everybody to the Unite and Heal America program with Matt Matern. I’m KABC 790. Here with Mark Goulston, pleasure talking with you, Doctor, you, you have a recent book out, why cope when you can heal? Can you tell us a little bit more about your book?

Well, first of all, we the reason we came up with the title is when I have talked to people who’ve been deeply traumatized, especially women, they start to cry. And I say, Why are you crying? And they say, if only. And I say What do you mean, if only they say I cope? It’s better than not coping. But I’m not the same. Something’s not right. But it’s better to cope than not cope. Well, what do you mean, you’re not the same? I don’t really feel peace, I’m exhausted. I have fun.

But I don’t know that I feel joy. And really, what they’re talking about is I can’t completely lower my guard. And so when they hear the title, it’s like, you mean, there’s a way to heal? And we’ve actually, you know, in the show, we’ve talked about some of the ways well, it’s, it’s actually not rocket science, it’s empathic science, it’s surgical empathy, while you go back and safely, think the thoughts feel the feelings that you didn’t allow, because you had to survive.

And we have ways that, you know, if you get triggered, we actually have something called the distressed relief thing, where if you get triggered by remembering those events, you can call upon someone living or dead to talk you through?

Yes, definitely. I think it’s meditative almost in having that memory it that you’re bringing yourself to that place. And so you’re you’re forgetting your your sorrows for a minute, because you’re, you’re into a different zone, by kind of taking yourself to an emotionally safe or good place for you. I

have a crazy idea for the world. Maybe you’ll join me. Because I also have something called the impossibility question. And the impossibility question is, what would be something that would be impossible to do. But if it couldn’t be done, would change you as a person, but might change the world. So here’s my crazy, impossible goal. I’d like to imagine a world that has to have a deadline, like the Apollo mission by the end of the decade, and we have nine years. This one will take more. But you know, what I’m imagining in 15 years, a world in which nobody in the world has what they want, until everybody in the world has what they need.

As a as a powerful and where they go that we can all work on. And there’s there’s certainly so much inequity in this world. I was just watching that recent video put out by Noah Vani, criticizing Putin for building this multibillion dollar mansion with money that he basically got through bribes through Russian oligarchs, and you think how many people that could have helped had that money gone for good rather than just personal consumption? Yeah.

And so here’s my step, because I don’t mind having impossible goals. And so here’s the step. And when I’m called into companies, and, and I say this, I work in very sort of straightforward, direct, simple ways. So when I’m called into a boardroom, or I’m called into an executive suite, I’ll say, I’ll tell you what I’m about. And it’s not for everyone. But on my watch, everybody talks to are with each other.

And nobody talks over at or down to each other. And as soon as I catch anyone talking over at or down to each other, I call timeout. And I take some individual, you know, politely to the woodshed And, you know, in, in a supportive, respectful of their talent way I say, What the heck was that about? What we, what were you doing, you’re only going to alienate, but what is going on with you? And it’s interesting, you know, when I coach people, I coach a lot of people.

And I coach more women and men, I see why do you hire me as a coach? They say you’re like the big brother I always wanted. What does that mean? Well, you’re not an authority figure, you’re not in a power thing. You know, you, you can take me aside in, you can just talk to me directly, tactically. And I’ll listen to it and follow it. Because when you say it, it’s laced with love. That’s what a big brother would do. And, and so that would be my step towards that impossible goal.

Because see, when you talk to and with people, and you can do that, I mean, you and I are talking to and with each other. There are some radio shows, maybe even on your network, where people are always talking over and out each other. And they probably have great ratings. Right, there’s a certain energy, but it’s possible to talk to him with people. And I think the world is hungry for that, even though they’re often drawn to the high rating things because it’s like watching it’s like watching mud wrestling on, you know, on radio.

And, and I think it’s possible. And sometimes all you need to do is just take, you know, don’t say anything deeply psychological. Just take them aside and say, you know, you were talking over and down to people. It’s not going to motivate anyone to do anything you want.

But that’s brilliant. Because certainly, we do run across people that push our buttons, and that’s a healthy way to, as you said, be assertive and yet humbly doing it so it diffuses the situation rather than escalates it.

So Dr. Mark Gouldyon It’s been a pleasure having you on the show and looking forward to hopefully having you back on the show at some point in time in the future. This is Unite and Heal America and KABC 790 with Matt Matern. Have a great week everybody, again.

This pre recorded show furnished by Matthew Matern.