798. The Secret Language of the Universe: How To Decode the Signs Around You with Dr. Tara Swart

28:33Dr Tara Swart:I was a doctor. I had loads of amazing contacts. And so I had convinced myself that if anyone was going to make it, it was going to be him. And, you know, I did everything that I possibly could to try to to make that happen. I couldn't, I couldn't let go. Even when I brought him home, knowing that he had two weeks to live, I still didn't let go. And, and I guess someone did say to me about six months after he passed away, she said, I know it's still early, but you are going to have to let go. And it was a massage therapist. And I walked home from the massage, it was a 30 minute walk, literally crying on the street, thinking, how do I let go of someone that I loved so much, who suffered so much at the end.

29:20Dr Tara Swart:And I came home and I Googled, how do you let go of someone that you loved? And what I understood from the answer was, you don't have to be in physical pain and mental anguish all the time for their life to have meant something. That actually, you know, I didn't think I was going to find an answer on Google. I was just a bit desperate. But I thought, you know, I had sat like hunched over for four months whilst he was in hospital, just trying to make sure he lived. And it had really affected, you know, all of my muscles. And, um, sorry, just realizing that I didn't have to be in physical pain all the time.

29:57Dr Tara Swart:That wasn't going to bring him back actually really helped me. Um, I don't know. I don't think I will ever completely let go, but I can move forward with my life now. Mm-hmm. Would you say then that, I guess, maybe I'm curious. So my experience was deeply into manifestation, deeply into law of attraction, and then now more in the surrender. And now I connect more with God where I'm like, I just, there's a greater force at play. I can't really control as much as I thought. Would you say that you've kind of loosened the grip on the belief that you have more control of life or how has it impacted your worldview?

30:37Dr Tara Swart:Yeah, thank you for rephrasing it like that. And I'll try to answer the last two questions. So I think with my take on manifestation was that it's very much powered by your brain and you should be in the driver's seat. I think, you know, a brutal illness like leukemia showed me that some things are not within your control. and because all the things I had believed in didn't work at the time that I needed them the most I did have to find a new way of thinking and being and you know I'm not writing off manifestation and visualization I still do them myself but like you I believe in something greater I don't know if it's God or source or the universe or the collective consciousness I don't know what it is, but I believe there is something that I'm privileged to be a tiny part of.

31:30And I do surrender to it more because, you know, it's one thing that's clear is you can make plans.

31:37Dr Tara Swart:I thought I was going to be married for at least 30 years and I found myself a widow in my 40s. So things don't work out always the way that you expect them to or want them to. and so this understanding that you're part of something bigger can give you perspective no matter what happens and it can help you to find it can show you another way. Is there any brain science or neuroscience around the mental health benefits or the benefits of having a relationship with like a creator or source or god? Yeah so there are certain parts of the brain that have been identified as the god part of the brain i mean this isn't there's very little research here but the insula which is at the temporal parietal junction around here is supposed to be associated with connection to god or source and more psychologically what's been shown is that a moderate towards high level of that connection is very beneficial but either none or being like extremist is not beneficial

32:46I mean, I think we can see, I can see that in my life and with others. And it's interesting. I just did a solo episode where I was talking about sort of my journey with God or spirituality and how so much of it was like none. And then I'm getting closer, but I'm like, I don't want to be on the end where it like, I want it to open my aperture, not close it. And it's like, at this end, you have a closed aperture of nothing. And this end, you have a closed aperture of like only the one thing. And it's really like, how can I be in relationship to it so that it makes life more of the symphony that I want it to be, more of the musical that I want to live in, more of like the journey and the process of what's beautiful and what's unfolding.

33:23What would you have done? You know, not like we're like, I would have done this differently because, you know, everything was perfect. But if you before in the process of, you know, his sickness, you were doing the manifestation of the white cells and all of that, like, is there anything you would have done differently about that process? Would you have let go of the manifestation? Would you have like, you know, done less visualization? Were you gripping with that? Like, what was that relationship like? And how do you sort of see it now with what you were doing?

33:48Dr Tara Swart:I know I wouldn't have done anything differently because I know myself really well. And I know that if I didn't feel like I had done every single possible thing I could, I would not be able to live with myself. I never, I didn't let myself believe that he might die until he did. But even though I didn't think about that, I did have this very clear knowledge that I had to do everything I could. Something you mentioned was in the process of your grief, you know, taking the 10 months and just being really in it and really allowing it to like move through you. I remember post-divorce, I was like, took almost like a year off work.

34:31I was, working, but it was really like I was really in my process. For people that can't necessarily have as much flexibility in their schedule and in their life, you know, that are hearing the story of their grief and they're going through their own grief process, what would you say to support them in their process, even if they still have to go to work and be more engaged with life? Yeah.

34:51Dr Tara Swart:So I just want to also be clear that post-divorce from my first marriage, I threw myself into work and I know that that extended the duration of my pain totally totally but you're right not everybody has that opportunity obviously um and I work for myself but I was engaged with quite a few brands who are so so kind to me and just said take as much time as you need um so all I would say is for some people going back to work is it's very healthy and distracting and if you can do it I just knew I couldn't do it because I had to appear publicly as well um as long as you're not using it to cover up or to suppress the emotions that you need to feel it could be a really good thing um some people want to be surrounded by people I needed a lot of time by myself you know inevitably people I just watched the um latest Bridget Jones movie on the plane oh yeah okay I had my friends had said not to watch it for a while and I had to wait till I was ready.

35:52Dr Tara Swart:I felt I was ready now. And it did make me feel very sad. But I also resonated with a lot of it and liked it in the end. But one thing she says is people will give you such conflicting advice. So people who care about me did say you shouldn't be on your own, someone should come and stay with you. But I knew that I needed to be on my own. Now people came and visited me for an hour every day, a different person every day. And I loved that. But then I would have to go and lie down for two hours because I had no resources it just completely drained me um so I think you've got to work out what's right for you really turn inward and ask yourself what do I need do I need to be around a lot of people do I need time by myself am I better off like really engaging in my work or do I need to be realistic and ask for some you know compassionate leave um and you know do you want to do talking therapy do you want to do somatic therapy.

36:46Dr Tara Swart:It was a real journey of experimentation for me, which is why I've put everything into the book so that somebody who might be grappling for those answers can almost like pick and mix what could work for them. I feel like I tried everything. I know I'm so grateful in my work. It's like trying everything. I'm like, I've done a static. I've done darkness. I've done CBT, EMDR, talk, you know what I mean? Like every type of thing. But it's funny because I, you know, just like you, It's like breaking it down, which is so beautiful. I share, but it really is such a unique process. Like some people are like, this works for me.

37:20I'm like, that is not my journey. Like that does not work for me at all. And so it is really that personal experience. To close the loop on the manifestation part and visualization, how are you approaching your life now with it? Like, are you still visualizing things? Are you still manifesting things? Do you have anything that you're trying to manifest or visualize? You don't need to share what it is, but like, is that still a part of your process?

37:41Dr Tara Swart:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And is it business, work-related? like how are you what are you doing and how are you approaching it um well I still have a board but I have it on Pinterest so I haven't physically made one this year but I one of my friends gave me a little folding like photo album so I do have some pictures and that's I can take it when I travel um I mean it's the usual things it's it's um home related yes it is work related I feel you You know, I'm at the stage now where I feel like I lost three years of my career and I really want to reclaim that. And I want to see, you know, what I'm capable of now.

38:22Dr Tara Swart:And I definitely want to go more down the spiritual route. But I would say it's a lot more open than it ever would have been. It's a lot more full of surrender and open to like what might come towards me rather than me trying to control the narrative too strongly. It's so beautiful to see. And I think a lot of the people that I'm in communion or consciousness with, it's sort of that journey now too where it's like I have my vision board that we made at a friend's birthday the other day and it's at my altar where I pray. And I'm like, this would be nice, but if not, I'm all good. You know what I mean?

38:58Like this is great stuff. If God wants this for me, I call God. People can call it source, universe, whatever. But I'm like, if there's something bigger and better for me, like that's better. And I think what's been helpful for me is releasing the grip on what I feel like I know for my life. And I think when I've done that, it's helped my life soften. It's helped me soften. And I think I was limiting myself a little bit with what was possible with sort of my manifestation list or anything like that. Manifestation, it's worked it for me. But I was really limiting, you know, what was in kind of like limiting the magic of it, you know, of what could come.

39:31Dr Tara Swart:I completely feel the same. you're actually the third person in the three podcasts I've done this week in LA who've brought up that exact theme wow and yesterday the second time it happened I actually said this must be a sign I'm obviously being given a message because you're all saying this to me yeah and so what I really learned and I don't always remember when I need it in the moment but I eventually do is that if I am doubting myself or stressing over something or like really wanting a certain result that whatever I'm doing in my brain is actually delaying that result as soon as I let go it's like magic it happens but the time some you know I'm still getting hopefully better at remembering that and then saying okay that's fine I'll let go of that um yeah that's been a really powerful learning for me in the last few years I think it's a collective theme of our consciousness where people are really kind of surrendering more to something, which is beautiful.

40:31I had a client the other day was talking about, she's having a really hard time with a breakup and in relationship. And she has a part of her that's very attached to the relationship. And she's like, how do you let go? How would you tell someone if they have an attachment to a manifestation or visualization, how would you suggest that they let go? Is this specifically about a romantic partner or in general?

40:52Dr Tara Swart:This client is, but just in general. I mean, so for her, first of all, the thing I would say is that you have to choose yourself and love yourself more than this other person. If they're not showing up for you and, you know, really wanting to be with you, then you need to choose yourself. And I know that's easier said than done, but. I know. It's one of those things. Yeah. It's like once you get it, you get it. But before that, you're like, what are you even saying? I know. And, you know, you have to journal it and practice it and believe it. and we've both been divorced, so we know that it takes time, but you do get there with that eventually.

41:28Dr Tara Swart:In general, I feel like manifestation can go in waves. So, you know, I think even Lacey and Jessica agree with me that it can feel like there are months when nothing's happening. I feel like when your manifestations suddenly start to drop, that's when I ask for everything that I want. You're like, the portal's open. Let's go. I don't know why, but it's open. You're like a new car.

41:53Dr Tara Swart:so you know that my phrase for that is make hay whilst the sun shines and it does just seem like there are times and you know some some spiritual people believe that there are times and people and places where like the portals are more open and things like this but for me time definitely seems to be one so patience is a big part of it but equally there are some things where I've had to say you know let's say in a year I've tried to manifest x amount of things and most of them have come true if there's one that's going back on the board every year there's got to be a time where you know that you talk about the sunk cost fallacy which is where because you've invested so much in something you feel like you you know you've got to keep going but actually you've got to cut your losses at some point and I think with manifestation it's like with anything in life where you realize that I've put this much into it I haven't got as much as I wanted out of it So I can either keep putting more in and I may just keep losing or I can decide that I move my energy to something else.

42:52What I've realized with some of my manifestations recently is it almost comes through when I don't care. And when I'm in, it's almost like, eh, it's kind of, it kind of bums me out because I'm like, oh, I want, you know, this is a silly example. But I was in London last week and I've never flown lay flat on an international flight. And so I was like, it's always been like a thing. That's on my list. I'm like, I want to lay flat. Like, I want to be fully asleep for 12 hours. Like, I want them to stir me champagne. I want them to like knock on my little door. I want to open my little slider. I want to like eat the shrimp.

43:27Like, I was like, I want that experience. I want them to like treat me like a queen. I want to look at everyone and judge them when they walk past me. I want us to judge each other. Like, I was like, I want the whole thing. So I was like, I would love that. And when I came back from London, I was like checking into my flight. and it was British Airways and it was really cheap to upgrade. It was like 400 pounds. And I was like, I'm going to do it. Like I was like, and it was funny because I did it and then I was like, and then I was in my little lay flat and I was just like chilling. I'm like, I just felt so at ease and not even excited.

43:57And I was like, it felt so right for me. I was like, this is my new life. You know, I'm always a lay flat girl. But it was almost the remembrance for me of most of the time when I have a manifestation actually be at the energetic level for me or actually be at the worthiness level for me or actually be at the truth level for me, it no longer feels like a heightened sense of emotion. It feels very calm and peaceful. Do you find that to be true for people? Like what's it like to have a manifestation realized for people? I mean, I think I feel quite excited. Okay, okay.

44:28Dr Tara Swart:No, I think I was just, yeah, my ego was like, this is my new life. But I think, you know, that sense of peace and that it's right. Yeah. You know, if you'd felt very self-conscious or kind of like, Like, okay, I got this cheap upgrade once, but I'll never get it again. Yeah, I think harmony, there's harmony there. And that's one of the six principles I wrote about in The Source in terms of manifestation. So we mentioned peace, but harmony is one is that, you know, it feels right in your head, heart, and your gut. And it's not damaging anyone else. It's in harmony with, you know, everyone in the universe.

45:01Dr Tara Swart:Wow. I'm grateful you said that so I could remember it. something I want to kind of go back to because I know so much of our audience will love it. And it's something that I just love and experience so much in life too is around synchronicities and signs. And we kind of mentioned that, you know, for you as like a doctor, if someone was like, that's crazy. Like, like what is the science of seeing the same signs, seeing the types of like the numbers? A lot of times, do we think it's God? Do we think it's just our reticular activating system? Like what do you kind of, how do you make sense of it spiritually and science wise?

45:35Yeah.

45:36Dr Tara Swart:So let's start with the science because it is quite easily explained by the reticular activating system. So we have this system that selectively filters all the data that's around us because we're bombarded through our senses with so much data. I think the statistic that people quite like is that if you read a copy of the New York Times today, that would be the same amount of information that someone would receive in their lifetime 100 years ago. Wow. Yeah. So, you know, that's increased exponentially. We can literally be switched on 24-7 now. But even if you just think about things like noise pollution and light pollution, just the number of people that are around, traffic, things like that.

46:21Dr Tara Swart:So to help us to deal with this world, the brain will naturally filter out things that aren't crucial to our survival. It will pay attention to things that it feels are important for our survival. And it will also tag them in order of importance. So that's selective filtering, selective attention and value tagging. And then the value tagging can happen non-consciously in the background. And it will literally be based on what the brain deems is like essential to your survival. But one of the ways that visualization and manifestation work is that it directs that value tagging to things that you want in your life.

46:59Dr Tara Swart:So it brings in a more emotional element rather than just this is what I need to survive. So if you are saying, you know, that car, then when you're thinking of buying a car, or you've just purchased a new car, you tend to see more of that car everywhere. And that's confirmation bias. It's not that suddenly there are more, you know, red Teslas or whatever around. So scientifically, that's how it works. And then spiritually, it depends on how we have defined how the universe works. So what's currently accepted is that there's like space time is the definition of how we understand how the universe works.

47:41Dr Tara Swart:But actually, we can't prove that that's true. We can't disprove it, we choose to accept it. But for example, Professor Donald Hoffman says that consciousness is the basis of how the universe works. Professor David Eagleman says this idea that the brain is like a radio or a receiver and that we can receive signals from outside can't be proven but it also can't be disproven. So there's a lot of that kind of thing where we've accepted a way that we think the world works but we don't actually know and therefore some of these things like synchronicities for example, first Americans would explain that by the way that they don't see time as linear.

48:23Dr Tara Swart:There is absolutely no proof that time is linear, but we've chosen to accept that. They see time as a spiral. So if you think about walking along a spiral, then on either side of you is a path that you've walked on already and one that you haven't walked on yet. And they're very close to each other. So if the same thing happened in the past and it happens now, and it's going to happen in the future, then that could be presented to your brain is a synchronicity. And synchronicities, I've known them from like a Jungian perspective of consciousness. Is that sort of how you understand them? Or how did you first start to understand synchronicities?

49:00Dr Tara Swart:Yeah. I mean, I like Carl Jung's work a lot. And when I got divorced after my first marriage, it was, I put together the Eastern philosophy from Buddhism and the psychology from Jung to help me navigate and understand, you know, what was going on. I love you people are like just eat ice cream hang out on the couch you're like I'm gonna do this whole thing with young and eastern tradition like I'm gonna create a whole new system of like so crazy like what you'll do post like breakup or whatever like I deep dove into like I don't even know but yes continue um so yeah so I've been particular well obviously I studied like psychology when I was training to be a psychiatrist but then that's what helped me at that time and I did return to Jung for writing the signs because of his idea of the collective consciousness and the fact that all humans in the history of time have certain things in common, birth, life and death and that actually there are inherited brain structures that allow us to share these common sort of you know archetypes and also his explanation of synchronicities is the one that lands most for me as a former psychiatrist.

50:17Dr Tara Swart:What would you say that is just for the audience? So I think it's basically what he calls coincidences that cannot be explained away as coincidence. So they hold some kind of symbolic meaning. And that makes sense, right? That's just a very basic thing that anyone, I think, could accept. And then the more spiritual explanation would be that God or angels or, you know, whatever the source of this is, is presenting something to you in a way that you can't ignore, because that means something. But you need to use your intuition to work out what it means for you. And, you know, so again, at the very basic level, I would say if you don't believe in signs, you don't believe in a beyond, that's okay.

51:08Dr Tara Swart:But if something symbolic or, you know, kind of synchronicity that you can't really explain away happens to you, just work out what it means for you. That's enough. Yeah. Would you say that for people that that's probably most supportive? So if people are experiencing signs or synchronicities that they should use their intuition as the guide or sort of their own internal compass to determine what exactly that could mean. Like as an example, the robin, you're going to be, this is my husband. You know, I'm seeing that thing. Or, you know, for me, mine's angel or mine's rainbows. I know that's like so basic, but rainbows are like my angel sign.

51:48Dr Tara Swart:But rainbows are a beautiful, unusual, natural phenomenon. Let's talk about rainbows. I come literally every time I see a rainbow, I'm like, what is this beautiful tapestry of color in the sky that appears randomly after the like rainbows are so amazing it's basically sunlight being refracted through droplets of water you know the pink floyd album cover with the the triangle and then the rainbow yeah it's basically that. Oh, wow. Yeah.

52:29My dad made me listen to Pink Floyd so much when I was little, which is so weird. But yeah, rainbows are my sign. I even landed in Florida recently to see my dad again who's sick. And it was just rainbow after rainbow after rainbow in the sky. It was just, and God, I just, I think my desire and wish for people is to open themselves up to the possibility of that and to be guided because it kind of makes me emotional. It's just like life is so hard and so long and there's so little magic and fun and play available to you if you close yourself off to it. And when you open yourself up to being more playful and more creative and more in conversation with life and conversation with the creator or whatever, things just open up.

53:14And if anything, I feel like I'm so much more happy. I'm so much more at peace. I'm so much more at ease. And I'm someone that needs to be, you know, very stimulated by what I do or by my experience. I'm very logged on. I'm very conscious. I'm very aware. And so it helps me really stay engaged with life. You know, I think when I was more closed off and I didn't really have a set of beliefs or a foundation of things, it was like I kind of was trying to find meaning in things that were, you you know, clothes, the way I looked, how much money I made. It was like the basic, you know, kind of box idea.

53:46They serve us as humans when we land on earth. Like these are what's going to make you happy. And then you kind of expand beyond it. I'm like, I'm seeing a rainbow and that's making me happy. I saw a spider. So my car is outside. A spider within five hours, I didn't sleep much last night, from the house to my car had weaved this beautiful web. And I'm like, you just did that last night? Like that is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. And it just creates this experience of engagement with life that I just, I want for people in such a way. And I think when we can kind of let go of the protection that we feel like we have, or this attachment to being emotion or being angry or sad, it just can become so much greater.

54:30So to that after my monologue, what is stopping people like from a brain perspective or from like an emotion perspective from being open to things? Like, is there a part of their brain that shuts it off or protects them? Like, why doesn't everyone have this openness to receive synchronicities and signs?

54:45Dr Tara Swart:First of all, I just want to say how beautifully you put that. And it's, you've articulated exactly what I would want for people. And you're not the only person that's actually said to me that they've noticed that I have a different kind of radiance now. and so all I can say is that I had a choice I could so easily have become completely bitter and said that my life will never be the same again because of what happened to me and that would actually be okay but I chose not to do that um and luckily because I researched the field of neuroaesthetics and you know near-death experiences and lots of other things to try to you know make sense of what had happened to me, I chose to notice beauty all the time.

55:31Dr Tara Swart:So the amount of times I now say, even to my male friends, oh, look, isn't that so pretty? I even noticed myself how many times a day I was saying, that's pretty, that's beautiful. Oh, look at that. And I thought, wow, I really use neuroplasticity and changed my brain to do that. You know, I do gratitude practice, but now I'll often instead or as well say, you know, what are 10 beautiful things that I'm going to see today. So the art of noticing and particularly looking for the good and the beautiful has the same effect as gratitude. It, you know, makes you have more oxytocin in your brain, the like bonding, love, trust hormone than the stress hormone.

56:13Dr Tara Swart:And that's really relevant because the reason that people don't notice is because they're so busy, they're stressed, they've got a million things to do. And it feels like a luxury to stop and smile the flowers. You You know, I remember one day leaving my house and I just had these two pots of lavender put outside. And as I was rushing out thinking, oh, wow, the lavender is looking really good. But I don't have time to stop now. You know, so I went to whatever I was going to. But when I came back, I stopped. I smelled it. I really looked at it. I told it how beautiful it is. Of course. What do you mean?

56:44Dr Tara Swart:You're like, Lavi, you look great today. You look so good today. Yeah. So, you know, I've just incorporated that into my life. And it can be really micro. You can be walking down the street and just, you know, make sure that you actually notice the spring blossoms or you acknowledge that there's a really impressive architecture of a building in front of you. And these, so habituation is when you just get so used to everything around you that you don't notice it. And what we want to do is stimulate our saliency network, which notices new things, notices beautiful things. And slowly that can just become part of your life.

57:20I do that with friends quite a bit. But, you know, we'll be on, like yesterday we were on a walk and every flower we stopped and smelled. And we were just in awe of everything. I was in London last week and we went to the park and we just smelled every flower. We talked about every flower. We were just in amazement at, you know, God laughs in flowers, the quote. And we were just in amazement at just this beautiful, natural existence of this thing that is here. And it creates such a deeper connection of presence to life and a lightness to life. and sort of recalibration for me of what matters. And I think it's like, I was like, oh man, I thought I'd be like in my 60s when I started talking to squirrels in my neighborhood.

58:00But I'm like, I'm in my 30s and all the squirrels have names. You know what I mean? I'm like, every squirrel, I'm like, hello, how are you? And even if I look insane, I'm enjoying life more. It's more playful. And so this relationship that people can create that you're speaking to is just, if anything, gonna create more joy and happiness. So would you just kind of - Can I just say something?

58:21Dr Tara Swart:I've got a WhatsApp group with two of my friends that I go for walks with, and it's called Squirrel Sisters. There you go. You know what I'm talking about. Them squirrels are up to something. Except Lily and I are usually scared and running away from them, and Sabrina's like, no nuts here. Oh, my God, you guys are being scared. I'm like, come over here. Like my dream. The other night we were on a walk, and there's some feral cats in the neighborhood. And I was like, I literally in my head was like, I need to start bringing food for them. Like, I'm, like, ready to, like, have a little backpack on with treats and, like, do my thing.

58:53Like, I was walking in my neighborhood one day. In the morning, I'll walk at, like, 6 a.m. to do, like, a circadian rhythm walk, circ walk per Liz Moody. And I just look insane. Like, it's the insanity of my glasses, my hair, you know, I just look crazy. And I'm sure my neighbors were like, who is this lady? Because I'm talking to this cat. There's this cat in my neighborhood called Mr. – called Bun Bun. And it was this fat, huge cat, but it's feral. and they were looking at me like, hello. I'm like, hello, I'm talking to Bun Bun. They're just like, is she under the bridge? Like what is going on?

59:24But again, it just makes life more fun. But there was something you mentioned in here that I wanted to talk about. So there's two things. You mentioned the near-death experiences that you were sort of looking at. So what is a near-death experience for anyone listening and how are you sort of approaching what that was during your process?

59:42Dr Tara Swart:So I looked at near-death experiences and terminal lucidity. Now terminal lucidity is when somebody who is near the end of life, who has a brain that is either physically or chemically irreversibly damaged, so could be a stroke, but it's mostly dementia, suddenly become totally lucid in themselves again within the last one to 24 hours of their life. Now, you may experience this at some point. So people who don't remember their own children and have been like that for years, and as far as we know currently in medicine, dementia is irreversible, will just suddenly regain their personality, say, Krista, honey, come over here, I need to speak to you.

1:00:30Dr Tara Swart:speak to you like your dad used to like years ago it's usually a sign that they'll die within one to 24 hours obviously it can bring hope to families but actually in retrospect people say it was a really beautiful thing they got to say goodbye they got to experience their loved one again um and there's a professor in Vienna who's at the Viktor Frankl Institute Alexander Bathiani wonderful human being who just talks about the dignity and the truth and the beauty and the hope that it brings but what he also says is this is a time of duress for the brain the brain is dying and damaged beyond repair as far as we know it but it but the consciousness the mind the soul the spirit the personality whatever you want to call it can function completely normally what is the explanation for that?

1:01:21Dr Tara Swart:How can a mind function completely normally when the brain is totally damaged? That must mean that at some times, in some places, in some people, somehow, the mind and the brain can be separate. So if you take that, there are less cases of terminal lucidity, there are a lot more, like tens of thousands of cases of near-death experiences, and you can talk to people who flatlined cardiac and brain and had an experience and then came back and can tell you about it and there are so many commonalities in all of the experiences that people report despite wherever in the world it was whatever culture whatever belief system um it's also basically the brain at a time of duress or even potentially full death and then return that must also mean that the mind can exist on independently of the brain so those are two really um big examples that we have now we can't choose to have a near-death experience so there's two things here one is that simply by learning about near-death experiences you can gain some of the benefits and these are things like being more compassionate being less materialistic not having fear of dying, not having fear of failing in life.

1:02:40And so, you know, like throwing yourself

1:02:42Dr Tara Swart:into life with much more energy and less fear. This understanding that we're all connected somehow, you know, whatever that explanation is. And it makes people live completely differently. And medical students and social work students and nurses who learn about this in university have been shown to be reporting the same benefits up to a year later. it's part of the reason that I wrote the book and obviously put my story in it but also put the research on near-death experiences was to hopefully cascade that effect of you know people learning about it and then being able to bring it into their lives you can however go on a dark retreat now did I hear you say you've done that I did that oh I'd love to hear more from you but it's the closest thing we have at the moment to simulate a near-death experience and again bring some of the same benefits.

1:03:34Dr Tara Swart:So can you tell me what you did? So I had heard about it. I went probably in 2022, end of 2022, November, I was, I had heard of the darkness retreat and I told God, and this is one, a manifestation that comes through a lot. Oftentimes I was like, God, if you want me to do that, make it easy. The next day, the founder of the retreat emailed and was like, I'd love to have you come as my guest. And I was like, great, sounds good. And I think in life, I just, I'm very comfortable to push myself outside my limits and my bounds. And I feel kind of like a traveler sometimes. You know, I'm like, I'm here to teach and learn and do things to help the collective.

1:04:14And I just felt like I needed it. And my marriage was ending. So it was almost like the end period of the relationship. And so I went to a place in Oregon. It's called Sky Cave Retreats. It's kind of the place where people go in the States. There's also ones that happen and they do internationally. So it was in this place called Ashland. and it's completely off grid. There's like no wifi. There's like no running water. You know, it's just like completely tucked away. And they build these little like caves and these little like dark huts that you stay. And I think at that point they had five, they might have more now.

1:04:46And so when you get there, you do a little bit of therapeutic work with a teacher and kind of get yourself set. And when you don't have a context for what you're going to do at all, you're kind of just like, okay, I don't really know what's going to go on, but I knew that I'd be processing the end of that relationship. I was going to use that time for processing, processing that experience. And so the first night you go in and you're kind of prepped, you're like, okay, you're going to go in and you kind of fall asleep. So you go in at like 7pm, you fall asleep and that's kind of how you start the experience.

1:05:13And it was four days, five nights, four days, four days, five nights. To be honest, because your melatonin production and your pineal gland is so active because you're in pitch black all the time, you don't really know what time it is. So you're very lucid. So I was sleeping a lot at the beginning and not a lot at the end because my body was just kind of adjusting in this weird way. So I didn't really know what time was throughout it. But I would say the most interesting parts, like I remember the first night falling asleep and then waking up in the morning and looking out in the bed and you can't see your hand in front of you.

1:05:44So it's everything's pitch black. And I remember looking out and seeing like I was being met by this consciousness. It was almost like this being or entity was looking back at me and was like, just aware of the relationship we were going to have for this time. And whether that was darkness or myself or my soul or whatever, it was just, I was very presently aware that there was something that was there with me. And it made me feel curious and, you know, safe. I felt very safe in it. But I think the thing that the darkness really gave me was I had never gotten to the bottom of or been with my emotions or feelings enough to really understand how to work with them and feel them and be with them.

1:06:25I think in my life, I had used relationships, work, food, shopping, all these things that we have accessible to us to numb, cope, and avoid. I think food was really my thing. And so to be in that experience of, We were given food each day, so it wasn't like I wasn't eating, but of being in a deep grief process for the ending of my relationship and all the patterns that I had discovered in myself through that process, I had to actually be with myself and my emotions in their fullest depth and experience and work through them. So it meant feeling the fullness of the emotion to the bottom of that feeling and not saying no, where I had normally said no, where I had normally used something to avoid, and then feeling it to its fullness, coming out the other side, sleeping, resting, eating, doing whatever recovery process in that point, mothering myself, and then going in again.

1:07:14And so I spent most of my time in a deep process of feeling things I had never felt in my life. And I think I really understood and understand now the safety I have within myself to feel my emotions. I don't need to run from them. I don't need to avoid. I don't need to cope. But I think it was the hardest thing I've ever done. And I've done a lot of plant medicine. I've done a lot of hard things in my life. I've done silent retreats. I've done Vipassana as I've done all this kind of stuff, but I wouldn't recommend it for many people because it's psychologically incredibly, you have to be at a certain level of connection to self, capital S self.

1:07:49But yeah, it changed my life. And I feel like a part of my soul stepped into my body there that I've kept, you know, from that time.

1:07:56Dr Tara Swart:So proud of you. Yeah. It was like, it was crazy. And so yeah, the darkness retreat, like you were mentioning, could be something for people, but I think, you know, there's also other ways. It's interesting. We had someone on the podcast, maybe year one, Eben Alexander. Oh, yeah. Yeah. About his near-death experience. We talk about near-death experiences like year one on the podcast. And I'll never forget thinking about that. And what was interesting to me about NDEs is that there was always a common thread of people's experience. Yeah. Where people from all over the world had the experience of seeing the light, had the experience of the review, had the experience of these very specific things.

1:08:30And that's also come through with psychedelics. You know, when I was at an ayahuasca retreat many years ago to see what it was like and experience the medicine, it was interesting because we were in this consciousness where a lot of people were tuned into the same type of things. They were seeing very specific entities. They were seeing very specific aliens. They were seeing very specific angels. They were all kind of tuned in and seeing the same things. So you mentioned psychedelics in the book as well. You know, what was your experience with psychedelics? What was your perspective of them before this process?

1:09:00Like, did you ever have judgment of them or did you ever kind of poo-poo them before you moved to a closer relationship?

1:09:06Dr Tara Swart:No. So my PhD is in neuropharmacology. So I've always been interested in pharmaceuticals. Yeah. What I was really going to say is that when I started specializing in medical school, I took the special subjects of the biology of aging, the pharmacology of drug dependence, neuropharmacology. actually did my PhD on Parkinson's disease. So I've always been fascinated by that kind of thing. And I've watched with interest through history, how plant medicine has its renaissance, but then is shut down. And I'm actually very curious to see what's going to happen this time round. I keep an eye on the research primarily at Imperial and Johns Hopkins, because they're really leading the way.

1:09:53Dr Tara Swart:And there's some, you know, very exciting research results in terms of just one or two doses one to six months apart for people with treatment resistant depression addictions doses of um psilocybin ketamine um mdma and i think lsd as well yeah yeah um and so what i've done in the book is i've written about how ancient civilization used these substances it's really interesting like it seems to be like across the globe yeah so so many different cultures um and then I have given an explanation of the mechanism of action so it's mostly on 5-HT2A receptors which are serotonin receptors in the brain um how they cause hyperconnectivity in the brain which is why we often come up with new solutions to old problems that they're particularly active in the visual cortices of the brain which is why often people see things so it's super interesting um obviously i can't you know condone the use of controlled substances as as they are in the uk um so what i've done is is try to describe you know how they work and what the potential benefits are but then also spoken about lots of natural ways of achieving altered states of consciousness so for example holotropic breath work or conscious connected breath work can induce an altered state of consciousness that's on par with a moderate dose of psilocybin.

1:11:25Dr Tara Swart:So much more accessible for people. I mean, obviously, there are countries around the world where it's legal that you can go to and try it yourself. But if that's not possible for certain people, then there are other ways. If you think about like, you know, the ecstasy of sort of like dancing and swirling and drumming and chanting and stuff. But the breathwork has actual scientific evidence for its potency in terms of producing a similar kind of effect.

1:11:59Did you use psychedelics during your grief healing? No. Why not?

1:12:05Dr Tara Swart:In your face. I know, I'm like, I'm just going to ask her, why not? Yeah, I think I'm not against it. But I was so fragile that I couldn't risk something that was out of my control. So, yeah, I'm not against it. I'm open to it. I think possibly moving forward is something I could explore, but I didn't feel like I could risk it at the time. Which is powerful. Yeah. And I think with that, you know, you're called to it, you know, you know what I mean? Like that's with my process. I just, I do if I feel called. I haven't felt called in quite some time, you know, because it is destabilizing, I think, to the brain and to the psyche and to life.

1:12:49And I think a lot of times you find information or discover information and it could be truth and could be not, but it's not, it's meant to change your life or how you think.

1:12:59Dr Tara Swart:Yeah. And so you have to understand that with it. Yeah, exactly. I feel like I had too much going on in my head already. And, you know, there were times that my GP begged me to take antidepressants, but with both antidepressants and with plant medicine, and this isn't for everyone, but for me, I had to feel like I had the resources within myself to get through so that I could trust myself for the rest of my life. once I've got that then if I want to take plant medicine or I want to take antidepressants that's fine but to feel like really healed and that I can rely on myself for the rest of my life I had to do it by myself in the book you know we're talking about some of the psychedelics and some of the other healing modalities and you really did bring and reclaimed a lot of ancient healing modalities in there what were some of your favorites that people should check out and what were some of the ones where you were like, eh, not so much?

1:13:56Dr Tara Swart:Well, I don't think I put anything in the book that I thought not so much. You're like, skip this one. Not good. I mean, I'll tell you one thing I found, and I'm a huge proponent of talking therapy. I've had it myself. I had it during my grief. And obviously, a lot of my colleagues and peers and friends are psychologists. but I did learn that there is a level beyond which talking therapy alone can't go and if you think about post-traumatic stress disorder and obviously that very famous book The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk then we really do understand that a lot of trauma is held in the body and that when people have PTSD actually the Broca's area of the brain which is the part that articulates speech shuts down and that's why they say I don't have words for this I feel speechless I feel dumbfounded.

1:14:45Dr Tara Swart:And that's when somatic therapies, you know, therapy to the body, like yoga, dance, art, can really help these people. And so I felt that it was the same with grief, that, you know, I got a lot of benefit from talking therapy. But it was once I started trying out all these different somatic therapies, that I feel like that trauma or grief that was held in my tissues could actually start to exit. It's like the full cycle. You know what I mean? It's like, you can be in the processing and the mind. And I think it's really important that you have a therapist or this person you're working with that can kind of see when you're just in the processing or see when, you know, sometimes my therapist, I'm like, I know, I know.

1:15:30Like, like she'll be like, I'm just noticing this in the room, but you know, you know, like I'm just noticing this thing. If we want to go there, we can. And if not, and guiding you to the deeper feeling and emotion and experience beyond sort of the mind's kind of like avoidance. Because a lot of times in talk therapy, you can really just use it to avoid the feeling. You know, you can use it to just be in the validation of your ego, the validation of the emotion. Yeah, rationalize it. Yeah, rationalize it. You can, and I'll do, I've done that sometimes too, where I'm like, this is a key, key week.

1:15:57I'm like, let's just gossip me and the girls, like me and my therapist. But then sometimes it'll be kind of the more shamanic experience of going into something and feeling it. But I think it's beautiful now. I think we're moving as a collective to really understanding the connection to the body and not leaving the body behind and not leaving the tissues and the cells behind in the process of feeling the grief. And it's been interesting because sometimes when I'll do that work, whether it's like a myofascial release or rolfing or, you know, aesthetic dance, sometimes what I love about it so much is I don't even have the connection to the thing.

1:16:29You know, my brain also will kind of keep me out of it. And I'll start crying or emoting or expressing. And I'm not allowed to reach the story. My brain will try and find the story. Oh, my mom. You know, like it's always like mom or dad, you know, like it kind of shows me the menu. It's like mom, dad, you know, this, this, this. And I'm like, no, we're just going to feel and express and leave the body. Something you've talked about on, you know, Diary of a CO is the senses. And I think, you know, we have the perception. I think I've had the perception that we have the five senses, but you have a different belief.

1:17:03Yeah.

1:17:04Dr Tara Swart:So when I, whenever I ask people, most people obviously say five. Some will say, isn't there a sixth sense? And some people think that's intuition or balance usually is what I found. So almost in a way to create an analogy for people to really believe how powerful their mind is and how much more they're capable of. I wanted to find a physical thing to sort of show us that there's more than we realize. and so I started this literature review and I first found this academic paper that said we have 22 to 33 senses but then that's obviously quite a range so I thought well let me be sure what they are and I even made a very strict definition of what a sense is so it has to be something that an outside stimulus or an inside stimulus affects a receptor that then releases a chemical and that causes a, you know, response in your body.

1:17:57Dr Tara Swart:So based on that, intuition can't be a sense. As far as we currently understand it, who knows? Next interview, she's coming back again. Next one's all about intuition.

1:18:11Dr Tara Swart:So over the year that I was writing, I kept researching and I finally came up with a table of 34 senses. And they're ones that a lot of them I knew about from medical school. They're things like thermoception for your temperature, nociception for pain, equilibrioception for balance, proprioception, which is how you know where your joints and limbs are in space. So these are ones as a medic, I would know, but you know, an everyday person wouldn't necessarily know them. But if I said to you things like, how do you know when your bladder's full? Or how do you know when your stomach's full? Well, you know, you know that you've got the sense of that, right?

1:18:45Dr Tara Swart:There are some that we're not aware of, like the levels of oxygen or carbon dioxide in your blood or the pH of your blood, for example. So I just, I actually in the book have separated them into ones that you are aware of and can consciously control and ones that you're, you know, are always going on in the background that you're not aware of. So for example, you don't consciously control your heart rate, but if you think about it and you focus on it and you either feel your pulse or you, you know, feel into your chest and you become aware of it, you can actually change it through your breathing so it's things like that and for example taste is subdivided into five and um umami was only discovered in the 1980s so you know literally within our lifetimes new ones have are being discovered so currently I think we're at 34 it was it was really just to show how amazing the human body is but also to say well if that's what you believed there were five and now you know 34, what could that mean about your consciousness?

1:19:45How, you know, how much is available there that

1:19:48Dr Tara Swart:we're not using or that we're not aware of? So yeah, I enjoyed that. So I basically called the chapters connect with your senses, connect with your intuition, connect with creativity, connect with nature and connect with your tribe. With the intuition piece, how do you suggest people connect with intuition and how do you understand intuition from a scientific level? So I'd love to go back to where you started, which is where we were at when I wrote The Squirrels. Yeah, perfect. Well, let's go back to The Squirrels. So where we were, you know, I was at where you interviewed me after The Source came out and then where I'm at now.

1:20:27Dr Tara Swart:So I feel like intuition has always been thought of as a mental faculty. But like I said, the way that trauma is stored in the body, I now believe that hidden wisdom is stored in the body. because you can't remember everything you've experienced in life. And we know that you keep, you know, your working memory, the stuff you need to live your life in the outer cortex of the brain. And that in the limbic system, which is the deeper part, that's the size of your clenched fist, are the patterns and sort of, you know, wisdom and judgment, as in, you know, making good judgment and decisiveness is in that part of the brain and it's more instinctual.

1:21:07Dr Tara Swart:and we do know that through a process called Hebbian learning which is named after the neuroscientist Donald Hebb and it's basically neurons that fire together wire together that that kind of you know being able to make good judgment and access your intuition is pushed deeper into the limbic system and through the brainstem and spinal cord actually into the gut neurons and you know intuition was called gut instinct before we had scanning technology so there was obviously some understanding that you know something's going on in your gut when you're accessing that um but what we believe now is that just like trauma stored in the body your intuition is also stored in your fascia in your muscles um and not just you know not just in the central and peripheral nervous system so therefore all the things that we've just discussed like breathwork and ecstatic dance and the kind of massage that is therapeutic in terms of releasing trauma and releasing intuition are all things that could really help you not just thinking, talking, journaling, but actually like getting into your body and finding out what's hidden in there that could really help you.

1:22:19And that piece, and then a little in the last answer you had related to the senses, you know I was kind of getting the theme of something we were talking about before we started recording which is helping people remember how powerful they are and that being a desire that you had and I think that was also came through in the source and and definitely in this book so what is it that you want to say to people to help them remember that

1:22:46Dr Tara Swart:I think that most of the things that we need to live that more joyful peaceful life are actually hidden in plain sight whether it's ancient wisdom or it's the beauty around you or that moment of connection with with someone these are the things that we really need to be savoring and remembering are important and just remembering them. I'm not asking people to go out and do hard work and live their lives entirely differently, but just to bring these small things. And I think, you know, maybe what I should say is, obviously, I've tried to put it all in the book. So if going for a walk in nature and listening to the audio book is a way of you, you know, multitasking and getting the tips, then please do that.

1:23:37Dr Tara Swart:I personally would advocate for going on for a walk on nature and not listening to something um but I would say like anything that I've put in the book like like you've said earlier not everything is for everyone the ones that resonate with people if you just slowly try to bring them into your life in a small way you will get exponential benefits um look it took me years but I was starting from scratch and so that's why I was so passionate about just bringing this like a box of chocolates and saying please have one, you know, please try this. It's obviously taken me from a, you know, completely broken and tragic place to where I feel, you know, such a sense of peace and gratitude and joy.

1:24:20Dr Tara Swart:And I don't feel guilty about saying that. But if you're not in that broken, tragic place, just think, you know, where you could be. And I know people are busy, but maybe it won't take as much as it took me for people who are kind of okay now to get to a much better place. What can people expect when they get the book? It does have my personal story in it. And obviously, I'm very private. So it took me a lot to do that. But and I always said, I don't just want to tell people a sad story. I will only write a book. If from the benefit of hindsight, I have things I think can help people and I, and I did so much research to back it all up.

1:25:00Dr Tara Swart:So I think people can find just so many tips that can make their life happier, healthier, bigger, more meaningful, you know, find their sense of purpose. You said earlier when you were talking about, you know, living in this way that life is so long. But, you know, what I've seen as well is that life is so short. just take all of the beauty and make the most out of however much time we have left thank you Robin for the gift of this book and inspiring it and thank you for sharing your journey and your experience and yet is it gives hope like when you can be in that deep of grief and you really are the work working you know it's just such a beautiful thing so thank you for choosing the path of love and yourself and for writing this.

1:25:53And I'm so excited for everyone to get it. It's out now and you guys can get the book and then listen to the first pod we did and you can follow you on all the socials. We'll put everything in our show notes. So thank you for coming. It's always a pleasure. I just appreciate you so much. We love you guys. Bye. Perfect. Thank you so much, Dr. Swart. Again, the book is called The Signs and it is out now. You can listen to Dr. Swart on the first episode of Almost 30. Just search her name. And then you can also follow her on Instagram, Dr. Tara Swart. Thank you all for being here. You can follow us on YouTube.

1:26:26Subscribe there. We are on video. We're on video looking just fly as fly as ever. And you can follow us on TikTok at Almost 30 Podcast on Instagram at Almost 30 Podcast as well. Yeah, we love you guys. We'll see you soon. Thank you for being part of our lives. Morning Microdose is the second podcast. You can listen to the best, greatest hits of Almost 30 on Morning Microdose. See you guys soon. Later. Bye.