#990 - Dr Tara Swart - How to Use Your Intuition as a Superpower

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31:59So you can buy it and train with it for 29 days. And if you don't like it, they'll just give you your money back. Right now, you can get up to $50 off the RP hypertrophy app. We're going to the link in the description below, or heading to rpstrength .com -modern -mysdom using the code modern -wysdom. Check out that's rpstrength .com -modern -mysdom and modern -wysdom. Check out. Hmm. What is it beyond the cortisol? What else is happening? Let's say that someone is in a period of stress and they have been for a long time. What else is flooding through their body and what systems are turned on and turned off?

32:33I guess potentially adrenaline as well, although that's more of an acute thing. It's kind of more the effects of that chronic stress, meaning that there are higher levels of cortisol kind of generally, and cortisol and oxytocin, the bonding hormone, the one that helps us to, you know, trust and seek joy and excitement. They're kind of on a sea source, so if the cortisol levels are high, the oxytocin levels are low. And like I said, the blood flow around the brain will be changed because of the high levels of stress. And also the cortisol, because it's in the blood system, and it's going around the whole body, it has a sort of corrosive effect on our immunity.

33:19So that can start with just more colds and flus, but you know, at the extreme end, it has led to heart attacks and cancers in people with really chronic stress. So, you know, imagine that you're just that bit more run down all the time. Maybe you're getting like colds more of the time. Maybe you're having to take antibiotics and that's wiping out your gut microbiome because intuition, This whole complicated system is between the brain, the gut and the gut microbiome, which is the trillions of good bacteria that contribute to not just our digestion, but also the connection between the brain and the gut.

34:01One round of antibiotics will really negatively impact that. So the best way to access, you can't access your brain directly as it were. So a good way to try to optimize your brain is through your gut and that's through what you eat, how much water you drink, whether you take pre -improbiotics, fiber, etc. But if you're stressed, then you're more likely to comfort eat, you're more likely to crave sugar and caffeine, it gets harder to drink enough water to actually keep your system in optimal hydration. So magnesium, a really important mineral that actually helps us to deal with stress, is ironically actually leeched out of the system by stress to the point that you can't actually eat enough leafy greens and nuts and seeds to replenish that, so then you need to start supplementing.

34:56And the best way to, I think, work out if you're magnesium deficient apart from you can get a blood test is if you have a twitchy eyelid or like just little, you know, micro -moscular twitches, that's often a good sign. No way. Yeah. That's interesting. I used to get that one I was club promoting. So I would run nightclubs and stay up till super late and drive back from Manchester to Newcastle and get in at 5am and then go and work again the next night and stuff. And if I had, during freshers week, so mucus all had its week and then there was a week off and then Northumbria had its week. So it was a three week period where I basically didn't sleep.

35:34And reliably after about 10 days, everybody would come into the office and everyone looked like a pirate because everyone had one, had one eye or both eyes if you were really pushing it hard. Just on the point around optimizing gut for brain health or optimizing gut for sort of systemic health there. I'm always a little confused and even the best guys on the planet seem to sort of need to hedge a lot of their conversations around this when I talk about, you know, should we be taking lactobacillus and probiotics and prebiotics and it how much can you generalize and how much is each person's individual microbiome such a fingerprint that you kind of need to go and get a very personalized approach to this.

36:22And obviously that makes it way less accessible, which kind of sucks. What are the general rules? How do you come to think about this when you're giving out advice? Yeah, so there are companies in the UK and the US where you can send in a store sample and they can personalize which probiotics you should take or which strains of bacteria should be in the probiotic that you take. There are a few probiotics that are backed by a lot of clinical studies. I don't know if I'm allowed to mention names. You can mention whatever you'd like. So seed is one that's backed by a lot of clinical trials. And so unless you've got a particular poor immune system or ill health or something, that one's probably going to be good for like somebody who's quite healthy.

37:15So when I travel, I take that one because the one I use at home is a liquid, I can't take that with me. I personally have tried several different probiotics and because I rely on my intuition very heavily, I can feel which one is right for me. And I understand that not everyone can necessarily do that. intuition to work out whether you're strengthening your intuition. Yeah, that can be a bit of a challenge. So like I said, you know, I do rely on my intuition quite heavily, but I also, and I eat really healthy, like a wide variety of plant products every week, fermented foods. But I also take a probiotic all the time.

37:58So I think like you say, people, you know, want to hedge, but I think the best truth, you can say it's what you do. I'm not saying that everyone should do that, but that definitely works for me. How about the role of the people that are around us in influencing our ability to tap into our intuition? It seems every week there's some new study coming out about how the sort of people that we spend our time around somehow influence us in ways that we maybe wouldn't have realized previously, but certainly it's a big impact. What is there to say when it comes to good instinct and intuition and the people that you spend your time around?

38:41Okay, I want to start with something else and then make my way back to that. So the past then that you live with and sleep with and share bodily fluids with and... Okay, yeah, go on. And even share like crockery and cut flurry and stuff. Your immune systems sort of impact each other. So the person with the stronger immune system is actually going to donate immune cells to the person that's got a poorer immune system. No way. Yeah. Wow. Tim's back to told me that. And also when you are selecting your partner, the way that they smell is a reflection of their immune system through something called the major histocompatibility complex.

39:39And this isn't a predictor of a relationship success, but children benefit from having what's called a bilingual immune system. So two immune systems that are really different to each other and you're likely to non -consciously pick a partner Who you like the smell off because that's actually indicating to you that they've got a different immune system? Isn't this the argument for why humans kiss so much? Um Well, when you're kissing you're obviously sharing your oral microbiome But this is to do with smell and I guess obviously if you get close enough to kiss then you are smelling the person as well Yeah, at least I thought that that's major compatibility index.

40:18I thought that that was at least from some of my EP coded friends, my evolutionary friends, that's, you know, you ask the question, why is it the humans do this? Other animals don't in the same sort of way. And it releases a ton of neurochemicals that make us feel good. So that has to be a reason that we should be doing it. So okay, if that's the, if the approximate reason and it feels good. What's the ultimate reason? What's it doing on the back end? Why does it feel good? And I'm open to other, yeah, sharing microbiome stuff. I certainly know that this can go badly. I certainly know that if you've got something like H.

40:56Pylori that you can actually share that too because that does get held. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, no. So this is a really interesting study that I found from Dr. Gabrielle Lyons team that if one partner treats their HPLori, the other partner also needs to be treated at the same time. Or else you're just gonna fix one and then get reinfected, then fix the other, then reinfect, you need to kind of, I guess I could do a quarantine overall for everything at the same time, kill it entirely. And then I guess make sure that neither of you kiss somebody that's got HPLori again. That's hilarious. Yeah. So there's that.

41:38And then in terms of intuition, I think it comes back to the psychological safety that's provided by your tribe, which is when you discuss something and you can't logically explain it, do people validate you or do they criticize you? That's so good. I love that. I mean, if I could gift something to the UK as a culture, certainly one of the things would be encouragement for people following their gut, because I think a lot of the time there is a bit of a tall poppy syndrome thing that goes on or you shouldn't stray too far from the beaten path mate. I have a friend that did that and it didn't go too well for him.

42:24The blue sky, I know that America has got its problems and everybody thinks it's an oppressive patriarchal, cis -hatronomative, superstructure trying to keep everybody down. But at least they've still got a bit of a blue sky vision. That's pretty cool, which is why they've got the same number of universities in the top 10. I think it's two or three as the UK does, but they produce five times as many entrepreneurs out of those universities, five times as many start entrepreneurs. Because I think that there's just more of an encouragement. So, you, I mean, you even see this on a population level.

42:53You even see this in the sort of community, the big broad cultural conversations that people have. In comedy, like, look at the comedies that we do in the UK. You fail in the US for being overconfident. You fail in the UK for being too cringe. Like, the difference between the US office and the UK office, actually in sort of very different kind of way. Even though it's the same thing, which is a tone death boss that's kind of a little, the way that that shows up, I think happens very differently, which is maybe indicative of what's happening in the culture. But yeah, I love that idea that your friends should, yes and, as it said, from improv as opposed to no but.

43:34Exactly. And I have this thing which I seriously need to grow out of. And I thought I had mastered it and then I just failed again, like, dramatically recently, which is that because I was that kind of had to be perfect and out of ten high school girl, when I've got a big project coming to fruition, I always think it's not going to be good enough. And it was when this happened about five years ago, one of my American friends said to me, I have never seen you not knock the ball out of the park and beyond. And I was like, but it's not going to happen this time because this time it's really not gone very well.

44:15And then it went really well and that's when I was like, okay, I need to stop this. This is ridiculous. So then in a couple of years later I had an example of where I was like, yeah, of course that worked out well. Like, you know, I've learned this, I've nailed it. I'm going to be like normal from now on. And then recently I just did the same thing again. I was like, I'm just, you know, I'm so nervous because I know this thing's gone really badly and then it's gone really well. So, you know, I guess We have to keep learning and if you do sort of like fall down at one, you know, stumble and you have to, you know, get up again.

44:49And I, for me, definitely it's the people around me that are a huge part of, of, you know, keeping me grounded, but also like, you know, massively encouraging me to take healthy risks to think bigger, really believe in my intuition. What are the areas of life that people who don't rely on intuition will struggle with the most? I would imagine that risk -taking has to be one of those things. Do you think about broad areas of life that people are going to struggle with if they are too heady, too top -down with this stuff? I guess if you think about being entrepreneurial or creative or spontaneous and you know, a risk -taker, then you're much less likely to do those things.

45:44I think you'd be more likely to, I don't know if I should use the word settle because it may be fine and right, but that you're more likely to want something that's safe and predictable and stable than something that potentially could be better, not for everyone necessarily, because it's too much of a risk, because, and what that boils down to is that you don't actually trust yourself. I remember one of my colleagues or peers said that, and I can't remember what came before this, but I really strongly remember him saying, whatever happens, I know that I can roll my sleeves up and deal with it.

46:29And I heard that and I was like, I want to be like that. And I trained myself to be like that by changing my gratitude practice from what it naturally was always kind of external things. I think that's pretty normal. It was my ability to travel, my friends, my family, my career. And then I changed it to things like my resilience, my vulnerability, my creativity. And as I repeated those internal resources, that helped me to get that place of no matter what life throws at me, I will find a way to come out of it sort of like stronger. That's cool. What is a good and bad journaling practice in your opinion?

47:19What are the areas that people mess up on and get it wrong and what are the things where you think hey that these are the principles of of really making it work? I don't really, I don't have an idea in my head of what's a bad journaling practice. I guess the only bad one is like not doing it. And that's really because there's so many things that happen that we forget. You know, these can both be like triumphs and sort of obstacles and you just don't learn from it If you just move forward to the next thing and you forget that it happened so my biggest like game -changing tip for Gambling is not actually to do with the journaling it's to do with reading back over it Because that's when you see the repeated patterns and you know if it's in your own handwriting and you see I've done this same thing again That it can be really game -changing in like in like making whatever adjustments you need to to stop repeating patterns of behavior that aren't helping you.

48:15Yeah, what I was going to mention there, at least for me, I think I filled up 10 daily gratitude journals over the space of about six years. And what I realized was I was treating it an awful lot like homework. I was not going below the neck, so to speak. So yeah, I know that by the end of the I'd have to think of three things that went well or whatever, three things that I'm happy happened and then in the morning, what are the things I'm grateful for, you know, do whatever is lovely. But I wasn't really connecting with it that much emotionally and I was very much taking a logicians approach to something that was supposed to be trying to actually feel embodied.

48:57So that I would say, at least in my experience, yeah, it's good that you've got a record of things that happened and if you go back and read it, that can be a source of gratitude, right? Oh, wow, I remember when that thing happened and how great for I am for that. But it seems to me like you're making two tasks out of one. You're having to go back and revisit the thing in order to feel the thing as opposed to actually just sitting with it for a little bit longer. And this is Rick Hansen's idea from Hardwiring Happiness, which I just think is much better. It's spending a minute just allowing it to sink from your head down into your chest a little bit.

49:30And it's so funny, isn't it? You've mentioned it a couple of times. It's sort of sense that you put your hands on your head, you put your hands on your heart, and you put your hands on your gut. And despite the fact that your heart doesn't think, right, like there is no neurons that are available in your heart for thinking about stuff. But there is something about that visualizing process that allows us to tap into a different way of thinking, a different sort of mode of being. And yeah, it gets perilously close to, I don't know, to something that doesn't seem very rooted in science. And yet, as we said at the very start, it's something that most people find pretty effective.

50:10So you don't really need to sort of scrutinize it that much. If you go, you know, when I think about opening my heart up to people, I feel more empathic. It's like, hey, guess what? Your heart doesn't have front doors on it. And it didn't open up in that way. And yet, you felt like it had done. And so I don't know whether we actually need to scrutinize it too much. No, and I think that is just to people like you and I, that's an analogy. But at a event I did this week, someone asked me to look into the heart math institute and they would disagree with what you've just said. And I'm going to look, because I think it's interesting.

50:54But what I really liked about what you said was the embodiment aspect, because a lot of the research around PTSD shows that trauma shuts down the blockers area of the brain, which is the part that articulate speech. And what that means is that there is a limit to the effectiveness of talking therapy. So, journaling and talking therapy are, you know, they're both thinking, writing and talking. Whereas, the research shows that things like yoga and dance or craniosacral therapy or certain types of massage can actually help to release trauma that's held in the body and not in the PTSD circuits of the brain.

51:40So, again, you know, even in the absence of trauma, getting the body involved in this kind of therapeutic work like gratitude and journaling is really important. And that's why my gratitude practice has now changed to what I call the art of noticing beauty. So very much informed by this field of research called neuro -esthetics, which is about how the arts and beauty, particularly in nature and creativity benefit our mental health, our physical health and our longevity. and so by choosing to notice beautiful things, I started the first thing that I noticed after I was doing this practice was how many times a day I was saying, oh that's so pretty, oh look at that, or like smelling roses and just kind of walking down in the park and getting this smell and just being like, oh my God, that's so beautiful.

52:35And I just realized that multiple times a day, I'm talking about beauty and something that's pretty and something that smells nice or unpointing out to other people. And it totally changes the way that you live. It's so easy to just get habituated and walked past an amazing tree or an amazing building and not notice it. And life actually feels different But when you choose to notice those things. This episode is brought to you by element. Summer hits different when you're actually hydrated. That tired, foggy, muscle crampy feeling, most people chalk up to heat or exhaustion. It might be electrolytes and plain water alone won't fix it, which is why element is such a game changer.

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53:47Plus, they offer free shipping in the US. Right now, you can get a free sample pack of all eight flavors with your first box by going to the link in the description below, are heading to drinklmnt .com slash modern wisdom. That's drinklmnt .com slash modern wisdom. Let's say that there's someone who's listening for whom being too heady, struggling to tap into their intuition, it feels like home to them. How do you advise those people to get started with first off hearing intuition? And then secondly, the thing that was really important, you said right at the start, is trusting the fact that if they follow it that things might go well, because it seems like the first step is there's a little voice, there's a fleeting thought that appears, and wow, that voice maybe I should actually listen to it and pay attention to it a little bit, but there is a massive difference between that, and I am going to use that voice to help me make a decision.

54:46And there is a certain type of pain of not being aware of it, but there's an extra special type of pain of being aware of it and not feeling compelled to be able to commit to it. Yeah. Well, I genuinely think that conversations like this, you know, podcasts are so powerful now, and I think they help and change people in a really positive way. to answer that question scientifically, I would have to say that you should start by looking at the state of your gut and your gut microbiome, because if that physical foundation isn't there, it's going to be harder to take that, you know, that leaps sort of mentally.

55:27So making sure that you are eating a healthy and diverse diet with some fermented products in it and maybe taking a probiotic for a while. Once you feel like, and actually changing your diet can change your gut microbiome in a matter of days. So it's really actually one of those things that we can do that will have a positive effect very quickly. And a tip, a pro tip there is to eat in a way that acknowledges your genetic ancestry. So for example, it's very likely that my gut microbiome would benefit from eating coconut not based products, less likely that yours would. You're coming from the north and looking pretty viking to me.

56:10So I would think about, you know, what people, so for instance, you know, in the Nordics, the high number of people are lactose intolerant, so it may be that, you know, that's something that you want to avoid too much of, you know, obviously different for different people depending on where you come from. And just on that before we move on just to get real specific on that, if someone has the time, is there a particular type of gut health test that you think is accessible in most places, or can most people just get started with a broad spectrum probiotic and eating some fermented foods? How important is it to be able to do the gut health test?

56:48And then what shy of me looking in the mirror and going, I reckon I've got some Scottish ancestry, look at those rosy cheeks, like I should drink beer and haggis or whatever. Is there a little bit more of a rigorous way for people to get to this gut health thing? So, in the US there's something called thrive and in the UK there's the Zoe project and both of them can give you a breakdown of which strains of bacteria would be beneficial for your gut microbiome. In the absence of paying to do that, I think what you said about eating healthily, including some fermented products and taking a good quality probiotic is fine for most people.

57:34And then, hopefully most people would be able to find out maybe just through asking their parents or grandparents, like what where the ancestry comes from. But if not, then I think that sort of like a Mediterranean diet is probably like a good one for most people. And that means a lot of different coloured plant products all of oil. Basically the good fats, the hydrating foods, dark skinned foods are really good for us because they've got polyphenols in the skin. What's examples of those? Like purple, sprouting broccoli instead of green broccoli, black beans, cocoa products, coffee products, blueberries instead of strawberries kind of thing.

58:25The more that I learn about dietary fiber, everybody subs. I come from a bodybuilding, brolifting, degenerate background for a long time.

58:41And God in the way of gains, basically. And the more that I learn about it, the more that I think I should have been having beans with every meal for like the last 15 years. Yeah, because in the gut lining, there are these tiny folds called microvilli and toxic residue can stay stuck in those tiny folds and fiber helps to clear that out. So, you know, once that stuff stays stuck there, it starts to cause inflammation and so it affects your entire gut lining and that will, you know, also contribute to brain fog and not having, you know, your physicality in the optimal condition to think about things like intuition.

59:29So, um, and, you know, that can also need to bowel cancer. So, so fibres are very important to I just keep that whole gut lining really cleaned out. So let's say we've made some tweaks to improve our gut health. Then I still think journaling is a good way to start because just to remind you of the times that you've had a dilemma, had to make a decision, what you did. At first, I would just do like the noticing and the recording and the raising awareness of when you have or haven't used intuition in the past. then I would encourage people to take a low risk decision and where intuition and logic don't align and go with your intuition and see what happens and record that.

1:00:18And then to slowly build up the significance of the decision and whether you use intuition to go with it or not and just building that trust in your intuition. I wonder whether a journaling practice would be good for that. I wonder whether noticing those fleeting thoughts and then thinking about this thing came to me and I didn't do it because I felt scared because I was worried of looking silly because a friend told me that they did something similar and it didn't go well for them. Yeah, it's really fascinating. this people who listen to podcasts like mine and probably consume books like yours are maybe the least likely to be the ones who are already tapping into their intuition, spending a lot of time in their heads, they're trying to be rational about things.

1:01:12They want to make good decisions. They want to maximize their time on this planet and they really want to, you know, they don't make mistakes. Probably a little bit introspective and reflective. And yeah, I mean, if the answer, if you're right, and the answer to most of our problems is I should have just gone with my intuition and actually the more that I do it, the more it strengthens it. Lots of people will have created very impressive mental architectures when they could have just like gone with what felt right after age 35 or something, which would have been kind of poetically ironic. but I wouldn't if you need to go through that whole process to come out the other side again.

1:01:50Well, can I ask you a question? How much do you rely on your intuition? Very limited, I would say. Really? Yeah, very much so. I'm a pretty good role model for someone who moves very slowly with decisions, very, very risk -averse. Basically, all of the businesses that I've ever started, that none of them have failed, which suggests that I'm probably not moving quickly enough or breaking sufficient things because I'm evidently leaving at least some amount of growth on the table in that I've only done things that are basically sure -fied wins. I've waited for a very long time, I waited for a long time before moving to the US, I've waited for long times before leaving relationships that I should have left, I've waited a long time before making decisions and changes in careers that were almost obvious.

1:02:39That my certainty level has to be so absurdly high. It's like a 99 .9 % conviction ratio before I'm prepared to do it. And in retrospect, things are obvious. And you go, you could have made that decision six months earlier or two years earlier or whatever. Or at the very least, you just didn't need to go through all of this time vacillating about whether this decision was the right one to make or not. You just sort of knew. So it's not just the cost in terms of time, it's the cost in terms of mental cycles that you've wasted going through going through this So you know, it's of personal interest to me to try and work out how to tap into intuition a lot more That's so interesting.

1:03:20Thank you for sharing that But I also want to disagree with something that you said which is that the people kind of people that would read my book I don't think they are people that struggle with their intuition. I think the people that Like by work are really into using their intuition. I literally live and die by my intuition and I met my first husband when I was 25 and we were the same age, did the same job, sit very similar levels of intelligence but he totally trusted my intuition. We made huge decisions like moving to Australia because I just said I believe that's our destiny and he was like, usually you're right, so we'll go with that one.

1:04:06So obviously that was very validating for my intuition as well. And I recently shared something with him that's a story in my new book that involves him and I wanted to let him know about that before it came out and checked that he was okay with it. And it was about a, now I have to admit, a prophetic dream that I had and I said to him, but I don't think I'm psychic or anything. And he messaged me later and he said, I actually think you are. So, and I really still don't think I am, but I think I'm very, very intuitive. Well, I mean, I'm gonna question on that. What is the difference between being psychic, like being able to see things that other people can't see, and just having such a difference in access to your own intuition?

1:04:55That is the same thing. Let's say that most people are walking around at 20 % intuition access and they're able to aggregate this amount and you're able to aggregate way more That functionally is the same as you being able to see the future or tap into things that other people Can't tap into you don't need an astral realm to be able to bring that to life, right? Yeah True, but I think like something like that dream for example Didn't feel like it was within my control. It felt like it happened to me. Whereas it in terms of my intuition, I feel like it comes from my inner wisdom, it comes from my interpretation of things around me.

1:05:36But I think you're right, I think they're on a spectrum. So there's something, you know, and I kind of want to try to stay quite rigorous here for you, because I know that you'll prefer that. But there are things called, Claire Cognizance and Claire Sentience, which are, I think in between being intuitive and being psychic, kick, maybe, or maybe they're up there with things like, I'm not really sure, but they're so, Claire audience is like, you hear something and it's not coming from your own brain. And I don't know, I'm just going to say it's like an intuitive thing, but Claire Cognisance is just knowing something in your mind and knowing it's true, but not knowing why.

1:06:18Clare's sentience, I think, is feeling it in your body. So there are people that, you know, that's their form of intuition or, like, potentially, I think some of them think they're psychic.

1:06:36So, yeah, they had a fascinating conversation last night about how, apparently there's a movie about a mathematician that had a dream that worked out like a really complex situation something. So, you know, I think I also, yesterday went in a driverless car for the first time. Oh, you're in the great state of California, yeah, you've been done around by a robot. Yeah, and that, you know, I was a kid that grew off on science fiction. So this was like science fiction becoming real life for me. And, you know, there are so many things that were science fiction when we were kids are real life now. And I think there's going to be leaps like that in the future.

1:07:18Obviously as a neuroscientist, where that's to do with altered states of consciousness or expanding your consciousness, that's very exciting for me to just witness and be part of. What is something that you believe but can't prove to be true using your scientific method? What is something that you kind of accept as a ground reality as part of the physics of your existence? But if I get you to point to it on a map or write it out in an equation or show me the area of the brain or whatever, it doesn't work in that language. Yeah. Well, this is basically the topic of my new book, which is about receiving signs from what I call beyond.

1:08:08And I mean, I think the closest we can get scientifically to that is Karl Jung's description of the collective consciousness, but where the science isn't backing that further at the moment is whether it's the source or the universal God or some cosmic force. And I think, you know, where I've talked about intuition going from just a mental capacity to being very much embodied, and you know, that's taken me to a next level with intuition. Adding in the art of noticing beauty has taken my gratitude practice to the next level. By cultivating that art of noticing, I've also then started noticing things that appear randomly, coincidentally, things that have symbolic meaning to me that I interpret using my intuition.

1:09:06I have looked into the science of things like near death experiences and terminal lucidity and dark retreats to examine the nature of consciousness and, you know, look at things like dualism and materialism to try to explain some of these things. But I think I've really come full circle to where we started off, which is there are some things in life that I don't actually feel the need to explain. And you know, as long as it's not harming anyone else. And this sort of what I've been experiencing in the last couple of years has totally changed the nature of conversations that I have in my friendship group.

1:09:45People will send me photos of signs that they've seen or ones that they think might be for me and yeah it's been so interesting it's become completely normal in like my circle and now that I've started speaking about it I have been inundated with messages from people I had no idea it was going to be like this widespread I'm actually gobsmacked but it's a nice feeling and you know of course I'm sure I'll get criticized as well but I'm actually okay with that. I have a bunch of friends who I think give me a similar energy to the one that you do. One of my friends, Austin, who drives a very nice Porsche, which is kind of rare in the city of Austin, Texas.

1:10:29We went to my birthday party a couple of years ago, and I remember we were walking to his car after we finished up, and he walked up to it, and I was waiting for him to unlock it using the remote key, and it wasn't locked. So you know, you left your car unlocked, and he's like, I don't lock my car. Is that what? He's like, yeah, I don't lock my car. The universe This has just caught my back. It's just something that I don't do. What? And he is one of the most tapped in guys that I know. Every time that I'm around him, I feel very regulated. And he's done a metric fucktone of self -work and all the rest of these things.

1:11:02And this part of me that goes, dude, like, are you really telling me that some quantum energy is gonna protect you from a guy that tries the handles of nice cars and does this thing? And maybe one day he'll sort of live to regret that specific decision. But at least from my experience, people like you and people like him that kind of embodied this sort of an energy, you live in a manner where even if you end up losing in the specific, you gain so much in the general that it doesn't really matter. It really doesn't. And there's a famous Bill Burbett where he's on some talk show and this person's explaining about why he's a little bit more of an optimist than people might expect given that he's kind of like a shouty angry ginger man.

1:11:52And he says things are going to be fine. And even if things aren't going to be fine, isn't it better off believing that everything's going to be fine? Because if it's not fine, you'll just deal with it when it happens. Yeah. And this is certainly an energy in the simplest form of this avaibe that I would say the people who have it in my friend group and that I've met reliably seem to be more at peace, happier and more successful than the ones that don't. I'm like, okay, which, what do I think happened first? that they became successful and then reverse engineered this luxury belief, or that this sort of, I guess you could kind of call it an abundance mindset and a trust in themselves happened and off the back of that, they just started to see the good in things and they weren't stressed, so they didn't get a sick, so that they did make decisions based on this aggregation of all of their lives experiences, so they didn't overthink things, so they didn't stop themselves from not taking risks when they should have done, so they didn't stay and all of this stuff together But it's just interesting.

1:12:58And, you know, I mean, you mentioned before, you've probably correctly judged me as somebody that would be more on the side of rigor and materialism and can I prove it. But, you know, Rupert Sheldrake has been on the show and I found him unbelievably compelling. I thought that his whole world for the people that didn't, everyone should go back and listen to the episode after this one, actually. I think that would be a lovely second one to listen to. This is studies of dogs going to the window 10 minutes before their owners go home of birds learning to be able to break into bottles of glass milk that only previous generations of birds had seen because they stopped putting milk out during the war.

1:13:43This is mice learning to go through mazes in LA and then mice in New York being able to get through the same maze more quickly because of some weird, what is it he calls it? What's that thing? Sync, not synchronicity. What is it? He's got, what's the name of that thing that the energy that goes across it all? Not the collective consciousness. No, it's a specific, it's beating me. It was a long time ago that episode. Anyway, his stuff's fascinating. And there is a bit of me. There is a latent bit of me that is built for this. My mom's a raky master and has done it for 20 years. Yes, you would not, you would not maybe guess that given who has son ended up becoming.

1:14:26But she's photo of the full moon every time there's a full moon, angels, horoscopes, rakey, distance healing, full works. And there's the most sort of angelic temptation on my shoulder a lot of the time to kind of turn toward this a little bit more. And especially living in Austin, Texas, it's kind of like the the woo psychedelic capital of America, at least right now. So yeah, it's cool, it's cool. And I think the more time that I spend around people who use that energy, the better I feel. And again, I don't need to explain why. I don't need to explain why that's the case. I just like being around my friend Austin.

1:15:09I like being around the guys that talk in those sorts of terms that have a bit more of abundance mindset that don't second guess something that they kind of feel to be right. And yeah. I've got a few thoughts. There's one thing that I was not going to say, but I'm going to say it now that you've mentioned your mom and said angels. So people will see in my book that my angel numbers are 11 and 44 and any combination of ones and fours. And when you, the moment you start to speaking about your friend that doesn't knock his car, We're one hour and 14 minutes.

1:15:54Okay, so to get us back into the realm of materialism just for a second, not to poop on the party, but at least to sort of bring it back down to worth. You're a scientist. Can't all of these phenomena just be better explained by psychology? wish fulfillment, memory biases, cultural conditioning, reticular activating system, you just bought that car and now, oh my God, that car's everywhere. Well, how do you know that it wasn't that you're just looking out for it more? Because you've said yourself, you are looking for them more, so you see them more. So there is not just this sense that signs are being given to you, but that your effort toward it allows you to notice more.

1:16:33So how do you think about, yeah, could this not just be explained by psychology rather than metaphysics? I think it could or, you know, it can all be explained by psychology, but I think just in the same way that I said that science fiction is now like a lot of it's now real. I think in the next decade and decades, a lot of what we're talking about now, which is on the fringe of psychology and spirituality, is going to have further explanation. and that's put it that way. And I've delved into the potential explanations in my book. And I love Rupert Sheldrake's work too, but also Professor Donald Hoffman, David Eagerman.

1:17:20There's just a lot of stuff that we accept at the moment that can't actually be proven. You know, Donald Hoffman says that the accepted sort of formula, I guess, I wanted to better add that space time is the construct of the universe, can neither be proven or disproven, and he suggests that consciousness could be the way that the universe works. David Eagleman says, this idea that the brain is like a radio and it receives signals from outside, can't be proven, but it categorically cannot be disproven. So I just think, it's interesting as a human, like just living this existence. And obviously as a scientist as well to be curious about these things.

1:18:06And I think there's a level of simplicity to what you described about your friend and me, just simplicity in the way that we live life. There's beautiful and easy. Personally, my step changes in the way that I approach life and build my resilience has come from extreme hardship. And that's not going to be the case for most people, but extreme hardship can either push you to be bitter and negative about life for the rest of your life, or it can push you to be more grateful and more trusting than ever before. So that's the choice that I've made. Is that something you think that people should try to rely on a little bit more in times of hardship that this could be the catalyst, the beginning of the alchemy that takes them from where they are now to some higher plane of existence.

1:19:03Again, if you've given yourself evidence of that then yes. So very hard to do in the moment, obviously, and even I'm not saying that I've thought at the times of going through hardship, but definitely looking back, I can say two significant And periods of my life have definitely led me to becoming a better version of myself. What do you think if you were to just put a couple of bets on the roulette wheel of science over the next decade to a few decades? What do you think we might find out? But what do you think we might be able to explain materially using that formulaic approach that we said previously that right now most people would be very skeptical of or would be mocked by sort of the current scientific community?

1:20:00Are there any top front runners for that? Yeah. Bring it on. Come on. It's not time to be shy now. We're an hour and a half in. Okay. Well, I think areas that I'm particularly interested in the research around at the moment and our longevity and psychedelics. But the one I'm gonna say is the frontier that I think it's we're starting to be open to look into is about what happens after we die.

1:20:35So yeah, I don't know how many decades that one's gonna take, but I think we are at the start of something where conversations like that are gonna happen more than they've happened for a very long time. Who's the guy Sebastian Younger? He did, I swear that Sebastian Younger had a near death experience. Sebastian Younger had a near an NDE, didn't he? This is, we said this before we started, where, how did we survive? Before, yes, Sebastian Younger did have a near death experience and he writes about He candidly in his 2024 memoir in my time of dying, how I came face to face with the idea of an afterlife.

1:21:18In June, 2020, while in his home, he was struck by a sudden severe abdominal pain, at a ruptured pancreatic artery life threatening, loss of blood, previously an atheist. He remains so, however this experience led him to question whether we really understand or fail to understand about consciousness, death and reality. You know who's supposed to be younger is? You wrote the Brook tribe, tribes, phenomenal author. You've been on the show, Anna, you and him. Have a look, and I'll do an intro if you want to speak to him. I'll learn to show that you can get him to. I think that would be super interesting.

1:21:52OK, so what are you... It feels like a little bit of a full circle moment because you kind of laid the seeds of this with your first piece of work. This is now coming to land a little bit more. What's next?

1:22:12Um, well, truly at the moment, I'm kind of like at a fork in the road, or I need to make some decisions about what's next, because I've been so focused on the book coming out and unsure of what the response would it do it would be. And it being so overwhelming, the positive might actually change what I do next. So it's really hard for me to answer that question. As usual, I'm going to go with my with my gut. I mean, I was

1:22:52no, not I was. So what I want to say is that leaving medicine was a huge, huge risk for me. I had a stable job, I would have had a job for life, I would have known exactly how my career was going to progress and I left that and started from nothing and I'm really glad I did now and I kind of feel like I'm at another kind of position like that now where I have to think about you know what the future is going to look like but it's it's exciting. Well as you said before whatever it is that life throws at me, I will be okay. That's the wonderful result. Instructor Tarriswatt, ladies and gentlemen, Tarris, you're great.

1:23:36I think a wonderful energy and a much needed redress to maybe a too sterile and highly scrutinous approach to a lot of this stuff. And I think if nothing else, my mum is going to absolutely adore the fact that she got a shout out on this episode and show all of your work too. So where should people go? You've got a fantastic new book, you've got all of your stuff, where should people go to check it out? I'm most active on Instagram, Dr. Tara Swat and my website is TaraSwat .com and the new book which is also going to be available on Audible with my voice is called The Signs, the new science of how to trust your instincts.

1:24:19Heck yeah, Tara, I appreciate you. Thank you. Me too. Thank you so much.