Neuroscience Expert Dr. Tara Swart on Evidence We Can Communicate After Death and Her Experience Speaking to the Dead!

27:11We absolutely promise you direct flight to LA so you'll find from Monday onwards. We're in the middle of nowhere for like a week and And basically my flight wasn't booked, we didn't know which airport we were going to be at. We arrived on the eve of the anniversary of Robyn Passing and my flight was booked that day and it was from Flagstaff in the Navajo Nation to LA. Flying on the day of his anniversary, no direct flights. I had to fly through Phoenix, Arizona on the day of his anniversary. You probably had of that old analogy of when you buy a car, you end up seeing the car around the road. Like I buy a new car and then I go over and it seems like everybody's got my car because of, did they call it confirmation bias in science in psychology?

27:55Wait, once you've got something in your head you're more likely to see that thing. I think they've done studies on this where if you are exposed to something or you're told to think about something then you'll see it more in the world. How do you separate what you're saying from that proven psychological phenomenon? I don't. I say use it to your advantage. But how do you know that wasn't what was happening in your life because if you thought about the word Phoenix and then over the course of a couple of days, you're looking at everything, but you're only going to register the things that are emotionally resonant.

28:26I might have seen Phoenix a lot of time over the last seven days because of something to you. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I'd register it. Again, I would say the number of times this has happened. The sort of like how narrow I make the criteria. So, you know, sometimes I say, I need to see a button or a symbol of a button or the word button, but it's got to happen three times by 11pm tomorrow. And one of my friends says that, you know, we share something, which is if you see a pair of lions and we send each other pictures of it, but she says it has to be if you went out of your way and you walked a different way and then you saw them.

29:03If it's like, you know, the normal way that you go or somewhere that you know that that they exist, that doesn't count, has to be if you went out of your way. So I had a previous thing with Robin, which was about the figure of eight, or the Infinity symbol. And there's a story in the book of how that was cropping up for me when I actually met him. But there was a day recently where I had some space, that I had three spaced out meetings in the day, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to walk for an hour between them all. And for the last meeting of the day, I ended up walking past UCH, which is the University College Hospital, where he was having treatment.

29:43And that had been a really traumatic time for me when he was in hospital there. And I will have to say I kind of avoided that area since then. I'll tell you about a particular story that was like really traumatizing for me. So on this walk to where I was going for the evening for a book launch event, I ended up walking past the hospital. And I actually said in my head, like, why would you make that happen to me? Like, why do I have to walk past that building? I never want to see that building again in my life. And again, I said, you have to send me a sign. And by the time I got to Houston station, so, you know, you can, people who don't know can Google this, it's not very far.

30:24There was an elastic band in the figure of H, sign on the pavement and that means something to me. So the thing about this confirmation bias thing is it's dependent on the particular activating system, which is the system of your brain that filters out what's not crucial to your survival and filters in what it wants you to notice. And so actually one of the things I've written about in the book is the art of noticing, because really we live in this world where life is passing you by a hundred miles per hour. You're not noticing things that could actually be crucial to you thriving rather than you just surviving.

31:07And in this model called shared trait vulnerability, which falls under the field of research called Neurosatics. So basically creativity is a positive personality trait, right? But there is a high correlation between creativity and psychopathology, which is mental illness, particularly depression, schizophrenia and alcoholism. And there are quite a few high -profile examples of creative people who had mental illnesses like Alexander McQueen, Kurt Cabain, Van Gogh. So what that shows is that there's an area of overlap of three particular ways of thinking that are underpinned by neurology, that are the reasons that people with mental illness are so creative.

31:58And they are basically hyper -connectivity. So that's two things. That's joining the dots in the material world of things that aren't obvious to other people. But it's also hyper -connectivity inside the brain. So if you think about all these lobes, if you think about all these lobes, the more lobes that are firing at the same time, and there's also a cortex that's known as the association cortex. So that one, you know, these lobes can be firing, but they're not necessarily connecting up with each other. The more interconnected all this firing is in the brain, the more the brain opens up to new ideas.

32:39So that underpins creativity. And also this usually really involves the visual cortex, which is in the occipital lobes, and that's why sometimes people, whether it's through psychedelics or, you know, sort of sort of altered states of consciousness through creativity, can see things that they didn't see before. There's also something called novelty salience, which is noticing new things, or just noticing things of importance that you would otherwise have filtered out. and there's something called attenuated latent inhibition or low latent inhibition, which is to do with that filter, and it means that the filter allows more things in than it normally does.

33:19So you can see we've got hyperconnection, we've got noticing more things, and we've got the filter like loosening and allowing more things in. Now if you've got a high IQ, high working memory, and you've got cognitive flexibility, which you can think, you know, out of the box, that's a really good thing. If you've got a low IQ, you've got deficits in your working memory, and you've got what's called perseveration, which is you just go over the same thought process over and over again, that can lead to you having a psychological crisis. So I took that model and thought, if grief is like psychosis, and I'm currently in a very vulnerable state, is creativity a conduit for me to get not only back to the state that I was in before, but into a state of expanded awareness where I can loosen the filter as I choose, as I choose fit, I can notice things that I would have passed by before and I can think differently about how my mind works, how the world works, possibly what happens after someone passes away.

34:23And then I went and looked into near -death experiences and terminal lucidity and dark retreats. Like I said, I went down a rabbit hole. And what did you find in that rabbit hole? At the border of life and death, usually within one to 24 hours of death, someone who has, whose brain hasn't been functioning, who can't remember the names of their own children suddenly becomes completely lucid and says, Stephen Darling, come over here. Let me, you know, let's have a nice like mother, of a sun chat. And then that gives a lot of people hope, but usually that means it's an hour or 23 hours till the person's going to die.

35:01We can't explain that. How can a brain that's irreversibly damaged, suddenly function completely normally? There is no explanation for that. With the near -death experiences, I was particularly compelled by three stories. Dr. Mary Neal, an orthopedic surgeon, she's in that Netflix documentary, surviving death. She was submerged underwater for 15 or 20 minutes. She should never have been able to be resuscitated. She describes her whole journey of going to another realm, seeing a being of light, being told that her life isn't over. She has to turn back and return to the physical world, even though she could see her bloated body and her friends trying to reach her to resuscitate her.

35:44And they couldn't. Dr. Eben Alexander, who wrote proof of heaven, He is a doctor, he was an atheist, he was in a coma with bacterial meningitis and was pronounced clinically dead, and then basically came back and said that he saw heaven, and he now believes in a god that is benign that cares about the future of humanity. So for me as a doctor, hearing these stories from other doctors was really, really convincing. And then there's one story that Dr. Bruce Grayson told me, he's a professor of a psychiatry at University of Virginia who has done 50 years of research and to near death experiences.

36:23And he told me the story of a patient in ICU who kept going into cardiac arrest and he had a primary nurse, he was a young 20 -year -old nurse and they had a really close bond. And one weekend she was, she had the time off for the weekend and he had a different nurse looking after him and he went into cardiac arrest and he had a near -death experience. And in that near -death experience, he saw his primary nurse, she said to him, your life isn't over, you have to go back and get better and please tell my parents I'm sorry about the red MG. So he wakes up in ICU, he's got this replacement nurse looking after him, and he says the strangest thing just happened.

37:09I had this experience of being in this other world. I saw my primary nurse, and she said I had to come back, and she also said, tell my parents, sorry, about the red MG. So the temporary nurse starts, burst into tears, runs out of the room. He has no idea why. Someone comes in and says what's just happened, he explains, and they tell him that his primary nurse was given a red MG for her 21st birthday, took it out for a test run, crashed it into a tree, and died. Now he didn't know she was dead, but he saw her on the other side and she told him to come back. And the guy that told you this story was who relevant to the patient, who said that?

37:54Dr Bruce Grayson, he has done 50 years of research on near -death experiences. He's got over 5 ,000 recorded cases of patients of his own that he's looked after that have had near -death experiences. And he also shared with me the numbers of cases that other people have on databases. So, you know, we're looking at over 10 ,000 cases globally recorded at the moment. What is it that you believe based on those near death experiences like the red MG story? And based on this phenomenon of terminal lucidity? So Professor Alexander Batherini who wrote Threshhold about terminal lucidity put it really nicely when he said, maybe at the border of life and death we see something that is true all along, but we don't For whatever reason, see it or acknowledge it whilst we're alive and well, which is that the mind and body can operate independently of each other.

38:55It is quite shocking. There's this case from 2009, an 82 -year -old woman without Simon's disease who was nonverbal and non -responsive and had no apparent recognition of her surroundings or families for years. And then one day before her death, she suddenly sat up in hospital, looked around and recognized her daughter by name, spoke clearly, reminisced about the past. thanked her family for caring for her. her speech was coherent, her memory was intact, and her personality recognizable as though she had never been ill. she fell asleep that evening and died peacefully during the night. And what do you think's happening there?

39:33What do you think's happening there? It's possibly, you know, partially explained by a surgeon neurochemicals, but it's not explained by how can those neurochemicals act if the physical neurons and synapses are damaged. There is no explanation. The only explanation is that the mind is not emergent from material matter. It's not that the mind, the thoughts, the emotions, the psyche, cannot be solely emerging from physical matter. That's the only explanation from what we understand so far. And so what is it that you now believe you believe that our souls and our bodies are two separate things? And where does our soul live if it's not living inside of me?

40:17So where is Robin? So I believe that you know whether whether you want to call it the universe consciousness collective consciousness, Godhead Cosmic suit, I don't the word for it isn't important. There's somewhere that that energy goes and it still exists in some form. And if you believe in reincarnation, then you may believe that it then enters another body as a vessel and has a different life.

40:48But it doesn't go away. How do you know?

40:55I'm gonna say something that you're, I know you're not gonna like, I know because I feel it personally, I feel it from, I feel it like with the person I've been closest to in my entire life, who I know would never leave me if they didn't absolutely have to. But I can back that up. To the extent of I can say, you can't prove that this isn't true. I can back that up with everything I put in the book. And I'm not the only one. Dr David Eagleman at Stanford says, you know, this idea of the brain being like a radio and receiving signals from outside, we can't prove it, but we categorically cannot say it's not true.

41:33Professor Donald Hoffman suggests that space time is not the basis of how the universe works, suggests that consciousness is the basis of how the universe works. We can't prove that's not true. And I find that really exciting. I mean, as a scientist, you're supposed to challenge this data square, you're supposed to be curious. You can't, as a scientist, believe that everything we know now is all there is. There's no point to being a scientist if that's what you believe. I asked you this question about the gym early on about is it kind of like training in the gym? Are there things you think people could do to heighten their ability to speak to loved ones that might have passed or to heighten their ability to tap into signs?

42:11So I go through this in the book and I chose the order quite carefully. So I talk about neuro -esthetics, which is, you know, noticing beauty basically, if not like, actually engaging in the arts, there's a lot of evidence for engaging in the arts in terms of like increasing your novelty salience, which is noticing new things, which is part of the journey of opening up that filter. And then there's a whole chapter on nature, because I think a lot of signs come from nature, like butterflies, robins, sort of spiral formations, cloud formations. So noticing nature more can help you also to receive these signs.

42:52and then community is a huge part of it because, you know, if I had this conversation with you and you totally shot me down and said, it's not provable, this is ridiculous, I'm not airing this episode, that would have a very different effect on me, to you even being open, to like asking me challenging questions that I welcome, but also engaging in this conversation and sort of, you know, maybe feels a little bit like maybe questioning, you know, some things that you might do differently. So those are three very important parts of part two of the book. Part one is more about what are signs, what are you missing?

43:27Have you been receiving signs already? One of the things that I, when I was going through my transition from being religious to being agnostic, I'd say, because I wouldn't call myself an atheist, is I was watching all these atheist minds debate and talk and stuff. And one of the things one of them said is that if coincidence didn't happen in our lives, then that would be a miracle, like statistically, mathematically. If it's sometimes you don't think of Dave and then the phone rings in his days, that would actually be more mathematically improbable than it happening sometimes. If you think about, you know, if you had this on a distribution cover or something, it is likely, mathematically, that really unlikely things will happen sometimes.

44:09Okay. Right. So I've always had that in my head as a way to sort of rationalize coincidence. So when coincidence happens, I think, well, probabilistically, really unlikely things have to happen. And if they never happen, then that's a miracle. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes sense. Like, mathematically, you'd say, like, likely things happen often, unlikely things happen less often, extremely unlikely things happen way less often. Yeah. That's like the nature of like maths, right? Yeah. So when extremely unlikely things happen, I say, actually, that makes sense, because probabilistically those things happen infrequently.

44:44They're not happening every single day. Like right now, I'm thinking of, I can name 10 people. I guarantee you want to go to my phone. None of those 10 people have text me. But if I do that every day, one day, I'm going to say, hey, Steve, check it in, which makes sense because of the laws of the business. Yeah, but I don't want you to do that. I want you to just be open to naturally thinking of someone and seeing if that does happen, or asking for a sign and seeing if it comes into your life. That's all I'm asking, like, what, you know, just try it. It's not going to hurt you. And I'm not just saying that to you.

45:17I'm saying it to everyone. And how do you think that would benefit me? I think it makes you believe in something bigger than yourself. Yeah. And why is that so important? Because I think a life where all you're trying to do is get through and meet your needs Life can be better than that. I think a life where you feel more connected to yourself, to others, to something greater gives you purpose. There's a lot of research that shows that having a purpose that transcends just yourself is actually really healthy and important. And what is that for you now, that transcendent layer in your life? How do you define it?

45:57Is Is it a religion? Is it something else? It's definitely not religion. I guess it's spirituality and a form, which will mean different things to different people. It's definitely about caring for humanity. Is it a God, a creator? For me, no. But 85 % of people globally believe in religion under God. So it's important. I think for me it's about giving like a voice of relevance and helping people to feel seen and heard because I think that's very lacking and you know I mean the enormously privileged position that you have given me of being able to do that and I want to use that in a really like positive way.

46:43How does this overlap with or sit alongside what people call intuition? Because you talk about that as well in the book. Yeah, and there's so much, like there's still so much else that I want to say. Just keep going in. So intuition is, I mean, intuition is what it is. It's accessing in a wisdom, right? But I've included it as a really important part of the book because I believe that it's a way to receive and interpret your signs. But I just want to go back to something I said earlier, which is about how trauma can be stored in your body. and to some extent, it can't be retrieved through talking therapy because there aren't words for it because it's actually embedded into the tissues of your body.

47:27There's a really exciting new hypothesis for how that might work called the serotonin hypothesis. So previously, I think it would make sense that if, for example, when Robin was in hospital, I would sit in a very hunched over position and my fists would be clenched because I felt like I was fighting for his life all the time. And if I relaxed for a millisecond, he could die. So it makes sense to me that those postural issues would show up for me later. And in terms of aches and pains and perhaps, sort of, well, not perhaps, as my Pilates and yoga teacher has kept telling me issues with certain parts of my spine and stuff.

48:09But the serotonin hypothesis is very exciting as a neuroscientist because a lot of people Paul have heard of Bessel van der Kork's work and the book The Body Keeps the Score. And it makes sense kind of intuitively that the body does keep the score. And like I've said, there's an amount of trauma that you can't articulate verbally. So we believe we understand there are imprints of that in the body. But we've never really understood how that works. And we, you know, I've talked before, I think with you about intuition through a process called hebyan learning, which is neurons that fire together, wire together, gets pushed deeper and deeper into neurons from the outer cortex, the limbic system, the brainstem, into gut neurons, and that's why intuition is called gut instinct.

48:58And we understand that through stress postures, you could have bracing patterns in your muscles for like the trauma that you've experienced. Fasher is the connective tissue that holds your entire body together, all your organs,

49:15all your Fascia was thought of as a vestigial organ. It was cut away in surgery without thinking of any, that it would have any effect on the rest of your body. Now, it's understood more to actually be an organ of its own and an important one. And this serotonin hypothesis goes some way to explain how the level of constriction of capillaries and the amount of nutrients that's released to skin, fascia and muscle, is a mechanism for how trauma is held in the body. And with that in mind, what do we do to get rid of that trauma held in the body? Physical activities. So dancing, singing, drumming, humming, chanting, massage, yoga, cranial sacral therapy.

50:03And you'll notice the ones I started with are very related to ancient wisdom. So our ancestors knew this. For example, in ancient Greek burials, they would whale and beat their chests, so they were getting rid of grief by screaming, but also by beating their muscles and letting trauma exit their body. I'm very well aware that there's probably a lot of people who have sent this conversation to a friend who is struggling right now, and that that friend who has lost a loved one potentially a husband, potentially a wife, potentially, you know, God for a bit of child or a grandparent or something is listening to this because they are in search of answers for their own healing.

50:49You've been there. You may still be there in some degree. If you were to advise them on their own healing journey, What advice would you give them? The first thing would be to not repress or deny how they're feeling and you know really feel the emotions that have to come along with grief. I've you know I had amazing talking therapy which definitely helped me a lot so if people have access to that professionally then great if not then you know if you've got close friends that you can talk to then talking it out. out does help, but I've really learnt that there's a limit to how much that helps and that some sort of physical therapy is really helpful as part of it.

51:41Those would be the basics, I would say. Time and nature has been so healing for me. Some form of creative outlet, whether it's making or beholding. So you don't have to be good at art if you draw a picture of how you're feeling emotionally or a sketch of your loved one, it doesn't have to be good. Do you get benefits from doing that? It's an out -creative outlet for your grief. That's probably the second level. And, you know, the third level to me is if you've got any inclination to receive signs, which is to be open to, you know, a white feather landing at your doorstep or a bird coming to visit you or something that means something to you, then that can bring a lot of comfort and guidance and joy.

52:27And you also assert that things like being in nature, creativity, honing into our intuition, increase the probability of us receiving these signs. Well, receiving and being able to interpret in a way that's meaningful for you. Gut instinct. In the book you talk about how strengthening one's gut health can have an impact on gut instinct. Explain that to me. So the body is basically the physical foundation for all of your senses to be able to flourish, to your higher mental faculties to be able to flourish. And ultimately, for whatever spiritual experience you have of life, to be able to be at its fullest and best as well.

53:13So taking care of the physical foundations is really important. And we could talk about all the usual things like sleeve and diet and exercise, mindfulness, stress management. But I want to really focus strongly on the gut brain access, because a lot of new researchers come up since I wrote the source. So it's actually, we know a lot about this bi -directional communication between the brain and the gut. it's actually a three -way system, which is the brain, the gut itself, the gut neurons, and the gut microbiome, which is trillions of bacteria and fungi and organisms that are basically determining the health of our entire system, because they're connected to our immune system, to our skin, to our oral microbiome, and the brain.

54:07So the way that you, the most direct access you have to your brain is through your gut. The gut is the most direct way that you can influence your brain and you can do that through exercise, obviously diet,

54:23supplementation, even like meditation and art and music therapy have a beneficial effect on your gut, microbiome as well, which has a knock -on effect on the neurons and the brain. And they communicate with each other many ways mostly through the vagus nerve. What's the vagus nerve? The vagus nerve is a cranial nerve, so it comes from your skull. It's Latin for wandering because it's the longest nerve that goes through your body, so it goes, there's two, the right and the left, and they go all the way from your cranium, which is... My cranium. Which is... My cranium is the bone around your brain.

54:55Yeah. So inside that, down your neck, they go through your diaphragm and two -year intestine. I'll put a photo upon the screen for you. wants to see where their vagus nerve is. Also, other nerves, so the nerves that innovate the gut organs are called afferent intestinal nerves. They're also involved in this communication. Then there's hormones, and there's cytokine messages, which are chemical messages that aren't hormonal. Your immune system actually also produces neurotransmitters, and there are immune cells in your brain as well. So those are all the ways that we know currently that the brain and the gut communicate with each other.

55:33And so what does this mean in terms of my gut health and ways to influence my brain? Does it mean that I need to be really big on my probiotics, my probiotics, to make sure my gut's intact? And if I do that, then my intuition will be sharper. So that's true, but I always like people to understand what's behind that, not just mindlessly take probiotics and probiotics. So what we're trying to do is reduce inflammation throughout the system. And so basically because the brain is a small organ in our entire system, but it uses up at least 20 % of our energy. So it's very vulnerable to what we call oxidative stress or free radicals.

56:20So every time like there's any turnover of cells in our brain or our body, basically, as we live the wear and tear of daily life, we release free radicals which are molecules that can damage cells, particularly nerve cells. And because the brain has such high turnover of energy, it's particularly vulnerable to free radical attack. So reducing inflammation and putting things that are neuroprotective around it like certain vitamins and minerals is really important. And the hippocampus part of the brain, which has high cell turnover, because it's to do with memory, laying down memories, and obviously well into adulthood, we're still doing that.

57:02That's also very vulnerable to free radical damage, and that's why we can get memory and cognitive impairments and dimensions as we get older. So the modern Western diet causes something called dysbiosis, which is that your gut isn't in a good state, and that creates a cascade of inflammation. and releases molecules, some of which can cross the blood brain barrier and therefore cause inflammation in the brain. So we want to minimise that as much as possible and put in as many protective and beneficial factors as possible. If we're doing that, the systems in what we call home your stasis, which is good balance, it's kind of starting to take care of itself.

57:42It's got all the nutrients that it needs, it's hydrated, it's oxygenated. That's when you've got extra resources to do the higher mental functions. And up until today, pretty much, I've described those as being able to solve complex problems, being able to think flexibly, creatively override your biases. But now I'm proposing that there's more than that that we can do. There's accessing levels of intuition that we didn't know we had. Very much through the same mechanism of how I described trauma being stored in the body. Hidden wisdom is also stored in the body, it's not just in your brain. And therefore, the same therapies, like beholding and making art, humming, drumming, storytelling, dancing, yoga, just movement, can help us access that intuition that isn't just in our brain and our mind.

58:42And take us to a next level of intuition that's not just cerebral, it's physical. I've just invested millions into this and become a co -owner of the company. It's a company called Keytone IQ and the story is quite interesting. I started talking about ketosis on this podcast and the fact that I am very low carb, very, very low sugar and my body produces ketones, which have made me incredibly focused, have improved my endurance, have improved my mood and have made me more capable at doing what I do here. And because I was talking about it on the podcast, a couple of weeks later, these showed up on my desk in my HQ in London, these little shots.

59:19And oh my God. The impact this had on my ability to articulate myself, on my focus, on my workouts, on my mood, on stopping me crashing throughout the day, was so profound that I reached out to the founders of the company, and now I'm a co -owner of this business. I highly, highly recommend you look into this. I highly recommend you look at the science behind the product. If you want to try it for yourself, visit ketone .com slash Stephen for 30 % off your subscription order, and you'll also get a free gift with your second shipment. That's ketone .com slash Stephen. And I'm so honored that once again a company I own can sponsor my podcast.

59:58Use the word dark retreats. I've never heard that phrase before. So dark retreats come from a Tibetan religion or philosophy, but it's seen throughout the ancient civilizations so the ancient Greeks and Romans used to bury people actually for days and then they would come out and be like the Sears and the mystics of that community. But there's most research available in dark retreats because it's still happening today. What is a dark retreat? A dark retreat is, have you had a silent retreat, silent meditation? Yeah, yeah, I might go from one on one. Yeah, so that's the kind of thing she would do.

1:00:35So basically you can go away for a few days to a few weeks and you're just in silence and you're meditating and doing breath work most of the time. In a dark retreat, you are in like pitch black for, I mean, you can go and do it for a few hours or a weekend, but it's meant to be in sevens. So seven to 49 days, the monks do 49 days. If as a, you know, a person who's interested, spiritually you wanted to do it quite seriously, you would go for seven days. And you would be in a room or a cave that's got double walls, so it's completely

1:01:11and the reason for doing this is that not all of us can have a near death experience, right? So this is a way of emulating. It's the closest way of emulating that for anyone like you will write to get access to the benefits of a near death experience, which I've outlined them all in the book. So in a dark retreat, at first you sleep a lot because it's dark, you're releasing a lot of melatonin from your pineal gland. So you fall asleep in darkness, you awake in darkness, and basically that kind of makes you feel more sleepy, so you sleep a lot. After a couple of days, you start to see

1:01:53like pulsations of light. It might be like little shooting stars or kind of just like little sparks here and there. And then eventually it feels like the walls are dimly a light. So in complete darkness you start to see light. Obviously there's an element of hallucinating at this point and so after three, four, five days you will actually start to see animals real or sort of fantastical and eventually people see like deities or beings like people do and near -death experiences. And when people come out of these retreats, they experience many of the same benefits like a real joy for life, less fear of death, more compassion for other people, less fear of failing, so taking more healthy risks.

1:02:52So it's a way basically of emulating a near -death experience. And it therefore convinces you that there's more than you can see in your day -to -day life and therefore that expands your mind in a way that's beneficial. Yeah, it's another example of an altered state of consciousness. You can also get altered states of consciousness through conscious connected or a holotropic breath work and through the use of psychedelic plants as well. How do we know that it's not just a changing of our neurological state or the chemicals in our brain that are causing us to interpret things differently with our senses.

1:03:31Because, you know, we've all experienced, I said, we all, many of us have experienced having some kind of stimulant or psychedelic or some compound, you know, rave or a festival. That's made us see the world differently for a moment. And science would say that's just the neurochemicals in our brain doing different things, which are changing our perception. They wouldn't say necessarily that it's a different realm or a different dimension. Yeah, and I think you're right. I think it is that. So as a neuro pharmacologist, I understand as much as the research says about the, it's mostly, like I said in the body in the brain with psychedelics, it's mostly 5HT or serotonin 2A receptors.

1:04:10And there's a level of hyperconnectivity within the brain, particularly as I said in the visual cortex here, which allows people to see things that they don't normally see. And I think the way to apply that in your life is that it's a glimpse into what's possible. Once you've experienced that, it could either be that you find other natural ways of experiencing that. So there's a paper I can forward to you that shows that certain forms of conscious connected breathwork produce the same effect as a moderate dose of which is magic questions. Yes. And this research came out after Silas Ivan was banned and practitioners thought, well, what are other ways that we can help people to achieve these altered states of consciousness?

1:05:01And personally, I believe that, you know, having like completely like all inspiring experience in nature, or for me, like the ballet, particularly, and I've been so lucky sometimes to sit in the wings and you just completely feel like you're part of it. I mean, I've literally had a spiritual experience sitting in the wings watching, actually was one of my friends, the principal dancer dancing, just so overwhelming, completely an altered state of consciousness. So there are other ways of accessing that. But I think it depends like why you want to and what it means to you. But at minimum, these sorts of things that I'm talking about are ways of understanding that there's more to life than what we know.

1:05:46And how does that meaningfully change like the concept of what happiness is and contentment is and like living a good life is? So what I think is really interesting is that we don't actually have to experience certain things ourselves. So there's a lot of research that shows that students from various different areas of expertise who simply learn about near death experiences actually get some of the same benefits and that these can last for over a year later. So understanding that when someone sees that there's something greater than us, when someone sees the interconnectedness of everything, when someone understands how small some of their problems are and the greater picture of things helps people to be more compassionate, a more grateful kinder to others, less materialistic, is really interesting.

1:06:45And I think anything that we can do to help us, you know, free us from some of those chains that I think hold us down in the material world, particularly in the Western world, is it's healthy for us physically, mentally, emotionally. But it also brings in this element of spirituality that I think is just so lacking in the world at the moment and could be so helpful because if we look back at the way that our ancestors use their senses and their intuition to interpret the land, like a cloud formation could mean that rain's coming, but it could also mean that your ancestors were talking to you. It just seems like such a beautiful way to live.

1:07:24And when we lived in Paleolithic times, we didn't have spare resources for having fun, but we adorned ourselves, we danced, we told stories, we made cave art. So I think that just really reminds us that those things that are often seen as luxuries or frivolous, they're not at all, they're fundamentally important. Believe in these things itself is good for us. Is that what you believe? If you believe that believing in something transcendent, whether it's or religious is actually just good for us. So that's reason enough to believe it. It's reason enough to believe it, but I think it will naturally change what you do once you believe it.

1:08:06You're not going to live in the same way if you believe some fundamentally different things. And the ways in which it changes what you believe are beneficial to you. So are you saying that that is reason enough to believe it? Like to want to believe it? I think it's reason enough to try it. Yeah. I mean, sometimes it causes people through human history to do awful things, right? To kill themselves, to strap bombs to themselves and do horrific things because they believe in something transcendent. It can also lead to destructive behaviour. I mean, I don't think there's any evidence from near death experiences that that's the case.

1:08:46I think I know what you're referring to is something that's more more fundamentally religious. And... Because I've been watching Jack told me to watch this Capture in Bin Laden documentary so I was watching it last night. And these people flew themselves into buildings because they believe in, they were obviously radicalized in various ways, but they believed in going to a... After life, that would be better than this one and that they were sacrificing themselves for the great of good. So it's just, I guess it's a side point that just the belief in transcendence itself in some regard isn't necessarily always going to guarantee our behaviors on this planet are productive.

1:09:30Yeah, and I was going to say, like, perhaps it's something more dogmatic, but I think you're absolutely right to raise that point. And I'm not trying to sit here and say, I found like the perfect solution and everyone should do this and it's all good. Like, that's just, I know that's not true. I'm not trying to say that at all. I think we should absolutely be questioning everything that I'm saying. And I will keep questioning the way that I'm living my life and keep trying to learn and grow. I guess the point is just the belief in something transcendent. Does that make our lives necessarily better?

1:09:58I guess the answer is I can. Yeah. I'm really obsessed at the moment actually with this idea of purpose and meaning because obviously we're living in a society that's more and more individualistic and independence is kind of vague. and because of a variety of things that have happened over the last 50, 67 years, we have more independence, women in particular have a lot more independence, which I think everyone is very, most people are very supportive of. We have more choice than ever before, and with choice comes independence. I can choose now when I have a family, and maybe I couldn't choose before.

1:10:32And with choice and with freedom, I think some of our more short term, hedonistic desires and temptations take hold and we end up sacrificing the tribe and shared responsibility and dependence and a lot of our meaning came from like those things. So I feel to some degree that when we think about how we ladder up from like me to like my family to my city to my nation and then maybe to my god, those layers have fallen away. Now for many of us it's just me and that's causing a crisis of meaning and purpose in life because we're kind of unanchored What's your perspective on this? Do you think it's true that we're like, when more unanchored than we've ever been?

1:11:15And how do you think we get back to that if we can relate to feeling a little bit lost in an anchored and the sort of prevalence in my view of people having more and more middle -life crises and turning to religion or spirituality or something? Yeah, well, I actually called this in March 2020, and it's on record because I was on a podcast, And I said I foresee a huge mental health crisis, but we could choose for it to be a spiritual revolution. And so then obviously the rest of the pandemic happened and then there was sort of a return to society, which I think people found really hard mentally as well.

1:11:52And at the same time, there was the cost of living crisis, the wealth gap and you war, the crime rates, certainly in London, just for my life experience, they had significantly grown, for reasons that we're all contributors too, but it changes how safe you feel in society. And I'm a big fan of technology, obviously I'm a scientist, but it is ironic that we seem to be more disconnected than ever in one way. We're more connected than we've ever been before. And I've said this before, but I'll say it again. I think the way out of that is a return to ancient wisdom, to true connection, which I believe can coexist with being technologically connected and advanced.

1:12:45But yeah, I just think we've lost what it means to be human, which means really being in touch with yourself and being part of a community and caring about something more than just your own knife and your immediate, you know, in a circle. And what is true connection in your definition of the word? Because I guess there's false connection if there's true connection. So what is true connection? And what is false connection? Well, I'll just go over, you know, what I've said before, because it's about connection to yourself to others and, you know, sort of the world or something greater. And I, you know, it's about something that's that's deep and not transactional.

1:13:21It's about something that's meaningful. for. It's about something that's altruistic. I think it's about contributing. That day when you walked past the hospital, what did you experience?

1:13:36It triggers me seeing that building. And I just, you know, I had obviously looked on Google maps, but not really realised I would walk past it. And if I had realised I would have walked to different way. And I remember just thinking it's unfair that I had to see this building, it was unnecessarily a trigger for me. And obviously saying to Robin, you need to send me a sign, but there's a reason for that, which is, I mean, I went to that hospital every day for a month, for his first day, and I think about three weeks for the second one. But he had two admissions to ICU and one of them I'd been, you know, to visit him for the day.

1:14:21He'd been bedridden for quite a few weeks by then and I came home. I was just sort of deescalating and, you know, sitting on the sofa and getting ready for the evening and then suddenly I saw the emergency line was calling and I could hear them saying his heart rate went up to 200. I was like, I see you are here now, we did a crash call. And I was just talking, talking, talking. And I suddenly just said, should I come back to the hospital? And she said, yes. In a tone of voice, it was like, you need to get here as quickly as possible. Got in the Uber. It's a 30 minute Uber ride from my house. And message my best friend and said, I've got to rush back to the hospital.

1:15:07He was on the 15th floor. So I was like waiting for the lift, got up there, saw the matron coming to unlock the door, and I just said, is he in his room? And she said, yes, he's in his room, but she, her face looked like not good. Ran round and saw all the machinery from ICU in the corridor with like a hundred wires coming out of the room. Ran into the room and just saw Robin, sat up in bed, huge smile when he saw me and he just said to me, when I thought this was the end, I just kept thinking, please let me see her face one more time.

1:15:47And you know, after that, he did get a bit better, but then, well, in that first admission, eventually I said to him, you've got to start sitting up, well, the doctor said, you've got to sit out of bed. And the therapist had come around, he said, I don't want therapy, I've got you. So like I took the therapy, the reflexology lady came around, he pretended he was asleep. And eventually I said, darling, you've got to play the game, I cannot do this by myself. And you can't just keep lying in bed, you've got to sit up. So he got helped into the chair. And that day when I went to say goodbye to him, I hugged him like face to face.

1:16:25And I didn't quite realise that the whole time I'd been kissing him from the side of the bed because he'd been in bed. And when we hugged face to face, I just burst into tears and I had never shown him anything but a smiling face the whole time. And I left and I just got this barrage of text messages saying, I'm not spending one more night away from you. I'm wasting away in this hospital when I could be with you. When you come in tomorrow, we're going to tell the doctors that I'm leaving. So I thought, okay, came in the next day is ward round. And I was pretty much like part of the ward round, like the consultant would say everything and then say, is that okay, Tara, kind of thing.

1:17:03And he said, I want to leave, I'm leaving today. I want to be at home with my wife tonight. And she was very clever. She looked at me and said, what do you think, Tara? Because she knew I've never put him in danger. But also, I'm standing in front of the man that I love. And I'm either going to tell him that I don't trust him, I don't trust his decision -making. The person who always, always had my back, or I'm going to have to show him that I have his back just like he always had mine. And I said to her, I understand why you wouldn't be in favour of this, but I think I can manage it. And within two days he was discharged from hospital.

1:17:48Yeah, off IVs, still on oxygen. We still had to go in to have the bone marrow tests and get blood transfusions and platelets and things, but he slowly started to recover. It was a slow recovery. So normally within a week you would get the second round of treatment, he wasn't strong enough for that. But we got to the point where she actually said that we could go to Hampshire, and then he stopped using the walking stick, he stopped using the oxygen. We came back to London for the second round of treatment. She said, I could not have imagined you would bring him back in as good a status he's in.

1:18:26But the second round of treatment was totally brutal, and it didn't work. So he was in hospital again for a few weeks, and then, like I said, or October 4th, I took him home. Even then, the female consultant said to me, the last time you took him to Hampshire, he got so much better if anything changes bringing back to London. And the male consultant gave me two syringes of bone marrow stimulating drugs and said, you cannot use this without our permission. But if anything changes, inject him with this and bring him back to London. And so I still had like a glimmer of hope, which I shouldn't really have had.

1:19:11And like I said, he lived for three and a half weeks instead of two.

1:19:19Yeah, and like right towards the end, because he was in a hospital bed on an air mattress. He said like maybe you could like come and lie on the bed with me. And when you couldn't move, he couldn't raise a glass of water to his lips or anything. He somehow like moved his arm, so I was used to sleep like on his chest. And then after a few seconds he said, I'm just really claustrophobic. And you know, I'd like had to put the rails up to stay in the bed, because it was so small I was going to fall out and I said, it's okay, darling. And I think that I think that was his way of saying goodbye to me, because he died two days after that.

1:19:58What's on your mind? Um, just like Paris had.

1:20:11Um, I don't want him to get forgotten.

1:20:19I've dedicated my book to him, but I also know because we've had this conversation that

1:20:34there's something that I have to do in this life, which was the reason I had to stay.

1:20:46So, yeah, I think there's like a purpose to feel that Robin wants me to do so that's what I'm going to do. How do you think about falling in love again? Because I've played out the horrific thought myself in my own life of losing my partner and how difficult it would, it appears to be from this vantage point to fall in love again and meet people and to think about those things again. Like how do you think about that? So I actually experienced unconditional love, which I didn't believe in. So the first time Robin said to me, I love you unconditionally, because I had some baggage from previous relationship.

1:21:31I said, don't say that because I don't think that exists. And he never said it again, but every day for the rest of his life he showed me that it was true. So at some point I just knew it was true. I would say obviously people say things like he would want you to be happy. And I was still wearing my wedding rings for over two years. And even some of his friends said you don't need to wear them anymore, but I said I want to. and I wore them for as, you know, as long as I still needed to. I...

1:22:09I'm open to receiving love, but I'm not going to go and look for it. Let's put it that way. Why?

1:22:20Um...

1:22:23I don't know. I mean, it's not really my style anyway, but I think I've been so lucky with what I've had that I don't, I don't, I'd be okay if I didn't like have something like that again. Obviously, I'm too young to like not want to have that again, but I also feel quite vulnerable. So I'll just like see how things go. I've watched so many entrepreneurs treat sales like a performance problem when it's often down to visibility because when you can't see what's happening in your pipeline, line, what stage each conversation is at, what's stored, what's moving, you can't improve anything, and you can't close the deal.

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1:23:45And you can get up and running in a couple of minutes with no payment needed. And if you use this link, you'll get a 30 day free trial. One of the things that I thought a lot about when I started the dioroteo was who would be the sponsors of this show? I wanted my sponsors to be companies that I believed in so much that I invested my own money into those companies. The reason I do that is because if I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is, I must love the product. And this is one such product that I've just invested many millions of pounds into. I was in the late stages of creating my own hydration electrolyte product.

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1:24:55And if I told you I'd been through what you've been through and I asked you the question, should I go and look for love again? What advice would you give to me? If I'd lost my partner and I was four years now away from that. Really? Yeah. What advice would you give me about love? I think it's very personal. I think, you know, if you want to be in a relationship, that's absolutely fine. If you're not sure, that's fine too. I think there's different levels of how long it would take people. I do know that when, you know, the majority of voices were around me were sort of saying, like, it's okay for you to do that again.

1:25:35that one of my friends who's engaged to someone who was a widow, he said to me at the time, I'm telling you right now, two years is not long enough. And that felt like a relief. So obviously it's almost another two years now. I think I believe that if love is meant for me, then it will come to me. So I'm not, I'm just calm about it. How are you different? Like, what are the very material or like very obvious ways that you're a different person on the other side of this? Um, What would your friends say if I said how is Tara different? Well, I think they would say that I'm a lot more like fragile and vulnerable Because they're like very very protective of me still I know they would I know what they would say because some of them have said it and I didn't really like to hear this at first but they said you were going to be able to help so many people.

1:26:34You know, the first time someone said that, I was like, I've been a doctor, I've been a coach, you know, my whole personality is about helping people. I didn't need my husband to suffer horrifically and die so that I can help people. But now I do actually feel that I can and I want to. And what do you want to help them with and who do you want to help people that are grieving? Not just people that are grieving. I think, you know, people are struggling and suffering in different ways and people really, really want to feel seen and I think that's like an important place where I would love to do something.

1:27:11I think I've got more and more curious about the idea that I might be wrong about subjective reality and how I see things. And so I wondered if if there's a clearer definition of the subjective reality that you see. Do you think we are the spirits that inhabit? And then why is there reason why I've come into this body? Is there some bigger, calmic purpose as to why I live? This ultimate question of what is the meaning of life in the world view that you have? What is the point? What is the point? Why did I need to live? I don't know if I can answer that, but I'm just going to say what's coming to my mind.

1:27:54Which is, so, like you and I might never have met in our lives, right? And for some reason, we did. And we had never met before I did the podcast with you last time. But people cannot stop talking about the level of chemistry as if we'd known each other our whole lives. And I've always said I felt like I was talking to my little brother. And then that episode goes on to have like the number of views that it does. I don't believe that that's random or a coincidence. I think there's a reason for that. And for me, in a way, you were the worst person for me to come and tell this story to you for the first time because you were the most skeptical person of all the podcast hosts that I can think of that I'm going to go on.

1:28:44So there's obviously some importance to that. I can't explain it. I didn't come here with all the answers. I'm just lucky enough to be someone with credible qualifications that's had an experience that most people don't talk about that I can open up for people. That's, I would say, like, all that it is. But I want to add something else that I'm feeling as relevant as well, which is because of my friendship group and the kind of conversations that we have, I wasn't allowed by my publisher to include personal stories from my friends. I had to saw stories from people I had either never met or only met once or were friends of friends.

1:29:27So every personal story that you read in the signs, which has the person's real name and is written by them and gifted to me for this book are people that I don't know. And they're all saying the same thing. They see, you know, like disturbances when they think of their lost loved one or they get on mistakenable signs or Robbins visit them. Yeah, I haven't made that stuff up. There's something to it. I don't know exactly do you want it? I hope I find out before I die, but maybe I'll only find out after I die, I don't know. And is there any meaning to all this stuff? It's kind of going back to the question hour, secondly, because you said you think we met for a reason.

1:30:11And one could hazard a number of reasons as to why that was. Maybe it was because you're going to go and tell so many people and reach so many people with an important message, whatever. But I don't know, this is my curiosity he trying to reach her conclusion, which is for why? Like why are humans here? Why doesn't my dog Pablo have, or does he have the same capabilities of searing signs and communicating with? Oh, he's got more capabilities than you in many respects. He only talk about that in the book, right? You talk about pets and animals. Okay, let me talk about that a little bit. So dogs and cats can smell certain diseases and they can smell imminent death.

1:30:50So there's something called hyper -osmere, which is in humans, it's the ability to smell more than the normal range. So there's a very famous nurse called Joy, I think it's Milner, who smelt her husband's Parkinson's disease years before he was diagnosed, and her ability to smell that disease has caused a new swab test to be created that takes chemicals from the skin of people to predict if they're going to get Parkinson's disease. So there are some outliers in humans that have, you know, they're called super smellers, for example, that we're not all capable of that, but some people are. Blind people, rewire the visual cortex of the brain and the occipital lobes here for echolocation.

1:31:35Humans aren't built for echolocation, bats and dolphins are. But people who are blind can use up the unused these visual cortex to learn how to recognize how close objects are to them, by how long it takes sound to bounce back from surfaces. So basically, animals have senses that we don't have. Some very rare people can have some of those senses that animals have that most humans don't. We're also capable of rewiring some of our neurons for sensors that replace ones that we don't have. And I'm just going to bring us full circle, you know, kind of where we started with, can you suspend your disbelief by understanding that there are lots of things that we can't prove at the moment, but, you know, we sort of Sciences on the quest to push boundaries, which is that Russell Foster suggested that the only cells on our ratinous are not just rods and cones which are for vision, but there is a different type of cell that senses the passing of time through the light dark cycle and that's how we create our circadian rhythms.

1:32:47He was ridiculed by scientists who said we've been studying the eye for 150 years, and you think there's a new type of cell that we've missed out in all that time and you found it. And sure enough, now there are identified cells called melanopsin cells, which blind rodents can still keep to the circadian rhythm because they can sense the changing light and dark cycle, but if you put opaque contact lenses on them, they drift off the circadian rhythm. So I'm not going to be able to give you an answer at the end of this podcast, but maybe that's the beauty of everything that we're not at the end of knowing everything that we need to know.

1:33:30But there's a lot of really interesting big question marks. Do you think we'll ever figure out these answers? Do you think science will ever get there? Do you think they'll come a day when we make discoveries that prove that many of the things that you write about in the signs are in fact true Like scientifically justifiable repeatable Yeah, I think so, but I don't think we'll be here at that point I'm always just fascinated because you know so much about neuroscience and the connection of not just neuroscience but spirituality and and then also human psychology in general. The thing I'm always so fascinated about with you is that you're able to tell me things that I didn't know, like you said to me last time about looking into someone's left eye and the fact that sweat leaks through the skin and that menstrual cycle sink up.

1:34:23And these are all things that are like really actionable that have helped me to look at life differently. But also now I don't think I've looked into someone's right eye in the last two years, especially when they're annoyed or something. So is there anything else like that that you've become curious about or discovered or talked about since we last saw each other. That might be parents' moment. I think we've discussed it, which is noticing beauty. That's been a real game changer for me. That's gratitude to the next level. And that's an active practice of going through life looking for something beautiful.

1:34:53Well, it was, but then it becomes a habit. Yeah, okay. And it's producing oxytocin, just like gratitude practice does. So obviously, it's kind of self -rewarding. So then you naturally want to do it more and more. But I notice I point it out to people more as well now, which is that I'm obviously trying to like Create a bit of a like crowd effect not consciously, but I just can't help myself like if I see something really pretty then I'll say oh, like you know, did you see that? Certain people do that often. They do seem to be the happiest people My girlfriend does that all the time she's like make like stop the car because there's a flower Yeah, I need to go spend 45 seconds looking at yeah, yeah across the other side of the road Yeah.

1:35:31And to a lot of people it's just a flower and we've kind of almost become used to seeing how it's. Well, that's her habituation. So even if you walk past like an amazing tree or an amazing building every day, eventually you'll just not notice it because you're habituated to it. So saliency is, you know, keeping yourself primed like what I call the art of noticing. And where are you right now in terms of your journey of grief? I mean, much better as the first thing I need to say, because obviously it's been a long and dark time.

1:36:05I know that I'm not there yet, because there is a part of me that is like afraid to let my light really shine. Explain that. I think I sort of touched on it before, that if I, I feel like if I, you know, if I like throw myself back into my career now, because I've had quite a few years out, and it becomes really successful that there's a level of guilt associated with that, but, you know, at least I'm aware of that. I've had a few conversations with close friends about it. I have quite a timeline ahead of me because of publication and book promo, and then like, you know, next things that we might do.

1:36:50So I think I just need to like keep working on that as things unfold. I know it's wrong, but it's how I feel at the moment. We meet up again in 10 years time, obviously we're going to see each other before them, but so we get together in 10 years time and this next season of your life has been a great success. What happened? Wow.

1:37:14I got over myself and myself out there. And like really shone and it actually did really help those people. Look at the smile on your face as you say that. Yeah. I really want to say thank you to you as well for everything. The feeling is mutual. You know, it really is. You were transformative for this show and everywhere I go still today, people come up to me and tell me about how that conversation helped them. It inspired them in some way, but also help them understand, as you said earlier in this conversation, that all that we know isn't all that there is to know. And just that, you know, I've tried to play a bit of a skeptic throughout this conversation.

1:37:58I am naturally skeptical, but the other thing that's that the, from being a podcast, the other thing that happens to you is you become more open -minded. It's almost as paradox if you think you're going to learn more, but actually through the conversations I've had, I've realized that there's so much that I don't know. And actually that's forced me more into an agonostic position than I was before. What I mean by that is it's forced me into a state where I can't fall into the trap of thinking I know, things. So this is also why I find it hard to commit to any belief, like a religious belief or atheism because there's, I continually sit here over and over again and someone will say something to me and I'll be skeptical and then I'll reflect and then I'll look at the research or the science or whatever and I'll change my mind and if you change your mind that many times, you realize that your mind should probably not be fixed to any position.

1:38:47I love that. I'm so proud of you for hearing that. That's like an incredible thing for people to hear. But it's true, and I hope that of my audience. You know, I've sat with my team while ago and I was saying, you know what, DOAC stands for Stance for Diurgency, I get it. But it also stands for people that have, that are dreamers, that are open -minded, which is the O, that are in search of increasing their awareness, and that could be in any definition that you want to describe, but whether it's awareness of health, psychology, who they are, and the C is about connection. So that's really like hearing your stories makes me feel like me too.

1:39:21I feel that too. I'm struggling in that way too. So that's the framework that I think about the show, and that's also why I try and remain open -minded to all things that I hear, and let people speak. I've never actually said that before, but there it is guys. And that's why I'm so compelled by this conversation today, of course, like I'm skeptical, like I think skepticism is healthy. But I'm also open -minded and that means that I'm willing to take what you've said to me today and to investigate it and run the experiments in my own life. And if I am open -minded, maybe I'll receive some evidence for myself.

1:39:54Yeah. So thank you. Thank you for doing what you're doing. And also, So, you know, as you said earlier, it's much easier and safer in life just to sit in a box of the known, like you're not going to get any arrows. But it's when people through history of dead to say that maybe the earth revolves around the sun or that maybe the earth isn't flat, they've taken the arrow arrows, but that's pushed us forward as a society into a better way of being. So I always applaud the those that have the guts to ask questions, you know? So I hope that's the audience that I've cultivated. I hope they're not too narrow, narrow -minded or too fixed, but I'm sure they will debate and share their anecdotes in the comments section.

1:40:39I'm really looking forward to reading the comments section on this particular conversation because I know it's going to be full of stories and anecdotes and experiences, which I think is going to be really enriching. But I do ask every bit in the comments section to be open -minded and empathetic and kind

1:41:00actively, which means replying to people and being kind because, you know, grief, no matter what your opinion is on it, is a very delicate thing. And we're all trying to find ways to be more happier and more connected and to deal with the reality of our experience. We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're leaving it for. And the question left for you is, what is the best thing that someone has done for you? Oh God, you sure you don't make these things up? That's what it says here, If anyone wants to read it, that's what it says in the book.

1:41:44It's got to be Robin showing me that unconditional love really does exist.

1:41:54Tara, thank you. Your new book, The Science, beautiful book by the way. Thank you. Beautiful book. The new science of how to trust your instincts will be out in September. So if you're listening to this in September, then it's out. and I'll link it below for anyone that wants to have a read of this book. The really truly unique thing about you is that you blend all of these different perspectives into your own perspective and your own writing and your own research. And so in reading this book, it pulls everybody in. It pulls in, I think, the skeptics. It pulls in the believers. And it pulls them all into the same room to confront a new possible answer to the nature of reality that might just serve to help so many of us.

1:42:37So I highly recommend everybody gives it a read because if you're someone that likes to expand your mind and think beyond the known, then this is the book and this is the moment in time. Because of all the reasons you've said about loneliness and individualism and all these things, that people need to read books like this. So I highly, I'm so excited for it to be in the world and I'm so excited to hear what everybody thinks and how they receive it. So thank you for writing such a wonderful book and thank you for coming back. And thank you again for many years ago now, blessing our show in a profound way that pulled in a huge new audience which is set us on a one an incredible journey so yeah thank you Tara.

1:43:09Thank you. Make sure you keep what I'm about to say to yourself. I'm inviting 10 ,000 of you to come even deeper into the Diary of ASEO. Welcome to my Inner Circle. This is a brand new private community that I'm launching to the world. We have so many incredible things that happen that you You are never shown. We have the briefs that are on my iPad when I'm recording the conversation. We have clips we've never released. We have behind the scenes conversations with the guests and also the episodes that we've never, ever released. And so much more. In the circle you'll have direct access to me, you can tell us what you want this show to be, who you want us to interview and the types of conversations you would love us to have.

1:43:50But remember for now, we're only inviting the first 10 ,000 people that joined before it closes. So if you want to join our private close community, head to the link in the description below or go to doccircle .com. I will speak to you then.

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