Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Hi, Serge, how are you?
[00:00:13] Speaker C: How are you? I'm good. Again, I'm, I'm good. And looking forward to our interview today that we've got a very interesting woman who I knew 40 years ago. We worked together in California over 40 years ago. I haven't seen her since then, called Susan Campbell. And we're going to learn a lot about her because I want to remind you listeners again that while we're calling our video Fierce Grace because of that, that we see all the challenges that are around us in the world today as expressions of grace, that this is a podcast on exploring the many faces of spirit spirituality and how we can bring a greater spirituality into our lives. Would you agree, Steve?
[00:01:04] Speaker B: I agree completely.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: I think when I listen to some spiritual teachers, they only talk about consciousness or awakening and it can get a little bit repetitive sometimes. But I, I think spirituality is so interest interesting because you can apply it to any area of life.
So what I like to do in my work is to apply spirituality to different, to different areas of our lives.
Relationships, day to day activities, music, you know, creativity, you know, psychological and cultural aspects like warfare, hierarchy and patriarchy.
All of these are, you know, they can be illuminated by spirituality.
So I think it's really important to use spirituality as a spotlight which can transform your view of different aspects of human life.
So, yeah, that's what I feel we are doing in this podcast.
[00:02:05] Speaker C: And Steve, thank you for saying that because that's exactly what Susan is all about. She's brought spirituality into the business world, into the relationship world, into all sorts of things, as you'll hear when we meet her now.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Let's welcome Susan to our podcast.
[00:02:28] Speaker C: Susan, hello.
[00:02:33] Speaker B: Hello, Susan.
[00:02:34] Speaker C: Susan, hello there.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: Hello. I was just trying to get my speaker on.
[00:02:40] Speaker C: Ah, Susan, how wonderful to see you.
My old friend. I have not seen you for over 40 years.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: Gee, it doesn't seem like that long, Serge.
[00:02:54] Speaker C: Hey, and, and, and we're still rocking and rolling.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: We are, yeah. Still crazy after all these years.
[00:03:03] Speaker C: Still crazy after all those years. And so I'm so delighted to see you and I'm so delighted to be having this interview with you because we're going to be learning a lot about you, Susan, because you've been someone who's been very dedicated to many areas of the path of relationship, group work, the business world, old age.
So I'd like to start by just reading out what you sent me so that people will just have a general view about you, if that's okay. Susan.
Since 1995, I facilitated groups Called honesty salons, these are small communities of practice where participants agree to use a set of communication practices that assist us in developing deeper self awareness, a felt sense of belonging to a larger we, healing from trauma and working skillfully with conflict. I'm the author of 11 books on change, conflict, community and relationships. And I've created three card games that teach valuable communication tools.
I'm 85.
Congratulations, Susan. Wow. And I'm interested in how to navigate the. The final stages of life for individuals and systems, finding one's right relationship to societal breakdown, loss and death.
Susan, you're engaged in life in a very holistic and full way.
And let me just ask you what is responsible for the fact that you're still rocking and rolling at 85, as opposed to. To sort of. Kind of, sort of going like this with the zimmer frame, like a lot of our contemporaries? I mean, is it your love of life that's kept you, your.
Your spiritual vision? I'm fascinated.
[00:05:25] Speaker A: Well, I do love life and I do love exchanging with the world.
I just get gratification out of this human life. I'm so grateful every day. And I don't think there's any one thing that's allowed me to do this.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: There's.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: There's the gifts of what I've inherited and the work I've done on myself, and there's diet and exercise, that sort of thing.
[00:05:53] Speaker C: And.
[00:05:54] Speaker A: But I basically have always had a kind of positive attitude of let's see what happens and let's see what my right relationship is to what happens.
So whatever happens, I. I don't get distressed about it. I work with what it is. So that's. Seems like even though a lot of spiritual teachers have been teaching that for a long time, it seems like I got that at a very young age. It's just, you know, stop bellyaching about what you can't change and focus on what's right there. That's real for you.
[00:06:32] Speaker C: I remember, Susan, we hadn't.
That we had an exchange and I just written my memoirs, which I sent to you, and you said, I don't think I can write mine because I haven't suffered enough. I haven't had terrible traumas in my life, and people only like to read about terrible traumas. So I can't write my memoirs.
[00:06:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I did say that. Something like that.
It was half a joke, Serge. I was just too lazy to put in the work to refine the memoir. I wrote an autobiography, but I didn't want to publish it or put it out publicly. I let a few friends read it because I'm not that kind of a writer.
I read yours. Yours was wonderful. Serge.
I don't know, I just don't have that capacity to make words come alive other than the self help kinds of things. You know, I write that kind of thing rather well and rather easily. But a memoir is a different thing. Well, more work.
[00:07:43] Speaker C: Well, what touches me.
I just asked you this last question and then Steve will ask you something.
What touches me is that you send out newsletters all the time, but they're not just giving advice, but you're sharing your own life, you know, your, your own relationship issues, your own experiences with this. So, so you share yourself very publicly and very honestly. And of course, honesty is your big thing.
[00:08:20] Speaker A: Yeah, that's my brand.
[00:08:21] Speaker C: Yes, it's your brand.
Yeah.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: Well, I do share, yeah, I do share publicly in these little short blogs. I guess there's just something about writing a whole book about myself that I hold that I hold myself to a very high standard when trying to do that. And I have not arrived my writing ability to be able to manifest that standard. So that's just, you know, I'm usually not a perfectionist, but with regard to that project, it's, it's, it's on the back burner and I'll probably never publish it.
[00:09:03] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:09:04] Speaker B: Hi, Susan. Hi. Nice to meet you. Lovely to meet you.
Yeah.
I was wondering, I was wondering about your background and did you have any formative influence, influences from your parents or from your peers who set you in this direction?
[00:09:20] Speaker A: Well, I had adult parents.
In other words, they were really ready to have children.
They took parenting very seriously. They gave me a lot of guidance in values that the three of us all hold very dear, like caring for the sick and needy and vulnerable, that sort of thing.
What some of us, you know, good old fashioned values, but what some of us might call the new paradigm, you know, the interdependence paradigm and that sort of thing.
And, and they were spiritually inclined in terms of just receiving the gift of life and trying to live the best life you can, not just for yourself, but for your fellow humans. You know, they were very service oriented and they were just like super good people. And they, they built me up like, you know, you could do anything you want.
That sort of wonderful. Always praised me and thought I was the greatest, which is, you know, which can give you a little, little bit of overconfident personality style.
But that has, that has done me very well because I've always taken a lot of risks and tried new things. And I'm always into learning, don't mind failure.
So I would say my parents were the biggest. And I'll just tell you one just small vignette. When I was 17, my mother took me to a lecture by Margaret Mead.
She kind of became one of the people that I. I most admired. And one of the things she said was women don't always have to have children to have a fulfilling life.
And I. I did not have children, but because I couldn't. It was a. An injury from the IUD birth control device. But that was really okay for me. And my. My children were all my projects and all my clients and just, you know, I'm in relationship with the world.
And so I didn't have that commitment to young people in that way that a lot of women do. And that freed up a lot of energy for creativity and service.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: Yeah, it reminds me, a couple of weeks ago, Serge and I were talking about Florence Nightingale. She's one of my heroes. A lot of people don't really realize that she was a very spiritual person, a kind of mystic. And she made a conscious, conscious decision not to get married and have children because she felt she had a mission to bring some healing to the world, you know, to make the world a better place in some way. So she was very aware that, you know, she didn't want to have children for that reason.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: Yeah. I only became aware that after I realized I couldn't have children, then, then when I really let go of that idea, all of a sudden, a whole bunch of new energy seemed to be available to me. It's like I was saving some of my physical and emotional energy for that time when I would be a mother. You know, don't get too involved in your career and so forth. And then, you know, after about age 40, things shifted for me.
[00:12:58] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:12:59] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:12:59] Speaker B: So do you think your parents were a model of a good relationship, an authentic relationship?
[00:13:05] Speaker A: Yeah, they were. They had great sense of humor with, you know, kid at each other.
You know, they were just. I. I often used to say to them, you're. You're. You're better people than I am.
[00:13:19] Speaker C: Well, it's.
[00:13:21] Speaker A: You know, the reason was they gave almost so much of their money to causes, you know, whereas I was a little more selfish with my money.
[00:13:31] Speaker C: Well, I mean, it's interesting, Susan, because I got into this work from exactly the other. I suffered so much through my parents that this is what got me into my work. But when we knew each other, I was still in a stage of Recovery. I hadn't.
I was still trying to find myself. You'd found yourself.
You know, you got your PhD, you know, in your 20s, and you were sort of rocking and rolling when I knew you, and we started that institute. But sort of one thing that's interesting, I remember in a newsletter you wrote, you said the best thing, I'm glad I got rid of my husbands, you know.
You know, and so. And so I imagine that.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: That I think I said. Or maybe I said this in my autobiography, I believe in divorce.
[00:14:33] Speaker C: Yeah, no, that. Well. Well, I knew when you were married to Barry, and I understood why that marriage didn't work. But.
But it's also as if you've been a free spirit, Susan. You know, I see you as a kind of an embodiment of new womanhood, as a free spirit, pioneering new paradigms, new ways of being, new ways of relating. And I'm going to ask you some questions on that in a moment.
[00:15:08] Speaker A: Well, I'll accept your story about me. I kind of like that story. That's.
That's one way I see myself.
[00:15:18] Speaker C: Well, well, well, at least it's a story that agrees with how you see yourself.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:26] Speaker C: Because so many of us are brought up with stories that have nothing to do with the way that we are.
You know, I was brought up to be seen and not heard. You know, that I was just a little child, you know, who needed to be pushed away. And the grown ups were important.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: Yeah. I was the center of attention. See, we're mirror opposites of each other.
And still we made it to this place. Serge.
[00:15:56] Speaker C: But.
But, Susan, I grew up pretty narcissistically and I was. And you didn't. So that's interestingly.
[00:16:06] Speaker A: That's right. I got so much love that by the time my three brothers started to be born, because I was seven before my parents had three brothers for me, I thought they were for me. I loved them dearly. Like, boom, boom, boom. And I was ready to be generous, to give. In fact, no. Even before age 7, I. I was just so. Such a generous little kid also. Give away my toys, give away my clothes to the less fortunate people down the street, stuff like that.
That was. Yeah, that whole other thing, I think it has to do with getting enough and then you're not needing it anymore.
[00:16:50] Speaker B: It's funny. I had a developmental psychology class with my students. I'm a university lecturer a few weeks ago, and we were talking about Piaget, you know, the psychologist Piaget. He has this idea that young children cannot be empathic because they can't take other people's perspective. And therefore, young children are basically selfish and narcissistic.
And there are some transpersonal psychologists, like Ken Wilber puts forward a similar view, but I don't think it's true. I think young children can be extremely kind and generous. Like. Like you. Like you've described.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I agree. I mean, those generalizations. Psychologists, you know, makes generalizations like Piaget.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: Yeah, it's kind of.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: Kind of true of most kids.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Although more recent research has shown that children can be very kind. You know, they will. Oh, yeah, they will. They feel upset when other people are upset.
[00:17:45] Speaker A: Oh, true.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: Yeah. I think it's a bit of a myth. I think that children are very selfish. I mean, obviously they can be selfish, but they can also be. Be very generous.
[00:17:56] Speaker A: I, I agree with you, Steve.
[00:17:59] Speaker C: Well, Susan, I. When I knew you, you had written your breakthrough book, the Couple's Journey, Five Stages, and I. And I sort of wrote about it in a book that I wrote in about 15 years ago, and I referred to it that the first stage was romance. Then if you get through the power struggle and then you go into the power struggle, then you go into a place of realizing that you're two separate parts of one body. Then you go through. Into realizing that you're a unified body. And then the fifth stage is service.
[00:18:39] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:18:40] Speaker C: And I'm just wondering, how has this evolved over the years? I mean, sort of has your model changed? Sort of. How do you work with relationships now?
Because that very interesting thing that you sent me about delusion and curiosity. It was very interesting, what you just sent me that article.
Yes.
So how has your. Yes.
So how have your models of how you work with. With relationships evolved? And what's a spiritual relationship, or rather a deep relationship, if we can say that when we go deep, we become more spiritual?
[00:19:25] Speaker A: Well, the Couple's journey model, and there's a book that I wrote in 1980 called the Couple's Journey.
I tried to put forth the idea of relationship as a spiritual journey where we refine some of the patterns of the ego through really becoming one.
One system.
Oh, you go through these different changes and like, the power struggle stage sounds like it's a bad thing. You know, there's conflict and so forth. But what you're doing during the power struggle stage is you're getting in touch with your shadow parts and each other's shadow parts. And then in the stability stage, you realize that you project a lot of your shadow onto your partner. And then in the Commitment stage, you become a we system where you really do have a, at least with one other person, a kind of model of, of the oneness of all of us. And then in the co creation stage, you're like you said, service, you're giving back.
I still stand by that model as a good developmental model of couples if you stay together long enough. Most relationships end at the power struggle stage, and they probably should because the power struggle stage is for sorting out your differences and seeing if you're on the same path together.
[00:20:54] Speaker C: Interesting, interesting perspective. Interesting perspective, yes.
[00:20:59] Speaker A: Yeah. So what I mean, I emphasize mostly a couple relationship for learning and development and becoming part of the larger human evolution.
As I have worked though that I basically wrote that book in my late 20s and it was published in my early 30s.
But since then, no, I've developed more interest in what's going on in the shadow. So a lot of the work that I do with couples is shadow work. Basically, it's making the unconscious patterns more conscious. And one of the things that I've got interested in is the phenomenon of having intense emotional reactions to something that's unpleasant that you didn't expect, which we call triggering people's reactive behaviors. That's pretty automatic because when you see something that seems, that seems to threaten you, it's basically it threatens your ego, but it feels dangerous, emotionally dangerous.
We either go into fight, flight or freeze.
It's just the way our nervous systems are wired to kind of scan for danger. And so if somebody says they don't like us, you know, they.
Or they indicate criticism or trying to control us, things like that.
Well, depending on what you're sensitized to, what your fear complexes are, you'll go into a fear reaction of fight, flight, freeze. So I want to help people understand this whole phenomenon that's just built into the human nervous system. We can't help it. Nobody wants to get triggered. But that phenomenon really creates all kinds of misunderstandings because what somebody says when they're triggered, they don't really mean it. They're like a cornered animal. They're scared and they're trying to fight back.
And we hold on to what somebody said when they were triggered. We can't like realize and we can't have the, you know, typically unless we understand this phenomenon, we can't let go.
Oh, you said you don't know why you ever married me.
Well, he said that when he was triggered, and they don't know how to come back and say, you know, I was triggered. It was probably my old fear of not being good enough coming up. I didn't mean that. I'm sorry.
So forth.
So that's something I find I have to teach couples now and people in organizations and friends.
And it's probably the cause of a lot of international conflicts too, because world leaders don't understand this phenomenon. And they make important decisions when they're triggered. Should never make an important decision when you're triggered. You know, don't.
[00:24:10] Speaker C: This is the spiritual email.
Yeah. And Susan, this shadow work is the real spiritual work. It was Jung who said, if you want to do spiritual work, don't sit on top of the mountain in the sun, but go down into the shadow.
[00:24:28] Speaker B: You mentioned international conflicts. It seems to me that a lot of conflict is about group identity, about people who identify with one group and this group is opposed to the other group.
And they have a whole history of bitterness and, you know, adversarial relationships in the past.
And you know, in, in present day America, for example, there's a lot of division between the Republicans and the Democrats.
You can also think about, you know, Russians and Ukrainians, Palestinians and Jews.
How, what do you think the best way to proceed, you know, in terms of these conflicts is?
[00:25:05] Speaker A: All right, I'll give you a perspective that I have which is.
And mainly arrived at this through working with groups in corporations.
Whenever you get with a group and actually this, this is with two people too. Like the couple's journey stages, there's a. After the group is together for a little while, they tend to polarize around some dimension of difference. There's some kind of developmental process in the way humans are constructed where we polarize.
But it's for evolution is the way I think of it. It's like, same with, like with the couple's journey.
One person likes to make up quickly after a fight, and the other person needs space and time in order to begin to feel safe enough to talk again. It's just one example of that's just a little difference that you didn't even notice in the beginning. And then the whole relationship becomes about that.
You know, why won't you talk to me? Okay, so that's just one. In groups, so often they'll be part of the group that I call them the fast changers and the slow changers. Let's say I was working with a school system and a group of teachers.
One set of teachers say, oh, we don't want any of those new fads anymore. That human relations training, you know, that's, that's a waste of our time. We just want to focus on the three Rs and the stuff we've always taught. And then there's another group, usually they're the younger teachers who want to try the new things and innovate.
So this is analogous to kind of the conservative and more progressive styles or camps in our society in general.
And you know, if you look at almost any society and, and there's some kind of polarization around traditional values versus innovation and changes.
I mean, there's all kinds of other splits, you know, like the haves and the have nots. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the, the more emotional kinds of things that split people. And of course, you know, there's long history in the Middle east about the Arabs and Israelis and so forth. I mean, there's. But the, but there's a phenomenon in human groups and even a group of two where you need to somehow do that.
And the work though, but people don't know how to do the work of getting to the next stage. We get stuck in that polarization stage. But there's, there's something in that polarization where you guys have over learned something that I have under learned.
Oh, it's, it's not like either or. It's not like traditional values versus change and innovation.
It's like the people who fear change need to learn something from the innovators, you know, to try new things, to take risks, because that's the way you grow.
But then the people who are always on the cutting edge of something, the early adopters, maybe they're a little impulsive sometime, maybe they need to slow down, maybe they need to learn a little from the conservative side and so forth.
So there's.
I see, I see things usually from the complex systems angle, from an evolutionary angle, but we do, Steve, we do seem to be stuck here in polarization and even, even within ourselves. So, you know, I now work mostly with, with couples and individuals and I see. Well, those same either or splits are within the self. The parts of me that are needy, always needing reassurance, that kind of thing, for example, and the part that wants to appear secure and independent.
We need to make room for all our parts. And that's what psychotherapy really is, making the vulnerabilities. Yeah. Making the repressed disowned part parts. And we could make the analogy to the more vulnerable populations in our world, you know, somehow making room for the isolated and the forgotten parts. So that's, that's the work that most humans are doing right now. And, and societies are wrestling with that, at least how to integrate, how to create systems of mutual benefit. But, you know, we're, we're stuck right now in polarization.
[00:30:24] Speaker B: Yeah, but you think potentially the polarities can lead to higher development, a high intricate integration.
[00:30:30] Speaker A: I, I think that's the, the way of nature.
But boy, humans have to find a way to attune with the natural, the natural laws again, because we're kind of distant, kind of separate from the workings of how humans and the natural world really work together.
[00:30:58] Speaker C: It was Einstein who said that no problem could be solved at the level it exists at. So how does one get to that higher reconciliatory place? Susan? Is that the soul? Is that the soul? That is the great reconciler or integrator?
[00:31:19] Speaker A: I don't know what different people mean by the soul, so I'm not gonna answer that.
[00:31:24] Speaker C: Okay. Sort of use another.
[00:31:26] Speaker A: You know that.
[00:31:27] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:31:28] Speaker A: So many different things.
But how do we get to that higher integration?
Well, first we, we have to be able to experience pain and get out of the denial of, of pain. And I think pain is the great motivator to change.
And, and I'm, I'm going to just focus on emotional pain right now or the recognition that because the world is hurting, I'm hurting, or I'm hurting because I overeat all the time, and I've got heart problems and joint problems and diabetes.
But feeling what's really there that's painful is just one little key to beginning to say something needs to change here.
And I think the unfortunate pain that's coming up right now pretty soon at least, is the middle classes. Not just in the US Where I live, but the middle classes are being decimated. And we've got the very rich and the kind of, the people who are struggling very hard. They're not poor by, you know, standards of the 1800s. You know, they're still better off than a lot of people were economically. But the, the middle classes or the people who are oppressed by the system.
[00:33:16] Speaker C: The system.
[00:33:17] Speaker A: The system that we're now forced to operate within.
Constant growth, depletion of resources over consumption. You know, we're, we're all kind of caught in that there's going to be more and more pain that's going to create more and more uprising and dissatisfaction in order for us to somehow come to terms with the need for change. And maybe it'll be a climate emergency or something.
I have no idea. But people, you know, they say people are only motivated by crises to really change.
I Think we could.
We wouldn't need a crisis if we weren't so good at numbing our normal pain, which is just feedback that you're making a lousy decision, man. You know, change something about your behavior.
Don't eat that third piece of pie, whatever.
So our feedback loops within ourselves and within our systems are, like, not functioning very well. We have such a great ability to deny what we really ought to be feeling.
[00:34:38] Speaker C: I mean, sort of what you're saying is reminding me again how important the emotional psychological area is of the spiritual path.
[00:34:50] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:34:51] Speaker C: Because, you know, for me, you know, spirituality and psychology are part of each other and that the real spiritual work is what you've been talking about. It's not learning to sit on a mountaintop and get high and say om, or sort of moving into wonderfully looming states so that there is so much bliss. Or as one Hindu guru said to me, I will tell you how you can be in such joy that your father may drop down dead in front of you and you will feel no pain. I put up my hand and said, look, if my.
You know, I don't want that. If my father drops down, I want to feel pain. You know, pain is part of life.
[00:35:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
And the spiritual work is help us avoid. I mean, the genuine spiritual. Help us to avoid needless suffering. The suffering where you just make up that because some. Because somebody walked out while you were talking that they're bad or you're bad. You know, I mean, that's like bullshit pain, but there's pain about real things that we need to distinguish, you know, the pain of nature. Right now, for example.
[00:36:14] Speaker B: I think the great thing about spirituality, for me personally, is that I don't. You know, you were talking about talking about triggering earlier.
And I do sometimes get triggered in my relationship with my wife. We've been married for 25 years now. Sometimes I get triggered by my kids as well. But I can. I'm aware of my being triggered, and I can just sort of stand back and let it.
I kind of let it flow by without responding to it.
Even if I notice some kind of emotional upheaval within myself, I just. I don't get caught up in it, you know?
[00:36:51] Speaker A: Yeah, you know what? I counsel people because a lot of people need some help not getting caught up in it. So I will counsel people to just don't. Don't take it like you don't act out your triggers, is what you're saying. You know, you can witness them, or. Oh, well, people who are mostly into acting out their triggers. Because they just can't help it. Things happen so fast in the nervous system.
I try to teach them to notice the early warning signals of when you're triggered.
Oh, you're start, you're starting to feel like running out of the room or you're starting to explain and defend yourself. See, sometimes people who are reasonable people don't think they're triggered. You know, I'm just trying to explain. I'm just trying to be heard. You're probably triggered if you're doing that, at least some of the time. So start paying attention, owning your triggers, pausing and having a pause agreement with your partner where you don't keep talking when you're triggered. And then do something to calm your nervous system like self soothing breathing to restore that nervous system safety.
And then it's an opportunity for you to, once your nervous system is regulated, to go back and investigate. What was it that she said that bothered me so much, you know, that made me fly off the handle?
Oh, she said, I don't think that's going to work.
And I was offering my great idea for this great new project that would make our house so much better. And she said it wasn't going to work. And my ego got bruised.
But deeper than that, it was a childhood wound about not being listened to, not being seen, heard that sort of thing.
And I can now tune in to the feeling that I had when I heard my wife and feel how that was between my father and me when I was 5 and bring some tenderness and compassion to that shadow part of me, that part that's been in the shadows that I've been trying to deny and ignore and reintegrate that sensitive, tender part of me, but in a way that isn't so afraid of that kind of emotional pain.
Because that, that type of emotional pain isn't real and present, but it is useful because it shows you where you need healing from your childhood wounds. Because almost all triggering has something to do with something that you didn't get in childhood. And it doesn't have to be a big trauma. Sometimes it's just neglect.
[00:39:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
And this helps us to understand other people, doesn't it? Helps us to empathize with other people.
Somebody. I had a kind of insight a few days ago. Actually, there's somebody in my kind of circle. I won't go into details in case other people might recognize who it is, but there's a person who most people I know don't like him at all. They feel kind of repelled by this person.
But I spent a Bit of time with him. And because I'd heard all these stories about him, I was sort of thinking, you know, he's not a nice person. I want to stay away from him. But I spent time with him and I really kind of empathized with him. I saw this little boy inside him, this little boy who'd been hurt and was trying to deal with his childhood pain. It made me really, you know, have a different perspective on this guy.
[00:40:30] Speaker A: Yeah. And when we can get to that point where we understand our own triggers enough and understand that process, we can kind of instantly forgive people when they're triggered and not take any of it personally and, and stay open hearted like you're talking about. It's possible sometimes you have to go through some painful psychological work to get there.
[00:40:55] Speaker C: In that interview. No, in that article that you wrote about curiosity, you said, Susan, that. That we're too prone to go into generalizations and putting people into a compartment.
[00:41:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:10] Speaker C: And I realized, and I sent your email to my wife to read because she once said to me, I don't need to listen to your talk, Serge, because I know you. And so I sent that bit.
[00:41:31] Speaker B: Good.
[00:41:32] Speaker C: And you know, and I sent that to her and I got an email back from her. Yes, you're absolutely right. That's why I'm reading your new book.
Because it's absolutely true that she thinks that she knows me. And you said that if we do that, then the relationship goes stale and we stop inquiring and we stop asking questions and we stop the investigative.
Because
[00:42:03] Speaker A: I admitted that. Yeah. Well, the article just for our listeners here was about curiosity.
[00:42:09] Speaker C: It's great
[00:42:12] Speaker A: how we tend couples especially, they think they know each other after they've been together 10, 20 years or more.
And you begin to put your partner in a box and then, oh, he's starting to say something. I, I know where this conversation is going type of thing. And you stop listening. And I admitted that I do that too, with my partner at present. You know, I, even though I can write and give advice to other people, when I was writing it, I realized, yeah, some, sometimes I don't want to ask any curiosity type questions, you know, like tell me more or that sort of thing, because I want him to hurry up and finish so I can get back to what I was doing.
And then I at least realized I don't do that too often, but that is a tendency among couples and that I write these blogs for Substack. So that's, that's what you're talking about. So read, read this blog, if any of this sounds familiar, and send it to your partner if you think they've started to put you in a box and stop listening to you.
I'm glad that. I'm glad that article was useful, Serge.
[00:43:29] Speaker B: It can happen with parents too, can't it? And I remember this feeling that I was taking my parents for granted. I wasn't really seeing them as real people.
[00:43:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:37] Speaker B: Then my father kind of shot me by being a real person. But wow, he shot me by behaving sort of out of character. And I really saw him as a real person again.
[00:43:47] Speaker A: It helps if we can let them behave out of character. You know, the whole, the whole idea in what I call the getting real practices that I teach are being open to surprise.
And if we have that open attitude, father can kind of feel that it can encourage the other person to step out of their stereotyped ways of being too sometimes. So we live in an age of relationship where the relationship and how the other person behaves in relationship to you partly creates what you feel safe enough or, or permission to be.
So it's, it's not, it's not.
You don't control your partner by trying to control them, but by your attitude toward them that, that makes a difference in who they become around you.
So I'm saying your father may have felt a certain openness in you, Steve, or that's a nice worry anyway.
[00:45:01] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe. Yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah.
Sorry.
[00:45:08] Speaker C: No, no, Steve, go on. Yeah.
[00:45:09] Speaker B: Oh, well, I was going to say that.
Can being authentic be hurtful sometimes? Can it cause damage or pain?
Because I, I noticed that I went through a period in my life when I wanted to. I decided to be honest with everybody and I ended up making a lot of people upset because I stopped in the end because so many people were upset, you know, so well, you can
[00:45:30] Speaker A: only be as honest as you are self aware.
And so a lot of honesty is just letting your projections or your judgments fly with other people. You know, giving your opinions.
And the kind of honesty I teach, it starts with self awareness. Oh. Like I'm, I'm feeling this. And here's, here's what I'm going to share with you. I'm, I'm feeling, I'm feeling like, let's say somebody asked, you're in a dating situation and somebody asks you for a date and you have to say, no, my honest feeling. So no, my honest feeling, as I hear you ask me that question, do I want to, do I want to meet you for a date?
Is I, I, I Have some mixed feelings here because I've really enjoyed talking to you and, and I, I like you.
And at the same time, I don't think I want to continue anything with you.
And now that I've said that, I'm really caring about how this lands with you. And yes, it does hurt sometimes. The will hurt.
I don't want to live a kind of life that treats everybody like babies. So I treat this guy like an adult. And you know, this is a real example actually from my life.
And we, and we have a moment. He goes, yes, I am hurt. You know, I said, I don't, you know, really, I hate saying something that I think might be hurtful. He said, you know, he paused and yes, I am hurt. But we stayed engaged a little bit longer before we parted at this cocktail event and just we had a moment of real human connection.
And I stayed with him when he was in his pain. And then we actually met by chance at another dating event. And it was like old friends because there at that moment. So I want to inspire people to stay present with yourself and the other as you're being honest and feel that connection both to self and other.
And your honesty might have a more of a flavor of empathy and connection even while you're speaking your truth. So many people find being honest is such a risky thing. They've held it in and so they blurt it out in a way that's very self aware and they're not even in their bodies when they're saying it because they, they just want to get the words out and get out of there type of thing. So we have to cultivate authenticity and honesty as starting as a inner practice of noticing what, what, what are. How can, how can I sort out my, my judgments and my opinions from feelings which are not super significant either, but there's something that really happened versus judgments and opinions never happened. You know, it's in the mind.
[00:48:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:45] Speaker A: What, what's real versus versus what's a thought? We have to distinction. That's part of the honesty work.
[00:48:55] Speaker B: Yeah. It strikes me that there's something very respectful about that kind of honesty that creates real intimacy.
[00:49:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, I agree.
[00:49:03] Speaker B: Yeah. I think not being direct is kind of disrespectful. Not being honest is disrespectful, isn't it?
[00:49:09] Speaker A: In a way, yeah. And then. But sometimes you just don't have the skill level and you know you're gonna be hurtful and so go ahead and shut up. That's fine too.
[00:49:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:49:22] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:49:23] Speaker A: And work on developing the Skill to be skillfully and compassionately honest.
Possible, but hurt feelings will happen.
And I think the whole world needs to get over our fear of emotional pain. Emotion is not going to kill us, but we need to be able to be with the whole of the interaction.
[00:49:50] Speaker B: Yeah, it can help us to grow. Pain does help us to grow.
It makes us deeper and stronger.
[00:49:56] Speaker C: I mean, we've called our podcast Fierce Grace because we both believe that it's pain that will help us evolve.
Susan, I'd like to move to a new phase that I think's really, really, really important is that you said that you're interested. You're 85.
[00:50:19] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:50:20] Speaker C: You and I share sort of one thing that we're, as one friend of mine put it in God's waiting room. And we hope that we'll be kept waiting for a little time or a long time longer.
But, but, but I'm very interested in your.
How are you preparing yourself and helping prepare others for this new stage in life's journey? In fact, I've just ordered your book on the state on sort of getting real, the 10 things of how to Live in a Real Way.
Yeah, so.
So sort of my question is, how are you preparing yourself for this last stage in our journey? And how do you feel?
Well, sort of answer it in whatever way you want to. I mean, how do you see old age as a spiritual journey?
[00:51:22] Speaker A: So, first, I feel great, and I know that I'm old and I feel old in terms of what I've learned, you know, like a little wiser and stuff, but I don't really feel old old. Like you mentioned people, you know, note younger women not noticing you.
Honestly, it's a relief for me to not have men noticing me.
And just. Just a personal thing, too.
I can. I can dress sexier now.
It's safer to dress sexier for 30.
I just thought it just. That just popped into my mind.
[00:52:11] Speaker C: But it'.
[00:52:12] Speaker A: It's kind of like I don't present even, you know, I. My skin is old and stuff like that, but I don't present as old.
But. So that's just, you know, just personal little aside, I'm. I'm lucky to not have any chronic pain. If I had pain in my body, I wouldn't be saying this. I wouldn't be as happy. I think physical, emotional pain doesn't scare me, but physical pain sort of does. I had sciatica once and I got over it, but that was nerve pain and it was horrible. It really limited me.
So that's just a personal note.
But I have been thinking a lot about what this stage is for, what I want to bring to the world for teaching. And so I. I came up with this idea to write a. A blog and to give some webinars on the developmental tasks of the final stage of life, like coming to terms with the hand you were dealt and how you played that hand.
That does seem to be one of the things that I think people at every age ought to be looking at. Coming to terms with the hand you were dealt. You know, the kind of childhood you had, yours may have been more or less fortunate than others and grieving the parts that you're sad about and appreciating what you did come away with from some. From some of those unfortunate incidents maybe that you have experienced. So, like, the final stage of life is kind of an integration period. And I, I'm a. I'm a conceptual person. And I, you know, think in terms of what do people need to guide them into this final stage of life, especially emotionally and spiritually, because those are the things that I think about.
And, you know, there's. There's the typical things like completing your unfinished business with your loved ones and, and that sort of thing.
But I wanted to really emphasize coming to terms with what life gave you and what you did and didn't get, and also the decisions you've made, the, the good ones, the bad ones, the not so, you know, neither neither good nor bad, but things that shaped your life and really taken responsibility for all of it, even things you had no control over, you're still responsible for dealing with that because it's your life. So somehow I want to present this idea to the world that there are still things we need to learn and do that are growthful in the last stage of life.
And of course, coming to terms with loss of all kinds, loss of beauty, loss of physical strength and all those things.
And the one thing that I'm dealing with is my partner has cognitive decline and so that he's big, big, strong, leader, confident type of a guy, and I'm still madly in love with him, and he's not as sharp, and he loses things and forgets things and can't find his words and that sort of thing. So he's. He's only at that stage. I mean, he can still drive, he can still cook a meal. He can. He can still prune the trees in our yard. So he's still quite capable, except when he's kind of on stage to try to think of something.
[00:56:27] Speaker C: So what's your spiritual challenge?
[00:56:29] Speaker A: I'm writing about that.
The, The. The spiritual challenge that I think would be true for most people is stay keeping your heart open when somebody is not as lovable, not as easy to be with as they used to be. You know, and I, I don't seem to have that much problem. It isn't. It is kind of an exercise in patience.
And a lot of people, if you admit it, you're kind of impatient about, you know, getting something that you want to have happen, you wanting it to happen.
So that would be one of the big spiritual challenges of being with a person who has cognitive decline. I kind of figured it out at an earlier stage that I need to work on patience, so I'm. I'm ready for that challenge. And that was another reason I started writing, is teach people.
If you handle your shadow material younger, it won't come back to bite you in the ass when you're 80 or 90, you know, so handling things that are hard, developmental lessons like patience, which I highly recommended. Everybody work on that now, because everybody gets slower, you know, me gets slower as you get older and you, you slow down and there's. There should be no bad or wrong associated with that.
Frustrating, yes.
Go ahead and be frustrated if that's your thing. But you do have an option of learning to accept what is. Which is the work of every stage of human spiritual development, accepting what is being wholly present to what is now.
And that really helps you a lot when your partner gets cognitive decline.
Everything is just a new thing. Oh, well, here's the thing. I respond to that as the best way I can, rather than caught up in the mind stories of, well, it shouldn't be this way, or he. He used to be this, or why can't he?
And you know, those diseases of the mind don't. Don't start in old age. So I want to say to the general public listening, handle them now because it's harder later.
[00:59:15] Speaker C: Do you find that being older, that you've grown out of some of your old issues? Because I found now that a lot of the things that used to upset me paid me without doing any therapy on them in the last sort of 20 years have fallen away.
And. And so. And so it's almost as if kind of naturally I've grown out of certain things. And I'm just wondering if it's because I've kind of tried to live the right kind of life. I've tried to, you know, live a decent and honest life and be kind to people and things like that and to do service and you know, and I'm wondering if you feel that the universe will serve us or will give to us if we do service work and give to it.
[01:00:14] Speaker A: Well, it may not be just if we're good people and do service work. I did a lot of work with junkies in jail and it seems like after about age 50, they've outgrown their addictions. They didn't do any work.
Their, their physiology changed and they're not addicted anymore. So that's just, you know, just something for us spiritual people to be all about. You know, maybe it wasn't, Maybe it's
[01:00:44] Speaker C: we grow out of our mate.
[01:00:47] Speaker A: You know, my, my own personal answer to your question. I, I haven't noticed any growing out of patterns due to aging that I can name.
Seems like most of my patterns I had to pay some attention to and do some inner work with.
But honestly, I, I, I'm not that focused on my own personal growth at this point.
There is some, I'm just here, you know.
[01:01:28] Speaker B: Yeah. There's some interesting research in psychology that suggests that old age can be a natural process of spiritual development.
That older people do become more spiritual, even if they don't try to be. They just tend to let go of things and they become more present.
[01:01:45] Speaker A: I think I saw that in my father for sure.
When he became less able, he became more loving, whatever that's about.
I just don't, I just don't apply that to, to myself at this stage.
[01:02:08] Speaker B: Yeah. I've just published, I've just published a new paper on different kinds of purpose.
And so I talk about a transpersonal purpose and there's also an altruistic purpose and a self accumulative purpose when you try to get more money and more success.
[01:02:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:02:25] Speaker B: But I found in my research that as people get older, they tend to move towards a transpersonal purpose where, you know, they're not focused on accumulating.
They become more kind of, you know, more, more selfless, if you like.
[01:02:40] Speaker A: No, no, that makes sense. As long as you're one of the haves. If you're one of the have nots. I don't know about that. You know, I think economic instability doesn't, it's terrible.
[01:02:53] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true.
[01:02:54] Speaker A: It makes it hard to spiritually evolve, frankly. And, and that's the, the sad thing about our system that we don't take most vulnerable.
[01:03:03] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:03:03] Speaker B: The sample in our research was mainly American and British people, you know, probably middle class people educated.
[01:03:10] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[01:03:13] Speaker C: Susan, do you believe death is the end or do you Believe in good glory alleluia style that our souls are gonna go marching on.
[01:03:26] Speaker A: Well, I don't know, but I have an intuition, that's all I can say, because I don't, I won't call it a belief. I'm not much of a believer, but I do have an intuition that some, the energy of some of us remains as some, as some kind of a spiritual force in the universe. We have added something to the human equation, let's say.
And I'm imagining that not all souls leave much of an energy impact and they may even leave some, some of a negative energy impact.
But I don't have a, a cosmology around what happens after, after we die. I, I've read a lot about it, you know, the different levels and so forth. I, I just don't know though.
And I'm, you know, I hear there's a lot of evidence for reincarnation and I, I believe in it just because of that.
But you know, I, because I don't have any even myself, a deep intuition about that. Even though I've had memories of past lives, I actually have.
[01:04:56] Speaker B: But is that the evidence you're talking about? The children who remember incidents and details remember?
[01:05:02] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. Well there's, there's that and there's people who've died and come back and reported and so there's a lot, a lot of evidence.
I don't, I'm, I kind of wouldn't dispute it, you know, because it seems a lot of it is well done research.
But I, I myself don't seem to focus much on the afterlife or what happens there. It's just this style, you know.
[01:05:27] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like we were talking about Matthew Fox. I went to a talk by Matthew Fox and he's a Christian and somebody put the hand up and says, what do you think about the afterlife, Matthew? And he said, once we get this life sorted, then we can think about the afterlife.
[01:05:42] Speaker A: We all have our different, you know. You know, we might be spiritual teachers, but we all have our different personalities and our different flavors that we transmit. So you can see mine is a pragmatic flavor.
[01:05:58] Speaker C: I'll tell you, I have a little sort of fantasy, you know, born, born out of having read a lot of near death experiences, that you go down the tunnel of light and then you meet your old friends and your relationships and, and I kind of thought, well, I'm kind of looking forward to that. If that's going to happen, I'll go down and I'll, you know, and I'LL meet all those people who I used to be fond of and I'll say hi there. You know, that's a little fantasy I have.
[01:06:33] Speaker A: Well, well, Serge, I've sat with a couple people on their deathbed and they have reported, I mean, one of my boyfriend's ex boyfriend's mothers, I was with her and she said she was meeting my mother on the other side because I don't know what's really going on with people on their deathbed, but a lot of times they go in and out and in and out and she said, I just, you know, I just met your mother and we had a talk, you know what I mean? So something goes on that has people believing that thing about all the friends will greet you when you get the end of the tunnel.
[01:07:15] Speaker B: I had a friend who worked as an intensive care nurse and she said that they always knew when people were going to die because they would start talking about relatives and they would say, oh, so and so's here to wait, he's waiting to greet me. And they would know that they were going to die within a few hours.
[01:07:31] Speaker A: Yeah, and who knows what that is. But there's some chemical process that goes on that apparently helps people cross over sometimes, even though for many people it's very hard to cross over because I've been with some of those, they just can't die, but they want to.
But there's, there's these chemical processes that I think like DMT is the molecule that right before death and that creates certain perceptions. You know, like a psychedelic trip creates certain perceptions or allows certain information to come through that was always there but our brains shut it out. Know that's what they say about lsd, for example.
But this deserves further research.
[01:08:26] Speaker C: Yeah, I think. Sorry, Steve, Steve, sorry.
[01:08:31] Speaker B: No, no, you carry on. I was just, I was just going to say that we're moving towards the end of our hour together, but do you want to say something else? Serge?
[01:08:41] Speaker C: I was just, I was actually just going to make the remark that it's interesting about the whole new evolution of psychedelia, of how, of how it's sort of emerging in the world and, and, and it almost seems as if, you know, as humanity is evolving further, we're needing to go down deeper into the shadow. But this is a whole, you know, this is a whole other five hour talk, so we won't get into it now. And I know that you've had some experiences with DMT Mr. 2, which I have as well, so, so, so we share that. Susan.
So Steve.
[01:09:26] Speaker B: Oh, Yeah, I was going to say Susan. We normally end our podcasts with a couple of quick, very quick fire questions.
First one is, who was your most influential teacher? The person or teacher who inspired you most?
[01:09:43] Speaker A: Fritz Pearls.
[01:09:45] Speaker B: What about your most inspired, inspirational or influential book?
[01:09:52] Speaker A: The Master Game by Robert de Ropp.
[01:09:57] Speaker B: I don't know that book. I'll have to look that up.
And what about music? What is your most inspirational piece of music?
[01:10:06] Speaker A: Well, there's a lot there, but I'm thinking of an LSD trip I took when I think Days of Future Past. Is that the. The Pink Floyd.
[01:10:19] Speaker B: Moody. No, Moody Blues.
[01:10:24] Speaker A: One of those. But that just keeps coming back to me. That and my first LSD trip. Mass in B Minor was a choreograph. You know, I did one of those guided. Well, I did three of them guided LSD trips and they choreographed. So Mass and B minor might be something that really is deep. Deep with me.
[01:10:44] Speaker B: And last question, the most beautiful place that you could recommend us to visit.
[01:10:52] Speaker A: Snorkeling in Bora Bora on lsd.
[01:10:56] Speaker B: Wow.
I'll definitely. I will definitely try that.
[01:11:02] Speaker C: Okay. Right. Okay.
[01:11:05] Speaker B: With or without lsd.
[01:11:07] Speaker A: Coral. The coral reefs that used to be in our oceans, that a lot of them have gone now I have those. Those images. And so that makes me sad to remember because most of them are not there anymore.
[01:11:23] Speaker B: Where is Bora Bora?
[01:11:25] Speaker A: It's in the South Pacific, near Tahiti.
[01:11:28] Speaker B: Oh, right. Okay. Beautiful.
[01:11:30] Speaker A: French Polynesia.
[01:11:31] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
Okay. Thank you very much, Susan. It was really beautiful to speak to you. I've learned a lot and it's been very inspiring.
[01:11:41] Speaker C: It's been fantastic to see you again, dear. Susan.
[01:11:44] Speaker A: Yes, thank. Thanks for inviting me. I really enjoyed our conversation.
[01:11:48] Speaker C: It was really nice. Susan will stay in touch.
[01:11:52] Speaker A: Yes. I love that we have stayed in touch years.
[01:11:56] Speaker C: And I just want to say it's really.
That there's something about old friends, friends from the past.
It holds a special kind of link.
You know, I hold a special kind of link because we had a very special coming together.
[01:12:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:12:16] Speaker C: You and Barry and me and Marcus and.
Do you remember?
[01:12:21] Speaker A: Oh, sure.
[01:12:21] Speaker C: Wonderful Institute for the Study of Conscious Evolution. It was so important to me. It was a wonderful thing that we were all part of.
[01:12:31] Speaker B: Beautiful. Thank you, Susan. Thank you, Serge.
[01:12:34] Speaker C: Thank you. Thank you.
Bye, Susan. Bye.
