{"id":19986,"date":"2023-02-22T08:24:14","date_gmt":"2023-02-22T15:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/?post_type=transcript&p=19986"},"modified":"2023-02-22T08:24:14","modified_gmt":"2023-02-22T15:24:14","slug":"intraconnected-discovering-mwe-me-we","status":"publish","type":"transcript","link":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/intraconnected-discovering-mwe-me-we\/","title":{"rendered":"IntraConnected: Discovering MWe (Me + We)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image_print\"Print Transcript<\/span><\/a><\/div>

Tami Simon:<\/b> Hello friends. My name is Tami Simon, and I\u2019m the founder of Sounds True. I want to welcome you to the Sounds True Podcast, <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i>. I also want to take a moment to introduce you to Sounds True\u2019s new membership community and digital platform. It\u2019s called Sounds True One. Sounds True One features original, premium, transformational docuseries, community events, classes to start your day and relax in the evening, special weekly live shows, including a video version of <\/span>Insights at the Edge <\/span><\/i>with an after-show community question-and-answer session with featured guests. I hope you\u2019ll come join us. Explore, come have fun with us, and connect with others. You can learn more at join.soundstrue.com.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I also want to take a moment and introduce you to the Sounds True Foundation, our nonprofit that creates equitable access to transformational tools and teachings. You can learn more at soundstruefoundation.org and, in advance, thank you for your support.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this episode of <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i>, my guest is Dan Siegel. Dan is a friend to me, to Sounds True, and quite honestly, he has the qualities of what I would call a universal friend. He leads with openness, curiosity, and an interest in connecting. Dan is a hugely accomplished person. He\u2019s a graduate of Harvard Medical School and clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine. He\u2019s the executive director of the Mindsight Institute and founding codirector of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. Dan is someone who I would describe as a visionary creative thinker. He\u2019s able to see commonalities in the meeting ground between different disciplines of inquiry. It was in the early 1990s that he developed the field of interpersonal neurobiology.<\/span><\/p>\n

He\u2019s also the author of numerous books including <\/span>The Mindful Brain<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>The Developing Mind<\/span><\/i>, and a new book that\u2019s the subject of our conversation, <\/span>IntraConnected: MWe (Me + We) as the Integration of Self, Identity, and Belonging<\/span><\/i>. Additionally, with Sounds True, Dan Siegel has created an audio series called <\/span>The Neurobiology of We<\/span><\/i>, along with several other audio programs that you can learn more about at soundstrue.com. Now, here\u2019s my conversation MWe-to-MWe with Dan Siegel. Dan, welcome.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dan Siegel:<\/b> Tami, it\u2019s great to be here with you and it\u2019s wonderful to connect in this setting, even though we have our connections in other ways. It\u2019s a beautiful thing. Thank you for having me.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Let\u2019s start with another term that came to you. It\u2019s original to you, <\/span>IntraConnected<\/span><\/i>, the title of your new book. Why did you feel the need to introduce? Tell us the origin story, if you will, of this word, intraconnected.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DS: <\/b>Yes, well, thanks for starting with that, Tami. The number of words we have is huge, so to make a new word is always a big deal because we probably talk too much anyway. We should more be in the experience of being and not filtering everything through language. Back in your home state, in Colorado, I was with some system scientists doing a retreat where we were up in the mountains, in Crestone, in a place actually where people have been meditating, the evidence suggests, for about 20,000 years. In that experience, we were placed within the forest by our individual selves for three days. When we came out, we met in a circle in the forest and everyone was sharing what that experience for those three days was like. My colleagues said some incredibly beautiful things. They felt interconnected with the whole forest. They felt interdependent, interwoven.<\/span><\/p>\n

They used Thich Nhat Hanh\u2019s beautiful term <\/span>interbeing<\/span><\/i>. They felt they were <\/span>interwere<\/span><\/i>. All these inter- terms were being used and then it came my time to speak in the circle. And I really resonated with the feeling that everyone was describing, but the word beginning with inter- just didn\u2019t feel right because the experience for this body, of Dan in that forest, was that after a few hours, the separation of this encapsulated system called a body and the trees and the creek and the sky dissolved away. And there was a kind of wholeness to it. So I was the clouds, I was the creek, I was the trees, I was the body. So, when I was trying to explain this to my colleagues, I said, I don\u2019t even know what to say in English, that there was a connection of the whole that was\u2026 And there was no word. So I said, \u201cOh, I know what the word is, it\u2019s intraconnected.\u201d There was a connectedness within the whole of that fullness of being.<\/span><\/p>\n

Everyone sort of nodded and said, \u201cYes, interconnected, great, whatever.\u201d Then, when we went back to our place we were staying and I had a computer and I wanted to take some notes about what that three-day experience was like, every time I would type, \u201cWell, it was intraconnected,\u201d the word corrector, whatever it\u2019s called, the autocorrector would change it to interconnected. I thought there was a defect in my computer, so I looked it up. There is no word for the connections within the whole, there is no word <\/span>intraconnected<\/span><\/i>. So then, I felt if in English, at least, we don\u2019t have a word that speaks to the connectivity within the whole, how do we actually talk about that or act on behalf of this greater good? So that is how the word was born.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m surprised it isn\u2019t a word, actually. The more I use it, the more I see how useful it is to talk about being the whole of life, for example. How do we speak on behalf of that? How do we feel into that? How do we act on behalf of the benefit for the whole? So that\u2019s where the word comes from.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>No, I think some of these distinctions, they\u2019re nuanced and yet, they have a lot of meaning. So if you were to say right now you and I, we\u2019re interconnected, I feel that.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DS: <\/b>Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>If you were to say we\u2019re intraconnected, what would be the distinctions? What would you be meaning by the interconnected versus the intraconnected?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DS: <\/b>Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>If you were talking about you and me right now.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DS: <\/b>Exactly. So you can live your life by yourself, Tami. I can live my life by my \u201cself,\u201d in quotes around the self. We would say, oh, we\u2019re just independent beings. You\u2019re there, I\u2019m here and that\u2019s fine. Then, when we start communicating with each other, we say, Tami\u2019s there, Dan is here, and there\u2019s a between-ness in our communication, in our respect, in our care for each other. It would be so beautiful to then say, let\u2019s develop our relational connections. Let\u2019s develop our interconnection. And even in different nonprofit organizations I work with, sometimes our mission statement says, \u201cWe want to have people realize the interconnected reality of life on Earth.\u201d For years, working with those organizations, I\u2019ve just felt fine with that, but then when I was in the forest and I realized that even the word interconnected falls short. I think what people really mean is that there is a wholeness to life on Earth.<\/span><\/p>\n

So right now, in terms of the word intraconnected, I would say that there\u2019s a kind of field that connects us\u2014us meaning the body called Tami, the body called Dan, and the body of every human being that\u2019s listening. And within that wholeness then, right in this moment, when I even start to use the word intraconnected, and this may sound maybe too much, but when you feel it, it\u2019s just a feeling of the reality of it, the body called Tami is me. The space between us is me. It doesn\u2019t feel, when you drop the separateness that\u2019s connected\u2014which is what the interconnected word means, two things are connected to each other\u2014when you let go of the entity experience where the entity has a separate quality, that there\u2019s the body, Tami, the body, Dan, this feeling of an identity that\u2019s bigger than the body allows us to feel that the Tami, Dan, and everyone listening experience is a kind of\u2014I mean, we use the term relational field, which sounds kind of maybe too not specific.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a wholeness within the relationality where you no longer speak from the individual parts, but you\u2019re speaking from the wholeness of it all. So the journey you\u2019ve been on to make Sounds True, the journey this body of Dan has been on, about interpersonal neurobiology, in many ways, they\u2019re the same journey. So when you reached out and said, \u201cWould you like to do this experience of a conversation?\u201d The feeling was, humans need this conversation. It isn\u2019t even a conversation between me and you, this is a conversation for our whole human family. So that\u2019s the intraconnected nature when you just look at the system of humanity. Then, when I think about what those trees literally said to me when I was in that forest, those three days, and this is going to sound odd, and I\u2019ve never actually said this so publicly, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever said it, said in that small group, the trees spoke to me and said, \u201cProtect us. You\u2019re in a human body and humans are destroying us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

These are the aspen trees in Colorado way up there. They said, \u201cProtect us.\u201d I was like, whoa. Now, you could say, oh, Dan is just hallucinating. But whatever it is, the feeling was I got a message. It was in English, \u201cProtect us.\u201d Those words and the message in this body was then carried out through the word intraconnected that, yes, I have to act on behalf of. And part of the book, <\/span>IntraConnected<\/span><\/i>, is saying we need to act on behalf of those trees, of the whole system, because we\u2019re too separated. Even with the word interconnected, we\u2019re still here and I\u2019m there and we\u2019re separate. So how do you actually start feeling into the reality of the intraconnected whole? So I don\u2019t know, how does that feel for you?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Well, so the part about the trees talking to you doesn\u2019t sound that weird to me and saying, \u201cProtect us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DS: <\/b>Okay.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>That part made perfect sense.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DS: <\/b>All right.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>I think the place where I had a moment was when you said that body over there\u2014I can\u2019t remember exactly what you said\u2014 it\u2019s my body too. It\u2019s our share, and that\u2019s where I think, well really. When you start talking about the body, especially where people say, \u201cHold on a second. I woke up, I went to the bathroom this morning, Dan wasn\u2019t there with me. This was a private moment that I had.\u201d I\u2019m just using a gross example to be funny. I\u2019m just trying to say, or especially if our body is suffering in some way and your body isn\u2019t, there\u2019s clearly some real distinctions going on between our bodies right now. I have a disease, you don\u2019t, for example, someone might be thinking. So help me understand the intraconnected perspective when it comes to the sense of having a separate body.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DS: <\/b>Yes, absolutely. So one way to think about it is, and this is where the subtitle MWe comes in, where the intraconnected wholeness is not about giving up the differentiated inner experience that as Tami, you have in that body going to the bathroom or that Dan, this body going to the bathroom, having a disease.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>I\u2019m so glad we brought it to this level, Dan.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DS: <\/b>Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DS: <\/b>It was body talk. So we have the reality that you have an inner experience of self and yes, your inner experience is differentiated; it\u2019s distinct, as you\u2019re pointing out, from that of this body. Then, there\u2019s an inter-experience, which is the communication we\u2019re having with each other now and when you put the me of the inner and the we of the inter together as MWe, then you realize, whoa, that\u2019s like the wholeness of it all. So in the forest for example, yes, I had to do what this body needed to do to survive those three days, and the trees were doing what they did with their roots and their leaves. So we had the inner and we had a way of communicating with each other in an inter, and there was the intra, just to introduce that notion that was the wholeness of it all.<\/span><\/p>\n

So that, it wasn\u2019t as if, oh, I heard the trees speaking to me, let me protect them. It was more like their inner experience called out for protection, this body as a human body might be able to do something like continue working for ecological protection, maybe write a book on <\/span>IntraConnection<\/span><\/i>, maybe speak to people about all the things we can do to protect life on Earth, which is related to other things like social injustice that we can get into. So then it was this integration, I would use that word, of differentiating the inner and the inter and bringing them together as the intra. In some ways, it\u2019s like an identity lens where yes, you have an identity lens of inner, that\u2019s Tami and I have it as inner, as Dan. Then there\u2019s the Dan-Tami relationship and then, there\u2019s the Dan-Tami relationship with everyone listening to us right now.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, there\u2019s the wholeness of it all, and I don\u2019t know what words we have in English for that, but the notion of MWe tries to capture that, that we are both an inner and an inter and there\u2019s a wholeness to being the whole system of life.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>I think it\u2019s so important to honor all three, the inner, the inter, and the intra in the way that you\u2019re describing Dan, because I think one of the things that happens is sometimes when there\u2019s this focus on our\u2014I\u2019ll use a word that you don\u2019t use, but people sometimes use\u2014our oneness. There\u2019s a sense of there being an erasure of our uniqueness, of our differences, of our distinctions. There\u2019s something about that that feels offensive in a way, like don\u2019t take away what has come through my biological lineage, that\u2019s unique in my experience, whether that\u2019s of ethnicity or my DNA strands or whatever it might be. So help me understand how we can\u2014and you do this so beautifully in <\/span>IntraConnected<\/span><\/i>\u2014have this deep honoring and respect for what makes us different while at the same time, we\u2019re connecting to what is our intraconnected shared fabric.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DS: <\/b>Yes. Well that\u2019s so great, the way you\u2019re articulating that Tami. In trying to go from that experience in the forest to seeing what might be done through action in the world, I started\u2014because I have this addiction to writing books, I started pursuing how to get these ideas together. I actually assembled a group of about two dozen people from all walks of life to do a pre-book book club to offer insights into what they would like such a book to be, for it to be useful across all these different backgrounds that they had\u2014racial backgrounds, gender identity, sexual orientation, education, culture, age. It was an incredibly diverse group. That input was very important to seeing how to put words to this and then, turning to Indigenous teachings, which in many ways, for thousands of years, have been teaching this, as have contemplative practices for thousands of years independently.<\/span><\/p>\n

When you find a common ground across independent pursuits, E.O. Wilson, the sociobiologist, who passed recently, he names that \u201cconsilience.\u201d So that\u2019s a beautiful term from E.O. Wilson\u2019s bringing back from the 1800s actually, that word, consilience. So the Indigenous teachings from millennia, from thousands of years ago, contemplative teachings, have taught about the oneness of things. Now, in modern times, in science, for example, modern Western-based science, we have the field of anthropology, which might say there\u2019s an individualism within, for example, the United States. Then, there\u2019s collectivism where you lose the individual. And they talk about these two extremes that are studied, and I couldn\u2019t find anything named that was in-between, that said, can you have an honoring within this word \u201coneness\u201d you\u2019re bringing up?<\/span><\/p>\n

Could you have something that was not going full-on collectivistic and getting rid of individualism, versus individualism that said do it on your own? That\u2019s kind of where the MWe word came from. I had been giving talks saying, me to we, which rhymes, so I kind of thought that was fun. One of my students who is from the Lakota tribe, she said, \u201cThat\u2019s offensive. Me to we, even though you\u2019re telling us we should know our history, our lineage, our personal history and attachment, we should be in our bodies aware of our bodies. That\u2019s all me.\u201d I said, \u201cYes.\u201d She goes, \u201cBut your title is me to we, and that phrase implies get rid of the me.\u201d I said, \u201cYou are absolutely right.\u201d She said, \u201cWell come up with something else.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So I said, \u201cOK, not only me, but in addition the collective we.\u201d She goes, \u201cThat\u2019s too clunky.\u201d So I said, \u201cOK, well if you integrate something, you honor differences and you promote linkages, yet in the linking you don\u2019t lose the differentiation. So I guess you would say me is real and we is real, so something like, I don\u2019t know, MWe.\u201d She goes, \u201cThat\u2019s it.\u201d So that\u2019s when I started using the word MWe and it\u2019s been\u2014and I don\u2019t know if this is what you were feeling, Tami, but it\u2019s been a kind of liberating linguistic term, MWe and intraconnected, that say something\u2014we don\u2019t have to choose between oneness and individuality. You actually can have both. In some ways, it connects to what in contemplative teachings, especially in Buddhism, people talk about relativistic versus universal. And there\u2019s some interesting science, consilience, that might help us understand that in other ways too, so that you don\u2019t have to have either one.<\/span><\/p>\n

Intraconnected, in a way, tells you you\u2019re inner, you\u2019re inner and there\u2019s a wholeness to it all. So you don\u2019t have to choose. You can integrate, meaning you differentiate the inner and the inter and even the wholeness of it all, and it\u2019s all important, but they\u2019re distinct and you can bring them together.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Tell me more about linkage. In the book, you talk about linkage as an expression, we could say, or a form of love. So how does linkage integrate all of these distinctions and act as an activity of love?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DS: <\/b>Yes, exactly. I mean the parenthetic, brief story about linkage being love, and this won\u2019t sound maybe weird to you, but when it happened to me, it was unusual and I was kind of surprised. But I have this clinical practice, I have a practice as a therapist and two consilient ideas had come up. One was that integration, the honoring of differences, the promoting of linkages might be the basis of well-being. The second consilient idea was that for intentional change, we needed consciousness. So then I said, well, what if you actually brought those two together, what if you integrated consciousness? So then I had people differentiate the different elements of consciousness, like the knowns of your senses that bring in the outside world or your bodily sense that brings in the inside world or your thoughts and emotions and memories, things like that, and even your sense of relationality. What if you differentiate those from each other?<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, you link them by moving this spoke of attention in this wheel metaphor, you move it around the rim and even ultimately bend it into the hub, which represents the knowing of awareness. So my patients in therapy started getting better. They started getting less anxiety. If they were mildly to moderately depressed, they started getting better. They started really feeling a kind of empowerment in their lives. If they were facing terminal illness, unfortunately, and having a panic about that, it could help them come to peace about dying, and it was really freaky for me. Like, whoa, I don\u2019t know what\u2019s exactly happening. So I thought maybe it\u2019s just some quirky thing of my belief in it, or I don\u2019t know. So I started teaching it to my students who were therapists. They started finding positive effects for themselves and their personal lives and for their clients.<\/span><\/p>\n

So then I started doing it in workshops and before the COVID-19 pandemic, I did it with 50,000 people in person. And because I\u2019m a scientist, I would pass the microphone around in workshops and say, \u201cWhat was that like for you?\u201d Here\u2019s the linking and love connection, when people would bend that spoke around, this part of the practice, into the hub, all around the world, whether they had never meditated before in their lives or were teachers of meditation, when they would bend the spoke into the hub, a very common statement was, \u201cI\u2019m connected, I\u2019m linked to everything and everyone here and I\u2019m filled with love.\u201d They would also say a phrase, \u201cIt\u2019s empty but full.\u201d And if I get the chance to ask them, \u201cWell, what does that mean, empty but full?\u201d They go, \u201cI have no idea what it means. It\u2019s just what it feels like.\u201d Love, this open awareness, and this connection. Then, I started wondering if this universal experience\u2014that is, I did this on every continent on Earth except Antarctica, where people would say in the hub of that wheel was love and connection.<\/span><\/p>\n

Connection being a synonym for linking. Then, I started wondering, wow, maybe there\u2019s something about the way\u2014and this can get kind of abstract so I don\u2019t want to get abstract, but the way energy flow can be understood from a scientific point of view, can give us some insights, which I\u2019m happy to go into. But the bottom line is when you study the science of energy, energy can be seen in large accumulations we call matter. Then, there\u2019s a lot of separation, both in time and space, but when you come to small elements, units of energy like electrons or photons, there are no longer these noun-like entities of separation, but there\u2019s massive linkage and things are more like verbs. They\u2019re unfolding processes with tremendous amount of connection, of linkage. I think the hub of that wheel, as a metaphor, is actually tapping into this microstate of science.<\/span><\/p>\n

Physicists would call it a quantum realm. There\u2019s two realms we live in. This microstate quantum realm is where this massive linkage and that in the workshops, these 50,000 people, those who spoke up, would talk about that linkage of love in the hub. So just as a scientist, what was shocking and kind of freaked me out was going, if I\u2019m going to be true to being a scientist, where you doubt everything, you question everything, but you look at what the data is, it looks like pure awareness, linkage, and love are all part of the same fabric of reality. To be a scientist is to doubt everything and be super careful about ever saying you think something is true. So what I\u2019m saying is just a lot of questions and a lot of question marks like linkage\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Dan, let me make sure that people who are hearing about this Wheel of Awareness practice that you did all over the world with so many different people actually understand the practice. So is there a way you could just briefly, you mentioned it, but help us enter right now that sense of being in the hub?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DS: <\/b>Yes, well, I mean the best way to be in the hub is to do what I do every morning, is to do the wheels of practice. That would take half of our time, but I\u2019ll just say that\u2014let me describe what it is and maybe you could get a feeling for it just in the description. Imagine a wheel where there\u2019s an outer rim and there\u2019s a center hub. It\u2019s actually a table in our office, and imagine a singular spoke, and this is a metaphor. So there is an actual table, but we\u2019re just going to use the image of a wheel as a metaphor for what consciousness is about. The simplest way of looking at consciousness is that you have two things at a minimum in consciousness, you have the experience of the knowns of consciousness, the things you\u2019re aware of, and then the knowing which is awareness. So when we talk about the word consciousness, it involves both the knowing and the knowns. The knowing, being awareness. The knowns being the thing you\u2019re aware of.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, if you start with the thing you\u2019re aware of, we\u2019re going to put them spatially, in our metaphor, on the rim. And we\u2019ll divide the rim into four parts. I think they\u2019re about energy flow patterns. So I\u2019ll just phrase it that way. This is one hypothesis, but in the first segment of the rim are energy from outside of the body you\u2019re in. So this would be what you see with your eyes, that\u2019s photons. What you hear with your ears, that\u2019s the movement of air molecules that are hitting your eardrum. There\u2019s smell, that is, odors that you pick up, which is chemical energy. There\u2019s taste, which is chemical energy on your tongue and also your nose. Then there\u2019s touch, which is kinetic energy on your skin. So all of those are energy flow from outside the body and they\u2019re the things that are the knowns.<\/span><\/p>\n

So you move the spoke to each one of those, you differentiate them, take a deep breath. You move the spoke over to the second segment, and this is a segment where you explore energy from inside the body. So what does that mean? It\u2019s the sensations of muscles and bones. It\u2019s the sensations of genitals. It\u2019s the sensations of organs, like your intestines or your lungs or your heart. One by one, we differentiate all of these elements on the second segment of the rim from each other. Then you take a deep breath after you\u2019ve brought in all the signals from the body, whatever is coming and then, you go to the third segment, and this would be what we might call mental activities. Even though it\u2019s all mental activities, this is probably the head brain because you have a brain around your heart and a brain around your intestine, which we just explored.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this third segment, it\u2019s probably mostly in the head, but it\u2019s things like emotions, which come from body signals as they\u2019re interpreted by the head brain\u2014your thoughts, your memories, your hopes, your dreams, your longings, desires, beliefs, attitudes, all that stuff would call mental activities. In the first two segments, we did focus, attention.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here, in the third segment, we shift to another pillar of mind training, if you will, where you\u2019re opening awareness. You just say, bring it on. What\u2019s in here? The fascinating finding is that when people say, bring it on, come on\u2014even though when you do a breath awareness practice and a distraction like a memory comes up, you are intentionally letting the distraction go and return to the breath. Here you\u2019re saying bring it on, and for many people who are bombarded by a monkey-mind chatter now, things get really quiet when they say bring it on. So it\u2019s really fascinating, but there, what you\u2019re asking people to do is just be aware of those mental activities. Then, to actually study them\u2014how they first present to awareness, stay present, and leave awareness\u2014and if they\u2019re not just replaced by another mental activity, what does the gap feel like between two mental activities? We\u2019ll talk about that gap in a moment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, one of my clients said, \u201cCan I bend the spoke?\u201d I go, \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d This is when I was first doing it back in the late 90s. She said, \u201cCan I bend the spoke?\u201d I said, \u201cWhy would you bend the spoke?\u201d She goes, \u201cI want to see what\u2019s in the hub.\u201d So I said, \u201cWell, OK,\u201d because we hadn\u2019t done that initially when I was trying this out with my patients. So she bends the spoke around and that was the first time, and I wasn\u2019t a meditator. I was just doing this like a reflective integration of consciousness practice. She said, \u201cWhoa.\u201d And she felt this incredible love. She was crying and it was just my patient, so I thought, OK, this is something unusual. She\u2019s bending this spoke, what an interesting idea.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After doing it with thousands of people, and this is the common experience, and I certainly get it when I do it every morning, there\u2019s a feeling like you\u2019ve entered a different realm, almost like you can walk on the land and that\u2019s one realm.<\/span><\/p>\n

You jump into a lake and the properties of swimming in a lake are just different from the properties of walking on the land. No one freaks out that you have two realms of water and land. This is something that physicists are telling us. We have two realms in one reality. We have the macro state realm of the body, large things like molecules or an apple falling from the tree like Newton studied or planets, these large objects and they are now like entities, but then there\u2019s this realm of small things. Anyway, so there was like, she had this experience and then people\u2014I made that a part of the routine, to bend the spoke around into the hub or just let go of the spoke and just be in the hub. Then, when you straighten the spoke out and go to the fourth segment, that\u2019s your relational connection.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So people you know, your spouse, your friends, your colleagues, your people who live in your community, people in your city, your state, your country, all of humanity, all living beings. Then, I presented this to Richie Davidson\u2019s lab up in Wisconsin, they were so excited about this practice. And they said, \u201cWell, why don\u2019t you do lovingkindness statements?\u201d I said, \u201cThis is just a science practice. There\u2019s no evidence that shows that that helps.\u201d They go, \u201cWe have the first study to show lovingkindness, metta, practices help, and it integrates the brain, and this was an integration practice.\u201d So I said, \u201cOK.\u201d Then Barb Fredrickson, she found the same thing. So I put some lovingkindness statements inspired by Sharon Salzberg right in there, because they were science-based.<\/span><\/p>\n

So then you end the whole thing with lovingkindness statements for all living beings to the inner me and then, I got in MWe. So you end the whole practice with MWe. And I was so happy because I couldn\u2019t figure out how do I get MWe in here. But it ends with lovingkindness statements to MWus. And that\u2019s the practice and it\u2019s amazing, but it has the three pillars that research shows have all sorts of positive effects of improving immune system function, lowering stress, optimizing cardiovascular function, reducing inflammation by changing epigenetic controls, and even optimizing an enzyme, telomerase, that repairs and maintains ends of chromosomes. The bottom line of all that is it\u2019s really healthy for your body to the three pillar practices: focused attention, opening awareness, and building kind intention.<\/span><\/p>\n

So it turns out the wheel just has all three and you get this opportunity to explore things. In addition, you integrate your brain. You literally change the structure and function of the brain with three-pillar practice. So I do it every day, and when I sent the manuscript for the first book, <\/span>Aware<\/span><\/i>, about this, Elissa Epel had written the book with Elizabeth Blackburn, who got the Nobel Prize for discovering the telomeres and the telomerase that\u2019s optimized. What they said to me when Elissa wrote to me in particular was, \u201cYou need to say in your book three-pillar practice, like the wheel slows the aging process.\u201d I said, \u201cThat\u2019s audacious.\u201d She goes, \u201cWe\u2019ve proven it. Elizabeth got the Nobel Prize for showing it. You\u2019ve got to say it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So I had to add that audacious comment, that when you do this meditative practice, three-pillar practice, it actually slows the aging process.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Now, in terms of connecting the practice, the Wheel of Awareness, with how we come to know who we are ourself, how we come to say \u201cI am inner-, inter-, and intraconnected,\u201d can you make that more explicit for me, how the practice maps onto that?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DS: <\/b>Absolutely. Well, when people go through the <\/span>IntraConnected<\/span><\/i> book, which is both about conceptual knowing, called noesis, and also experiential knowing called gnosis, G-N-O-S-I-S, what I wanted to do was to have it be a journey. So I invite the reader to actually do the wheel practice. So I\u2019m really glad you\u2019re asking about this, as well as these nine domains of integration you explore. What people have shared with me, and I was hoping this might be the case, was that by combining conceptual knowing, these ideas we\u2019re talking about, with the experience of\u2014and I\u2019ll say this in a way, you\u2019re going to have to help me, Tami, because I can get kind of abstract. It\u2019s just kind of how my mind works, but I think what happens is we\u2019re born into a body for lots of reasons.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Life is hard and we really are driven for certainty because we have predictive brains. Basically, if we can be certain of what\u2019s going to happen next, we\u2019re more likely to survive. So because we live in a body, which is in this macro state realm of noun-like entities, of separation, we have an identity as an entity to give us certainty, but Rasheed, the artist whose quote is on the Brooklyn Public Library, it says, \u201cHaving discovered the flimsy fantasy of certainty, I decided to wander.\u201d So a lot of us don\u2019t wander. And in many ways, Sounds True, I think, is an incredible gift you\u2019re giving to the world because you\u2019re saying, look, there\u2019s a journey of wandering past what modern culture tells us is what reality is. There\u2019s something more, there\u2019s different voices, but it\u2019s one journey, as you beautifully say.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think what Sounds True is really doing is\u2014and this can be totally wrong\u2014but I think it\u2019s asking us to relax that flimsy fantasy of certainty that Rasheed talks about, to allow us to go from the certainty of the macro state realm of being in a body, of separation\u2014there\u2019s Tami there, there\u2019s Dan here, there\u2019s whatever your name is, in your body that\u2019s listening\u2014to then dip a toe perhaps into this other realm. Because what happens in that other realm is there are no nouns, there are only verbs. The Nobel Prize was given just recently for the establishment from physics, that what\u2019s called non-locality is a real thing that is in the quantum realm, these microstates. So it doesn\u2019t have to be something weird, but in the microstate realm, what in the Newtonian macrostate world we say are separation of noun-like entities, separating time, separating space.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the quantum realm, that is not happening, and I could talk to you about the science, if you want to know about that. But when we dip our toe into that, even for a brief glimpse in the wheel practice, you can drop into that hub, which I think is the quantum realm, pure awareness. And I think there\u2019s lots of meditative practices that offer it. The wheel just offers a really clear metaphor. Here\u2019s the hub, here\u2019s the rim. They\u2019re distinct, which I think they are, and we have a macrostate realm on the rim where we think we\u2019re all separated. So if you do the practice of the wheel, what it gives you experientially is a feeling of how deeply connected we are.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So we had a beautiful Congressman Elijah Cummings, who was an African American congressman from Baltimore. Elijah reached out to me and said, \u201cWe\u2019re having a lot of murders in Baltimore. Can you come to Baltimore and do some work with people who are really not able to talk to each other?\u201d So I said, \u201cI\u2019ll do it.\u201d So I came and Elijah and I did a meeting of Black individuals and White individuals who had never sat in the room together before we got started. When people were just gathering, you could feel the tension. It was really painful. I do the Wheel of Awareness practice in the room with people who never meditated before in their lives, and I had done this in parliament, in Congress and all sorts of other places where I had similar effects, so I felt like this was a good thing to do in that setting, places of a lot of tension.<\/span><\/p>\n

After people bent the spoke around into the hub and they came out of the practice, they started talking about how before they did the practice, they saw their separation and they didn\u2019t feel like there was anything going to happen, but now, they could feel as they looked to the person of the other race that in fact, they were each other, they would use phrases like that, Tami. And Elijah was going, \u201cWhat did you just do?\u201d I said, \u201cI didn\u2019t do anything. I just gave them an opportunity to drop into the awareness that knows the truth of our connections.\u201d I didn\u2019t have the word intraconnected back then. So, the people in the room and Elijah Cummings was like going, \u201cThis is magic.\u201d I said, \u201cIt\u2019s not magic.\u201d It\u2019s a meditation practice that allows you to go on that journey and then, you quickly pop back out into your body, so they could leave and forget this.<\/span><\/p>\n

Experientially, they know it\u2019s true and in the <\/span>IntraConnected<\/span><\/i> book, the reason I invite the reader to do the wheel is because you can have any author, blah, blah, blah, tell you all sorts of things, and that\u2019s the limitation of a book versus like\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Sure, sure.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DS: <\/b>So I wanted them to have the experience, so that\u2019s the overlap. I think when you\u2014even though I know people may find it abstract, I had to put it into the book because to really answer your question, which I try to do in the book, we need to understand why most human beings start with the experience of separation. I go through the developmental period from infancy on to adulthood and looking at these things in modern culture that reinforce separation, but then seeing those moments across the lifespan, infancy, toddlerhood, elementary school, primary school, adolescence, adulthood. I say, look, those are opportunities to make a difference in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Now Dan, I want to ask you about something you said. You mentioned that it\u2019s our investment and certainty, in your view, that is one of the main factors that keeps us locked into this sense of identifying with separation, you call it in <\/span>IntraConnected<\/span><\/i>, the solo self. We want to feel certain. I\u2019m curious what you think about this, because when I think of the investment in being separate, I think of something like a need to survive, like just the part of me that wants to make sure that I, the body, survive here. So that\u2019s not really so much about certainty as it is like a survival drive. What do you think about that?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DS: <\/b>Yes. First of all, I\u2019ve just got to say this too, Tami, I love your mind. It\u2019s so wonderful the way you think so deeply about things and see the clarity that is needed for us to go forward. So thank you, it\u2019s such a joy to be with you. What I think about that is when you look\u2014and I\u2019m trying to parse through the different angles to approach this great question. When you look at, let\u2019s say the cortex, the higher part of the human brain. People call that an anticipation machine, meaning it is always trying to anticipate what is happening next. And the way it does that is it seeks out patterns. The feeling of seeing a pattern is, I can know with some degree of certainty what is going to happen next. So in our cortex, in a way, we\u2019re always living a step ahead of the present moment.<\/span><\/p>\n

And it\u2019s part of, I think the beauty of mindfulness is to try to get before that anticipatory brain. Now, the way the brain also works is it learns from experience, this cortex. So, the way it, number one, detects a pattern so it can know certainty, it then creates what are called top-down filters. So it says, \u201cOkay, I know there\u2019s a dog barking. I know it\u2019s a dog. I know how a dog behaves. I know I could be careful, if it\u2019s a wild dog, or not worry about it. So I\u2019m going to put a filter on that bark so I don\u2019t have to go, oh my God, amazing. It\u2019s just a bark. No.\u201d So through the top-down experience, I filter things through this lens of certainty so I can be certain, I know how a dog behaves, I\u2019m going to survive. So certainty is the method of survival.<\/span><\/p>\n

So you\u2019re absolutely right. It\u2019s about how do I, as a little baby, a toddler, a person at primary school, how am I going to survive? And I think part of why we need a journey towards, we could use the word spiritual for this larger sense of connection or personal transformation, whatever words we use for it, the reason we need it is that if, in modern culture, beginning with your parents and your teachers and your peers in school and then out in society, and the messages we get at work, and all of them are messages of the solo self that is about separation. The illusion of that is, oh yes, I\u2019m entity. This entity is defining features that have certainty to it. So who I am in this identity, the features that define me is this body.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I only put it in the body, and I use this acronym SPA, that the sensations, the S, the perspective, the P, and the agency of my selfhood is just about this body, it gives me some kind of certainty. When we expand that to realize, and my dear friend and colleague, Joanna Macy, Joanna beautifully talks about world is self and world is lover. In many ways, in writing this book and being close to Joanna, her inspiration for this body of Dan was, how do we actually allow people to relax that drive for certainty, which is a drive for survival? Because ironically\u2014and this gets, I think, to the incredibly urgent importance of your question, Tami. The more\u2014what people call them\u2014the threats we have in the world of increasing social injustice and racism, of the polarization and misinformation, of the way people are addicted to screens, the loneliness people experience, and environmental destruction.<\/span><\/p>\n

In many ways, you can call all those pandemics. They\u2019re all around the world now. The viral pandemic, of course, another pandemic. All these things we could experience as threats. What the brain does with a threat is it closes down to try to achieve more certainty saying, who\u2019s in the ingroup versus who\u2019s in the outgroup? I want to keep the outgroup away from me, and if you\u2019re in my ingroup, I\u2019ll treat you with more kindness and care, but if you\u2019re in the outgroup, I\u2019m going to get rid of you in any way I need to. I think we\u2019re seeing that on the planet now. So never before\u2014well, I don\u2019t want to say that. But now, we need in an intense way, maybe it\u2019s happened before too. We need it in a very intense way to say, the natural reflex for certainty, for survival, is for separation.<\/span><\/p>\n

We get this feeling of a lack of abundance, and then we constrict ourselves. Now we need, ironically, to actually even more go towards the deeply connected nature of our lives, because all of these pandemics, in some ways, you could say are either worsened by or even caused by the lie that our identity is only in the body, the solo self. So, writing this book, I knew it wasn\u2019t going to be the popular book on the corner because it\u2019s a hard request to say, even in the face of threat, let\u2019s try to open up so that the quote \u201cingroup\u201d becomes all of life, and maybe the outgroup becomes threats to well-being. So that when I said to Joanna, because she was saying a lot of the people she works with are burning out because they\u2019re caring about the world and the world is in a tough place.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I said to Joanna, because I have a dance background, I said, if the human brain is in a threat mindset, it\u2019s going to burn out with fighting or fleeing or freezing or fainting, these four Fs of the threat state . And it\u2019s OK for a few minutes or maybe a few hours, but you can\u2019t sustain it for weeks and months and years. So what if we supported people, and this was the whole idea of the book in many ways, to go, OK, I can shift my mind to a challenge mindset. And instead of being driven for the certainty for survival, yeah, I can be about survival, but I see the bigger picture and I take on these issues of the world as challenges, not as threats, and then see them as dance partners. I wake up in the morning and I\u2019ve been doing this myself, this phrase, what is the dance partner today? What\u2019s the music of today?<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead of seeing all these things that are happening that you say are horrible, and I\u2019m helpless and \u201cOh my God, it\u2019s terrible, terrible.\u201d We can understand why people do that\u2014because things are hard. But you can actually see them as challenges and see it as a dance that we take part in. Joanna was super excited about that, and that\u2019s my hope of the gift of the book is to say, you know something, this is hard stuff. Here\u2019s the abstract view of probably what it\u2019s about, is we\u2019re going Newtonian separation noun entities. So we want certainty for survival, but actually what we need to do to survive as life on Earth, is realize how deeply connected we all are.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>OK, let me ask you a practical question, which is the person who says, when I\u2019m in a protected, peaceful place, maybe I\u2019m taking a walk, I can feel the intraconnection, I can turn the spoke around. I can rest in the center of that empty hub, the empty wheel. I can rest there. Life is filled with potential. But when I feel scared, when I feel worried, when I feel the sense of threat, that\u2019s not where I am. That\u2019s not where I am. I actually experience myself contracting and I\u2019m in a self-preservation mode. Come on, I bet Dan gets into self-preservation states too, and all of these great spiritual teachers, if you took a bunch of their money away, or if they had a bunch of people close to them who were ill, they might get contracted and feel the kind of threat that I feel, what do we do then?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DS: <\/b>Yes, absolutely. Everyone is human and we can go on automatic pilot like that. There\u2019s a story to address the question you\u2019re raising, Tami, it\u2019s a little painful, but I think it\u2019s important if I can share it with you.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Let\u2019s do it. Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DS: <\/b>So if this starts to trigger something in you listening to Tami and me as I share this story, please take care of yourself. And because we\u2019re facing so many difficult things, and Tami\u2019s question, your question is so important, and it\u2019s ultimate question because if we keep on going into survival restriction mode, we\u2019re not going to make it. It\u2019s going to be a serious, serious problem on Earth. So here\u2019s the story. I was teaching at a workshop and we\u2019re doing the Wheel of Awareness practice just as a sidelight. One of the researchers who was teaching with me, Dacher Keltner, gave the mystical experiences scale. When people came out of the wheel, when they got into the hub, and he got scores similar to as if people were on psilocybin, what people would do in research studies of psychedelics where they were feeling open and connecting and stuff like that.<\/span><\/p>\n

So we were all kind of in that and then, one of the participants raised his hand and he goes, I have a story I want to share with you. And I\u2019ll change a couple things for his own privacy, but he says, my two adolescent daughters, I had this terrible thing happen and people thought I had lost my mind. So, they said, dad\u2014they read my book <\/span>Brainstorm<\/span><\/i>, for adolescence. And they said, you have to go to hear this guy Dan Siegel speak at this workshop. So he came to the whole workshop, he\u2019s not like a workshop-goer. He shares the following story. He was in a certain setting with a friend and someone came up to them and in front of him, his friend was murdered with a knife and then, the murderer turned to him and was murdering him, stabbing him in his neck.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was terrible, terrible, terrible. The next thing we know in the story as he\u2019s telling it, is he\u2019s waking up in the hospital and they\u2019re doing surgery on him and he survives. He is in this kind of peaceful state and people think he\u2019s lost his mind. Why would he be peaceful after he\u2019s been attacked like this? So he\u2019s at home and his daughters then say, \u201cHey dad …\u201d something happened, which I\u2019ll tell you in a moment, \u201cYou need to go to this workshop.\u201d Right before he came to the workshop, he was asked by the person who was arrested and now was on death row\u2014I guess he was getting ready for a trial, it\u2019s a long story. Anyway, he\u2019s in prison and he asked to see this person he had stabbed. So this guy agrees to go and he goes. He\u2019s with his friend\u2019s murderer and his attacker. The guy goes, \u201cI just need to know what happened.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So the workshop participant says to the attacker, \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d The prisoner, he says, \u201cI killed your friend right in front of you, and then, I was killing you and you looked at me with such beautiful, loving eyes. I felt so connected to you.\u201d The prisoner says, \u201cI felt so much love coming from you, I couldn\u2019t kill you, so I didn\u2019t. But I need to know what happened.\u201d And the guy goes, \u201cThat\u2019s just how I felt.\u201d As he\u2019s telling us this in the workshop, he then says, \u201cNow I understand why my daughters sent me here to the workshop. That hub is where I went in this horrible experience.\u201d That\u2019s exactly when I bent the spoke around just a few minutes ago in the wheel practice. That\u2019s exactly where I was full of love, full of connection, full of this open awareness.<\/span><\/p>\n

He goes, now I know, I didn\u2019t lose my mind, I found my mind. Well, everyone hearing this is going, oh my gosh. And we all went out, because it\u2019s a retreat, we were living together, we all went for food together and talking about stuff. We\u2019re just chatting about it, but the hub, which is a metaphor for I think what I call the plane of possibility, this generator of diversity, this quantum state\u2014from the science point of view, that\u2019s what it is. But from the experiential point of view, to address your question. Sure, we can all go into reactive mode, fight, flight, freeze, and faint for sure. Sometimes we need to do that to deal with whatever is going on. This story, this is a true story of this event that happened, is I think also a metaphor for as life is happening and things seem like they\u2019re murdering us, we need to go to that place, that hub.<\/span><\/p>\n

We need to find a way to come from this place of love, so that we dance with what\u2019s going on. In many ways, you could say that\u2019s how he danced. He saw his assailant as a dance partner in that moment and just looked at him with linkage and love and that transformed the whole outcome. I think it\u2019s the same thing with what\u2019s going on now with racism. It\u2019s certainly what Elijah Cummings and I experienced in that room. When you look at environmental destruction, when we separate ourselves as a species out from living beings, we\u2019re using Earth like a trash can. So in all these ways, while it is an understandable automatic way, so your hypothetical questioner said, \u201cI\u2019ll bet Dan does this too.\u201d Of course I do, because I\u2019m living in a human body that has the fight, flight, freeze, and faint reactions to threat.<\/span><\/p>\n

So part of the challenge is, I know we can do it as a human species, the bigger question is, will we raise our consciousness enough? I think at Sounds True, you have all sorts of pathways to do this. Joanna Macy has for decades been saying, we need a quantum change in consciousness. So what she was so amused about, about reading <\/span>IntraConnected<\/span><\/i>, was literally, this is the quantum change. Not just using that quantum word like, oh, it\u2019s a big change, but it\u2019s saying, I dropped beneath the noun-like separation of the Newtonian macrostate world and in reflective practices, I access this space of love. It\u2019s as if the tapestry of reality is of love and connection. So that\u2019s where this guy who was attacked teaches us, that it\u2019s possible if you\u2019re being murdered and that\u2019s where you go, and he wasn\u2019t the meditator.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s literally\u2014and I think you\u2019ve said this so long, Tami, in such beautiful ways. This is literally in each of us. So there\u2019s something you\u2019d call pervasive leadership. Each of us has the capacity to tap into that hub, to go into that spaciousness, and what emerges is our deep intraconnected nature, and this is where\u2014I know we don\u2019t want to create new words unless we have to, but in this sense and at least in English\u2014and I haven\u2019t found in any other language by the way. I keep on asking when I go around in different countries. Talking about the connectivity within the whole, from the sensation, S, the perspective, the P, and agency of the whole, that\u2019s I think where human cultural evolution needs to move. I really think we can do this. The question is will we, and I\u2019m hopeful we will if we have the right tools that are tools of the mind, and I think that MWe can do this.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Dan, sometimes when people interview me, when the tables are turned, they ask me this question that I never know how to answer, so I\u2019m going to ask it to you. They say, \u201cOK, who are you, Tami? Tell us who are you?\u201d I\u2019m like, oh God, really? I don\u2019t know how to answer that. So many different layers or dimensions or ways to answer a question like that. How do you answer that question, if I say to you, who are you, Dan Siegel?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DS: <\/b>If I wanted to be simple and direct, I would say I\u2019m energy. This energy takes many forms. It\u2019s taking place in that body called Tami. It\u2019s taking place now in the space of this conversation and anyone listening, it\u2019s taking place in this body called Dan and the eye of sensation, perspective and agency that\u2019s saying, what\u2019s our identity, it\u2019s energy. It\u2019s raining here. I can see the plants. I\u2019ve got a dog here. I\u2019m energy, and that\u2019s actually how it feels. In that energy is the linkage that is love. So it would be equally simple and equally real to say that I am loved. I say that as a scientist, Tami, I\u2019m saying it\u2014and you know, I was close friends with John, John O\u2019Donohue. We would teach together and even though his background was different as a philosopher and Catholic priest and poet and mystic, we would teach together.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Even this book we were writing together was really about love. It was about transforming our ways of being on Earth in this deeply linking way, and we did it from these different perspectives, but we could teach\u2014you would bring up homes and bring up things from Irish mysticism. I would say to John, \u201cWell, what does it mean to be a mystic?\u201d He goes, it was someone who believes in the reality of the invisible. I said to John, I said, \u201cWell, I\u2019m trained as a scientist and if I\u2019m going to be true to being a scientist, I do know that the invisible is a part of reality because the human eyes can only see so much.\u201d So part of what we don\u2019t see, and certainly Michael Faraday in the 1800s saw it as electromagnetic fields, just to stay with energy.<\/span><\/p>\n

By feeling this identity as energy, we can see it takes different manifestations. It condenses into matter, it manifests as love. It is the linkage among us. Even when my father was dying, Tami\u2014and he was a mechanical engineer, steeped in Newtonian views of reality\u2014and believe me, he didn\u2019t show mindsight or anything like that, my whole life. When he was dying, he said\u2014it\u2019s unusual for him to ask me a question. Actually he said, \u201cWhere am I going when I die?\u201d And I said, \u201cI don\u2019t know, Dad. I don\u2019t know where you\u2019re going.\u201d He goes, \u201cNo, no, no. You probably have an idea about it,\u201d and I thought\u2014because he was a big yeller, he was going to yell at me right before he died, so I thought, I don\u2019t want to get into this. So I said, \u201cI really don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He goes, \u201cWell, just give me your view.\u201d I said, \u201cOkay, well, before you were conceived, all there was, was potentiality.\u201d Of all the eggs in the world and all the sperm in the world, there were just huge potentiality, massive uncertainty in this open space, this place and then, one sperm and one egg got together and they formed the unique individual that you are, which given his personality like that phrase, you\u2019re unique. And I said, \u201cSo then you get in this manifestation from possibility to actuality about a century to live in this actuality of this body.\u201d I said, so my sense, I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s right or wrong, but my sense of what happens when the body is done with its century of being in its actualization as a manifestation of energy, it\u2019s going to dissolve back into this sea of potentials, this plane of possibility.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t know my work at all, but that\u2019s what I was thinking about, this space. So I said, \u201cThat\u2019s where you\u2019re going. You\u2019re going possibly to exactly where you were before you were conceived.\u201d Well before I was speaking, his face was very caught and he was very nervous and terrified of dying. He was very close to the end and his face completely relaxed. He said, \u201cThat makes me feel so peaceful. Thank you.\u201d I got to say this question you\u2019re asking me of who are you, by going into this long journey, and <\/span>IntraConnected<\/span><\/i> is kind of the, I think, the word-based articulation in a book as best I can of this journey, of that identity, to say collectively, if we started feeling into that in the deep, rigorous way of using the word energy, then we can understand things even like death.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I know for me, this body of Dan will only have so many years, like all of our bodies, and it\u2019s changed my emotional experience and meaning of considering dying. Or my mom is 93 and getting near the end. That feeling in this body of Dan and the connection with her is just different with this intraconnected sensibility of things. So anyway, that\u2019s what I would say. I am energy.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>And a few times, you\u2019ve emphasized this notion of not experiencing ourselves as a noun, but instead in our verb-like nature. And it\u2019s interesting, because energy of course is in motion. It\u2019s izzying or something. What does that mean to you to be in the verb state?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DS: <\/b>Yes, Yes. Exactly. Well, as Einstein said, \u201cEnergy equals mass time speed of light squared.\u201d All that means really is that mass, like this cup or this body, your body, my body, they\u2019re condensed energy. So energy is really what\u2019s called a probability field, what that means is that when it\u2019s condensed, it\u2019s creating this experience, we would call with some degree of certainty. This cup is here, I pull it down, this cup is still here. Well, like that, but it\u2019s a cup. In contrast, when energy has not condensed into matter, it is this moving dynamic thing. It\u2019s still energy. What that means is that in a body, which is a noun-like entity, we can start having our minds, including our awareness, start to be tricked into thinking it has the certainty of matter.<\/span><\/p>\n

That what matters in a sense, using that English mixed term, what matters is just certainty and stuff like that. When you drop into the verb-like unfolding and the massive connection of these verb-like events, then the question you asked earlier of, who are you? And now you\u2019re asking for more specific refinement, that if you say your energy and it\u2019s a verb-like\u2014well, I think what does that feel like? What does that mean? In a way, what it\u2019s doing is saying, wow, my awareness begins in this quantum state of massive connection. I\u2019m aware that there\u2019s a body called Dan that this awareness is in that has this certainty, momentarily anyway, in what in Newtonian terms we would call space and time. In the quantum realm, Tami, space and time as dimensions don\u2019t exist, for all sorts of fascinating reasons. So it\u2019s a totally different thing.<\/span><\/p>\n

So in doing the Wheel of Awareness, for example, that\u2019s the practice I do every morning. When I come out of it, there\u2019s a feeling and I can only talk about the S, this subjective experience and maybe the P, the perspective, or maybe even the agency, the wholeness of it, of being a verb. It\u2019s almost like life becomes more of a dance and issues that before this was kind of\u2014a practice or a clarity might freak me out or get me really agitated or worried. It almost feels like there\u2019s an opportunity to feel into the connection. So when you reached out, when you knew this book was out and I told you it was out and you reached out to me and said, will you be in this conversation? The feeling was this kind of, not just excitement that we\u2019re going to be together and maybe people will hear about the book, which of course is exciting, but the feeling was like we as a humanity are\u2014whether you call it relational field or culture or connection\u2014we\u2019re on this journey through time and space in Newtonian terms. But in quantum terms, we\u2019re really on this unfolding of massively connected events, and when we bring to that, that love and connection and that open awareness, it\u2019s like a portal through which this process of\u2014it\u2019s called optimal self-organization\u2014but it\u2019s integration where we\u2019re allowing differentiation to be fully present, allowing linkage to be fully present. So in a sense, we become like portals that integration can move through in the bodies we\u2019re in or the events we participate in. So if someone calls me and says, will you do this or that? I check in with my body and I feel, is this a portal through which more integration in the world will arise or is it going to decrease differentiation and decrease linkage, so it\u2019s decreasing integration?<\/span><\/p>\n

Then I\u2019m not going to participate. If it feels like it\u2019s an opportunity to let the portal release integration, then I participate, and that\u2019s what I feel like this conversation is, is even if just one person can be inspired to say, wow, I can adjust this identity lens so that I can realize, yes, I am a noun as a me. Whoa, I\u2019m also a verb as a we. And when I bring them together, I\u2019m intraconnected in this integrated way. I don\u2019t have to give up the me. I can also have the we taken together. That\u2019s the intraconnection. Then, it\u2019s a different way of us moving forward as a human family. It\u2019s a different way to move forward as a human family that allows us to embrace this uncertainty that is, when you look at this graph, it\u2019s maximal uncertainty.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is why I think it\u2019s so hard and why the journey of Sounds True that you have inspired ever-so-many people with and certainly interpersonal neurobiology, it feels like it\u2019s coming to that place that when you open to uncertainty, you release the possibility of connection. And this is I think, this is this really incredible moment in our human family to do this. There\u2019s a window to make a change in business as usual. Joanna Macy calls it \u201cThe Great Turning,\u201d and anything that we can do to actually bring this Great Turning, which means instead of just the solo self of separation, we realize that we\u2019re this MWe, this intraconnected wholeness. It is possible to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s what I hope this conversation can inspire people to participate in however it comes naturally for people to do, whatever their interests are, their talents, their situation in life. This is a pervasive leadership thing where everyone can be a leader in making this change happen.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>I\u2019ve been speaking with Dan Siegel. He\u2019s the author of the new book <\/span>IntraConnected: MWe (Me + We) as the Integration of Self, Identity, and Belonging<\/span><\/i>. The book is a deep contemplation into, who am I? What\u2019s going on with me, we, and MWe and how do I open to greater potentiality moving through MWe right now? It\u2019s a gorgeous book. I would go so far, Dan, as to say the book itself, page by page is a wake-up invitation to the people to MWe. So thank you so much. Thanks for all your good work and deep service.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DS: <\/b>Thank you.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>If you\u2019d like to watch <\/span>Insights at the Edge <\/span><\/i>on video and participate in after-the-show Q&A conversations with featured presenters and have the chance to ask your questions, come join us on Sounds True One, a new membership community that features premium shows, live classes and community events. Let\u2019s learn and grow together. Come join us at join.soundstrue.com. Sounds True: waking up the world.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"class_list":["post-19986","transcript","type-transcript","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nIntraconnected Discovering Mwe Me We - Transcript | Sounds True<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Read the full transcript from this Sounds True conversation with Intraconnected Discovering Mwe Me We. 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