The Healing Power of Joy with Tanmeet Sethi, MD

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 0:00

None of us deserve pain or suffering ever none of us. But yet it happens. It happens from systems and power, but it also happens because we lose loved ones, we lose jobs, we lose marriages, we lose all kinds of things, ways of being, our aging process, i mean, it could go on and on. Human experience is to lose, and yet the human experience is also to rejoice in the moments of joy that we can recognize, because we were all meant to do that.

Liz Wiltzen: 0:37

Hey, hey, hey. So glad you're here. This is Tracking, yes, and you are exactly where you're meant to be. I'm your host, Liz Wiltzen, coach creator and round-the-clock philosopher. And this, my friends, is where the magic happens. Join me and my guests for stories that will inspire you to dial up your curiosity, fine-tune your courage and wisdom and create an empowered relationship with whatever's happening now, if you're curious about coaching or have been thinking that you might wanna work with me, now's a really great time. I have some spots available in my practice and I offer a free sample session so we can have a conversation and see if it feels like a good fit. And also, due to a current client who is a generous benefactor, i have a partial scholarship available if someone can't afford my full rate. You can find out more about coaching and working with me at my coaching website, www. lizwiltzen. com. Today I'm talking with author and integrative medicine physician, dr Thunmeet Sedi, who has worked extensively in supporting people through trauma of all kinds, while also navigating her own personal shattering heartbreak and loss. She shares what she's learned about how to connect with joy in even the most challenging times of our lives and why it is not only healing but essential to cultivating a deep our of well-being and trust in our lives. Tanmeet. Thank you so much for joining me today. I am delighted to have you here.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 2:19

Liz, I'm really excited to be here.

Liz Wiltzen: 2:22

I heard of your work from my friend, Jess, who said you have to listen to this woman and what she's up to and what her message is, because it's so aligned with tracking yes, which it is, because it's about meeting the challenges of life with an open heart and spirit and curiosity and creativity and resourcefulness. And so that is totally what you're up to. You are the author of a new book Just Out called Joy is My Justice. You're also a board-certified integrative family medicine physician and are on the faculty at the Center for Mind Body Medicine in Washington DC. You work on the front lines of the most marginalized communities, as well as globally, with victims of school shootings, survivors of hurricanes, citizens impacted by police violence and psychologists in Ukraine under attack. That's so fascinating to me that you were doing work with them, and for the last 15 years you've been facilitating small groups working with trauma of all kinds, from man-made and natural disasters to the brutal effects of the harm humans and systems wield on each other, and I really love the way that you frame that. This is taken from your bio on your website And then, on top of the work you're doing yourself out in the world. In 2007, your then three-year-old son Zubin, was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which is a degenerative and fatal disease. So you know pain and injustice intimately.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 4:00

Yes, thank you for all of that. It's really heart touching when you hear about yourself in that way And, yes, i do know pain very deeply.

Liz Wiltzen: 4:12

And you also know, through a lot of experience, that trauma and oppression and suffering strip our humanity away and make us numb to joy. Why, why is that?

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 4:28

This is a wonderful question, such a beautiful place to start. There is a commonality between all the systems that oppress us and the suffering that oppresses us and holds power over us, and that is that all of those strip us of our power, of our humanity, our ability to feel. So, when we are in pain, when we are fighting against pain, when we are experiencing pain, we are evolutionarily primed to turn away. It is how we have gotten here, it is how we have survived right, and yet that inclination to turn away and to stay turned away is what inhibits us to thrive. Because, in the end, if we cannot be with our pain and acknowledge our pain, we also cannot feel the full continuum of emotions that can bring us joy. Because if we are closing our heart as you beautifully said in the terms of your podcast and what you really tried to do, i would urge all your listeners to recognize that when we close our heart to pain, we're closing our heart in general. We're closing it to feeling all of life, and so when we are in pain and stripped away from that, we lose our ability to stand powerfully in this world.

Liz Wiltzen: 5:54

I think what you're speaking to there is somewhere in your book you named dissociation scientifically as an extended cell danger response. So can you just say a little bit about the science of that?

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 6:08

Yeah, you know, there is science in our body to show that we not only turn away from pain in our minds or our hearts, but actually when we see danger on a cellular level, our cells actually prime us into a response against this threat, where we wall off those cells against that threat. Right, And it is the same thing that we are doing in our mind and heart. It is a way of reacting and coping with what is happening in the moment. The problem is, when that cell danger response is prolonged, we run into chronic inflammation and damage to our cells and DNA. And in that same way, when our turning off and walling off from pain is prolonged, we also damage parts of ourselves, our ability and our capacity to see that we can have joy, that we can feel better in moments and we can see a bigger story.

Liz Wiltzen: 7:13

Yeah, it's so interesting because we I've been a mindfulness student for about 20 years now, And so I know of the way that we tend to make our experience binary. So if I am feeling grief, I cannot be feeling joy. If I'm feeling anger, I cannot be feeling peace. If I'm feeling anxiety, I cannot be feeling calm. But we are so complex and we can hold multitudes of diverse emotional experiences together, which is where I really feel you go with this book. Yeah, what do you wanna say about that?

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 7:54

Oh, i think you just put it so beautifully. You know, i think that people think that we can't hold multitudes, that it will be too complex, too heavy, and what I would say is that not holding the multitudes is more complex. So I would give you an example. I think people think not. I think I know, because I've worked with thousands of humans And I happen to be a human, so I know that we conceive that if I am sad, i cannot feel anything that is termed good or joyful or happy. But I would remind people that when we are at a funeral for someone we've lost, that we love dearly, we often are crying and, in the same moment, laughing with a family member about something they used to do that bugged us or made us happy. It is actually, by definition, non-binary if you really look at it. So my son that you referenced is declining quite rapidly. It's a degenerative ALS like disease And we're not in a fun place with it right now. And he was able to go to a camp with other young adults with neuromuscular disorder. He just turned 18. And it was such a joyous week for him I'm getting tearful thinking about it A time for him to feel independent and free from his parents and from everything else. When I picked him up, he cried and cried and wouldn't even get in the car. He didn't even wanna leave this camp because it was so joy filled for him. I cried for him with him. Now I'll tell you right now my tears in that moment were so complex, liz. They were of grief That why can he only experience this in a week with a certain camp? Why does he not feel this freedom on a daily basis? You know all of these things and how much he's declining more and more every day. And yet my tears also held so much joy, so much mother joy, that my son felt so free that he doesn't even wanna come home, that he can feel so safe and loved by others, that he can feel what we would call normal and like a regular kid, right. And so it's complex. Always, if we are denying the complexities of our life, we're denying our life period.

Liz Wiltzen: 10:34

And that's such a beautiful example of can we pay attention for the places where we are shown We actually can hold more. It's making me think of many years ago. My heart was broken, love affair devastated. I was in another city in a hotel, and a good friend of mine who lived in that city was coming to get me for dinner And she showed up at the room and I had been crying all day and she walked in the room and I don't know what made her do this, but she picked me up, threw me over her shoulder, spun me around in three circles and tossed me on the bed And we both started laughing so hard And it was like whoa, holy state change. How did that happen? And it was just such a beautiful intuition on her part to help me access like. You don't have to submerge into this funk and be completely drowned in it. You have the capacity to break out of it.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 11:39

Oh, that's such a good story And I think it really speaks to this idea that joy comes from the same capacity that we have in our body for love, meaning and, in that moment, connection especially right, and that the same wells of love, meaning and connection that cause our pain are also the ones that spring our joy.

Liz Wiltzen: 12:04

Okay, so I love this thing that you state and I think in the prologue of your book joy is the most primal justice we will ever know, and it is ours to seize. So tell us why you hold that to be true.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 12:24

So there are a few different parts of why I hold that to be true. One is that joy isn't evaluated from a cognitive construct. It isn't based on what happens to us. It is innate. It was in us when we were born, it is in us now and no one can take it away. It is ours to seize as we wish. At the same time, it is imperative that people understand that every piece of trauma, oppression or suffering or loss that we have encountered at that moment, when we encountered it, or whether we encountered daily in terms of systems of oppression, they take away our feeling of ease and safety in our body, and it is restoring that ease and safety through the practices that I talk about in the book that actually restores liberation and freedom in our body so that we can feel justice internally, even when the external world isn't giving it to us. I will give a caveat that I do not think. I think all our personal healing and liberation is on us, but that does not excuse the systems that are upon us to be changed and to allow us safety to heal, and so I am not excusing all the systems of oppression. What I am saying is that when we can feel that deep justice in our body, we actually stand more powerfully and boldly in the world. We not only resist those systems, but we are better apt to change them. And I actually think you know I center the lives of people who feel marginalized on the fringe of this conversation in my book. But the more the dominant, privileged society, normative society also finds that liberation within themselves, the more they'll realize that we are all harmed by these systems. Whether we benefit or not from them, we are still all harmed by them, and so the deepest justice we can know is to feel it first in our body so that we can feel it more in the world.

Liz Wiltzen: 14:33

This is such an interesting thing to feel justice in your body. So define justice as you hold it in the body.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 14:43

Yeah yeah, i spend a little time trying to figure out with people what that meaning of justice might be to you might feel. For me it definitely was different before It was in my activism work in the world for the last 25 years It was fighting on the streets, in the courtroom, in the exam rooms with patients and insurance companies and lack of insurance companies and all of that. And now I understand a broader definition For me in the construct of this book but also of these concepts, is that justice is an expansive freedom, a feeling of ease and expansiveness in our body, a feeling that our nervous system gives us when we feel at ease. You know, it's the difference between walking in a room with our shoulders hunched and our heart closed, constricted, not knowing if we'll fit in or belong, and walking into a room where we are with people who have loved us forever. It is that feeling. If people can understand that, you can understand the feeling of expansiveness and ease in our bodies. I will tell you that I don't feel that this diagnosis for my son is just you know or fair, but what I do know is that it's human to suffer and it's human to have these kinds of things happen and it's not ever fair to suffer. If we thought fairness was supposed to be brought into this equation, then we're, by definition, judging whether we deserve it or not. None of us deserve pain or suffering ever None of us. But yet it happens. Now it happens from systems and power, but it also happens because we lose loved ones, we lose jobs, we lose marriages, we lose all kinds of things, ways of being, our aging process, i mean that could go on and on. Human experience is to lose, and yet the human experience is also to rejoice in the moments of joy that we can recognize, because we were all meant to do that.

Liz Wiltzen: 17:00

I wonder where you would place trust in this, and I'll tell you where I'm coming from with that is. It seems to me that trauma or negative messaging from culture erode our trust in ourselves and in life and fuel doubt, and that healing is coming back into recovering trust in yourself and in life. And it feels like you're speaking to this. You say what our heart and mind cannot resolve, our body holds onto, and I think when you don't trust yourself and you don't trust life, your heart and mind are in conflict with each other, because I think our hearts trust us and our hearts trust life, but we're getting messaging from our brain that says don't trust, and so then this is unresolved in us and then it manifests in our body. And so you're saying that resolution happens through the body. And you give so many exercises in your book. At the end of every single chapter you give exercises Like I think that you are a huge believer that the healing happens in the body, through the body.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 18:19

Yeah, so yeah, Speaking of, You're touching on something so huge I haven't even said the word yet. I say it a lot in my book. You're touching on something so critical is, which is safety, And what you're explaining about trust is so true. When we do not feel safe in the world, we do not feel safe in our bodies. When we do not feel safe in our bodies, we do not feel safe in the world. It's bi-directional And it is regaining this sense of safety And, yes, I do believe that resolution happens in the body. So when people say, you know, all my trauma lives in the body, I say, yes, you are completely right. The body is where we hold our trauma, But that is also where we can heal it, And so what you're touching on is both the yes, this is what it is, and there is hope for all of us because our bodies have only done what they needed to do to protect us. Right, If you were in an abusive situation as a child, your body is telling you it is time to disconnect, numb. This is too much to handle, or fight or flee or whatever is happening. In the end, it is our capacity to also then heal and repair that sense of safety and trust in the body, And I wish the entire world were safe enough to feel that we could all heal within honestly. But as we're working to heal the world, we also can work to let ourselves step more boldly into it. Right, Talking about self-compassion, in the book I say that loving yourself is a bold act of justice. But even when the world has not given you what you deserve, you deserve to step into the world differently.

Liz Wiltzen: 20:20

That's making me think of, because belonging is a big thing and you name belonging as a big part of joy, and I've had many experiences in my life where I felt like, oh, i don't belong, i'm not. But eventually I came to. I bring my belonging with me where I go, and that's what I think that you're saying. When you come into that sense of justice in your body, that sense of safety, that sense of trust, you know that you belong to the whole cosmos, you know, and so of course you just bring your belonging with you. I mean, that might be oversimplifying it, but what would you say to that?

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 20:59

I think that what you're saying is so important, Liz. What I'm going to tell you is that I think you're right and you're not.

Liz Wiltzen: 21:06

Okay, here's what I'm going to say.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 21:08

It's really powerful what you're saying. I have struggled with belonging my whole life as a first generation child of immigrants living in the South, harassed, racism, the whole bit. I still struggle with that belonging. What you just said resonated so deeply in my heart because I do feel now that I belong in this world. I feel that I deserve, i belong, i am part of this greater world. Thank you. I can tell you so many days maybe not, i don't know if I've. I've encountered them, whether it's equal or less, i don't think it's more than when I feel belonging. But I also don't feel that I also have moments of not feeling safe or belonging. And yet it is in those moments where the magic can happen. Because even today, as a very confident, i would say successful young woman okay, maybe I'm supposed to not say young- anymore, but I feel young. But even with all that I have achieved and accomplished and feel good about, i often doubt myself. I often compare myself. I can get in a social media rabbit hole like anyone else, and it is in those moments where I pull out the tools of self-compassion, of gratitude and movement. I move my body like you're feeling stuck, you got to move, i breathe through it, and it is in those moments that I'm reminded of my capacity for joy. And so now the difference is not that I never feel that I don't belong. The difference is now, when I don't feel I belong, i know that that's a moment to recultivate my inner resources for joy.

Liz Wiltzen: 23:06

Does that make sense? So what you're?

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 23:08

saying is really powerful for me.

Liz Wiltzen: 23:10

But that's such a great answer? It's because I think what you're pointing to is this is not a linear thing and there is no finish line and there is no end goal that we're going for. It's about navigating the fluctuations, the safety and the not safety, and the belonging and the not belonging, and I'm accessing joy and I'm not accessing joy. And you're just speaking to the fluid, ongoing, unfolding nature of what it means to be human.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 23:38

Oh, yes, Yes, yes, and that's why I call it a river of joy. Rumi once called it a river of joy and that is really stuck with me because it is a river. Sometimes, liz, i am not flowing downstream, i'm working upstream. I'm frustrated, i'm angry and I'm, you know, i'm okay with all those emotions. I think we all need to acknowledge all our emotions as messengers, but sometimes I resist what is? I do all the things that I speak about in my book as what we can do to cultivate joy. Sometimes I do exact opposite. Okay, and on those evenings or in that week, i noticed that and you know, i just put my hand on my heart and I say you're only human, and this is you've, what would you call it? You've swum upstream all week or all day, and I hope I flow with the current tomorrow, and not only that. I just gave a talk about my book to a large group of young resident physicians who are, like me, justice activists, who are really wondering can I keep fighting? You know this is really hard And I explained to them that some days my joy is just being grateful that I am so pissed off or that I am so sad because, if I can acknowledge that the systems have not won yet, because I am still feeling everything, i am not disconnected, And the truth is systems of oppression, power of suffering, of loss, all of that thrives when we do not, and so if I can feel all of that, i'm winning.

Liz Wiltzen: 25:23

Yeah, and if you can't, and if you're dissociating and you're numbing, it really doesn't matter what's happening in your experience, because and this is what's beautiful about your book whatever's happening in your experience, i've got something for you to try. Just try it on, see what you think. And so I want to speak to some of the practices in the book, because so many of them are about embodiment and movement. Especially, you named movement. So talk about why movement is such a powerful healing tool.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 25:56

I mean so powerful, and I love that. You also say movement and not exercise. I can tell you, as a physician, i can quote that there are thousands, and I mean tens of thousands, of articles on exercise as important for mental health and physical health. I will never discount that about the way we measure exercise. But what I would say is that if we only call it exercise, we lose out on the power of movement, as you said. So the reason movement is so powerful is because emotions are energy and motion, and if our body is stuck, our mind also will be stuck Right. And so this idea that, well, all I need tonight is to lay on the couch and watch Netflix I mean, don't get me wrong, some night I need that, but then I know I need that, right, you know. But if that is your go to every night and you're feeling stuck, unstuck yourself by just making yourself move a little, because your mind may be stuck to. The truth is, the scientists who do the research call them hope molecules, these anti inflammatory molecules that are secreted Anytime our muscles contract. They're called hope molecules by the scientists. Now, i can't think of a greater metaphor. And so my idea about movement is not only mine. I think it's held by many. The idea that I'd like to amplify is that movement moves us beyond ourselves. It moves us into a larger story. It moves us into a larger way of being. It moves us into something we could not see at that moment, literally, and I mean this even for my son, who has very little upper muscle strength left, is in a power wheelchair, cannot walk, and I am telling this boy just won the dance competition at his high school, a dance off right Now. It was a tear jerking event really. The way he I mean the way he had his courage and went out and did that, the way the students received him And the way he showed that his joy was in his body, regardless of what you would call the capacity of movement right. And so I mean this moving as you are able. It is joy filled, it is a way to unstuck.

Liz Wiltzen: 28:26

Yeah, you speak a lot in the book to shaking, which I love because you don't hear about shaking a lot, and it is a practice that I do every single morning because I find it so powerful Shaking, followed by moving to rhythm, to some kind of music, and it's such a powerful practice And I think I get what you're saying. Okay, don't often think about what is actually happening, but as you're speaking to it it's like you start to get into the current, the current that's always moving around us, the big energetic currents, and when you move your body you start to align and then that whole current feels like it's moving you. So again to the belonging and the connected and the expansive. I'm just really appreciating now another reason why that's such a powerful practice and what maybe just give the listeners some other embodiment practices that they can work with, especially to come back into trust, trust of self and safety and self.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 29:31

Yeah, there are so many a kind of way to do a body scan, a little non traditional way. I think what's really important about this way of doing a body scans not just going through your body in terms of relaxation, but really kind of talking to your body, noticing, having a dialogue with your body. What's going on here in my legs, what's going on here in my pelvic region, what's going on, you know, azure and listening, and I speak about how that has been powerful for me and give some stories around that. I think that that kind of extra and for anyone is listening, that's a free. You don't even have to bought my book. I do narrate that exercise on my website and you can go just listen to it as well or download it. It really is a way to understand that noticing is healing, just like you're saying, using what is in front of you. Someone just asked me at this book talk this week how is it that I should start? And I said I would gently step into your body every day in some way, whether that's. Can I go for a five minute walk before work, i would shake a little. Can I do a body scan of just my abdomen? I mean, you don't need to go through your whole body. Just understanding that this way of meeting our body is is primal, but it is a way to connect to yourself so that you are more aware of what you need and how you can connect to the world around you.

Liz Wiltzen: 31:08

That's even making me think of a way that you offer to calm yourself when you're feeling unsettled is simply to put a hand on your heart, to touch yourself when you're speaking, to coming back into an intimacy with your body and a relationship with it that we really have gotten so far from in just the normal business of the day and how we go through our world and through our culture. It's not like, of course, i have an intimate relationship with my body and I'm in conversation with it and I'm listening to it and I'm asking it questions. Like that is not normal. That's like that's not what we do. So to. Another reason that I would highly recommend getting your book is that you have so many ways that you help people try this. Here's another one. Like I do even know how many practices- I don't know.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 31:59

No, I don't A lot.

Liz Wiltzen: 32:01

Yeah, and I think that is the thing. Like I know, in my journey I've come across so many different ways and things to try, and you will find your own, your very own, the ones that resonate for some reason for you and work for you, and the only way to know what those are is to try out a lot.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 32:20

Exactly That's why I offer so many is because one of them may be your gateway, or one of them may just inspire you to a different gateway, and I'm very clear about that in the beginning of the book, that this is your path to joy. I can't tell you how to get there. I can offer you, though, signposts, touchstones, ways that humans have traveled this path for centuries. Right, but it doesn't mean that you have to do it this exact way. I love the way you frame that.

Liz Wiltzen: 32:51

Yeah, okay, well, let's talk about this path to joy. Okay, gratitude, because I love your take on gratitude, which you received from someone, a mentor that you have worked with and have a deep relationship with. But there's a way that I mean gratitude practice is so prevalent now in our culture and lots of people are trying it, but we do think gratitude means. Let me think of some things that I'm grateful for. So give us your take on what a gratitude practice is. Thank you.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 33:28

Yeah, i mean, my gratitude practice deepens and continues to deepen every day, And it is it did though I will tell listeners did start like that, and I think that is the perfect way to start is what is one thing I'm grateful for today, really simply and I do that with patients every day, and I think that that is a potent place to start. Well, what I will say is that gratitude can change your life if you deepen it beyond that. And the way that it can is if you move it into things that are hard. And so, finding gratitude in the heart That doesn't mean loving the heart or thinking that it's all great, but finding the pieces of gratitude that remind you of your goodness in this heart, that remind you of the world's goodness in this heart And remind you that there is the capacity for you to heal in this heart. And you know, liz, when we are practicing gratitude, parts of our brain light up that are the same parts that light up when someone who loves us holds our hand during a painful procedure. Now, think about that. For me, that's so powerful, right? I can feel all alone. I often feel all alone even in a house of family of five And patients and friends. I feel alone some days, when I feel like nobody gets how my heart is breaking. We all feel that in our grief. That is human. And yet I know that in that process, in this feeling alone, i can pull on gratitude to be a companion, to give me a sense that I'm never alone. I talk in the book about writing gratitude letters. I'm telling you that is one of the most powerful practices I do, particularly the part where I read them to that person out loud. That part, i mean. I don't think I've ever not cried in that exercise, nor has the person hearing it not cried. It is so powerful. And I also have widened it to my ancestors. I do ancestral gratitude quite often, multiple times a week, in my daily altar, ancestral practices. I have found that gratitude actually is my companion. And yet my name of my chapter is Gratitude Doesn't Solve Everything, because I am sick of the way it's tossed around as a contrived platitude. And so what I say to people when they say how could you be grateful when the world is falling apart? I say you know, i'm grateful because I deserve to be grateful And it's a way to reclaim my power. I'm not grateful for evil ever, but I'm grateful for many things in my life and in this world.

Liz Wiltzen: 36:21

What would you say to someone? because I know sometimes people, if they're having a hard time and somewhere into their realm comes the suggestion of trying gratitude, they're like fuck you. Yeah, like they feel like they're supposed to now do this thing, like it's one more demand on them. And so what would you say to someone who kind of has that resistance to like it's, it's? I'm trying to figure out how to say this because they're not wrong, no, they're not wrong to feel that like no, I'm not grateful right now. Yeah, So what would you say to them?

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 36:59

First I would say I am you, that I, as Liz knows because she's read the book I have been through that I have been told to be grateful for my son's disease and basically felt that FU kind of feeling like you've got to be kidding. How does a mother I have a whole TED talk on it, you know. I mean, that is the basis of my TED talk is that gratitude moment of feeling like how could you ask a mother to be grateful when our child is dying? That is ridiculous, right? And yet what I would say to someone who feels what I felt too is that it's just an invitation. It's an invitation to come to your pain in a different way. It's a way to turn towards your life instead of away from it. Forget the sort of hallmark platitudes that are tossed around in this white wash wellness world of gratitude. Start to understand that gratitude is centuries old and primal to our way of being, and that actually it's just a way to find the part of this life that's worth fighting for. And so I would offer to them it's just an invitation to your life.

Liz Wiltzen: 38:17

Yeah, and I want to talk on the second part of a gratitude practice that you name. that that I think is essential is, as you name, whatever the thing you find deeply, authentically, you feel like, okay, i'm grateful for this ray of sun hitting the leaf outside my window, the smallest thing, whatever it is to then say and why am I grateful for that? What about that makes me grateful? That takes you so much more deeply in. How come?

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 38:51

Yeah, the studies that continue to show that that specificity is important unfortunately really can't unpack exactly why. I'll give you my opinion I think it's because we move from the naming part of our brain into the part of our brain that constructs meaning out of things. I really do think that might be it, but you know, i'm guessing from you know, years of looking at studies and from studying humans in the brain. I think it's a pretty good guess, though, because what I have found is that my suffering, the suffering of my patients and all the trauma victims I've worked with, our suffering, is just suffering until we give it meaning, and so if you look at my story as a story, it's not the worst story in the world. There are stories much worse than mine, but I'm just using my story. If you look at it as a mother who will watch her son die, that is sad. It is against the natural order of life. It is against everything. I wanted to be a mother for right, and yet the truth is that if I can find meaning in this story, it gives me more purpose to live it out boldly and authentically, and so for me, that meaning is multiple, but part of the meaning of my son's story is that. I mean, liz, i could cry right now. He's taught me how to truly unconditionally love. I thought I knew unconditional love as a parent until this happened. I realized it was much deeper than what I understood it to be. If that could be the only thing I've learned in this lifetime, i would be blessed, and so that in of itself. But there are multiple other parts of the meaning that give my suffering less power, but then give my story more meaning.

Liz Wiltzen: 40:56

Can you say more about how this has taught you things about unconditional love that you never, ever knew?

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 41:06

There's a difference for me and I can only speak for myself. Other parents have corroborated this in some ways, but I'm only speaking for myself. I had my first baby. I thought, oh my gosh, now I understand what people are saying, like, you love this thing so much you can't go to bed at night. You want to make sure it's okay all the time. You know all of that. It wasn't until I had this happen that I realized how do you love something or someone who A doesn't speak and tell you they love you back, creates much heartache and pain and exhaustion in terms of physical caregiving? who is only in your eyes in the beginning of this diagnosis, here to give you heartbreak? How do you keep your heart open to that person? And that was my journey that started me to joy. And so to love this human that, liz, is only going to cause me even greater multifold of pain in the coming years. To love him fully is unconditional love.

Liz Wiltzen: 42:21

Well, now I want to bring in the story of Cookie, because there's such a beautiful tie here. So can you please tell us the story of Cookie and the learning that has unfolded with Zubin?

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 42:39

So for the listeners this is in the first part of the book and it also what we want to be able to have time to go into is. it ties into a lot of intergenerational trauma and how we live with that, but how we heal that. Cookie was my father's older sister's son who died before he was 10. And before his brother, who is my cousin now living, was born. So my cousin never knew his older brother. He was disabled in some way from the moment he was born and still no one can explain that to me. in India It's very hard to get a straight story. My surmising is some birth trauma, but he was disabled, like my son in, and died very early. It was a story in my childhood and my family that nobody really we shushed around, nobody talked about. it was. it was sad, it was a waste, it was, it was horrible. And yet when Zubin was diagnosed it flooded back to me in big waves as like remembering that story, because now this story was opening up the wound of that one.

Liz Wiltzen: 43:45

Yeah, because you said there were no pictures of him, no memories of him, no stories of him, nobody talked about him and he was carried everywhere And you don't even know. Like nobody says, here was his story, here was this human, here was his life. And so then you say in the book when Zubin was diagnosed, you notice that your parents would never come to you to talk to you about how you were doing. They would ask Steve, your husband. And so just yeah, just keep taking us into how these two things were playing off each other.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 44:25

Yeah. So what I learned really was that these hush stigmas were hurting me, they were harming me, they were making me feel invisible, they were making me feel a lack of joy and a lack of belief that I could have joy, because my aunt really never, liz, was joyous. She was quite dark and gloomy. She laughed a lot, but not really. She laughed with a frown. It's hard to explain, and she was. She was so moved when Zubin was diagnosed, in ways that I couldn't understand at the time because I was struggling to spiritually survive, and she reached out to me many times, but never to explicitly say let's talk about this, just to connect. I think she was feeling like her story was being relived, yeah, and she would tell me I'm so grateful that you're able to live in this way because, thankfully, before she died, she did see me living joyfully. But what I wish, liz, is that I would have been able I was not able before she died to also have the energy to explore her story more, and so I can tell you right now. If she was still here, i would ask her to show me a picture. What was his real name, you know? I would love to know more, and this is not in the book, but his brother, who's still living, is now actually disabled after a stroke at a very young age, and that's a whole nother story. And I went to go visit him in his rehab center before the book was published And I read him the chapters about Cookie And he cried profusely And he said he's always said this to me. after my TED talk he called me and told me this. He's always told me you showed me there was a different way to live this story. And so I believe that the way we live our story and the way we find and seek joy is not only potent medicine for ourselves. It can actually heal our lineage and those stories within our lineage. Maybe my father, my cousin, you know who's to say. I'm not healing ancestral spirits that aren't here. No one can prove it one way or the other, so I'll sit with my meaning around it.

Liz Wiltzen: 46:51

Well, and I think what touched me the most about this story is your presencing Cookie, your valuing his life and the mattering of his life Now, even though it wasn't then as fully as it could have been. You're doing it now, And I imagine that's woven into your caring for Zubin in some way as well.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 47:19

Well that's so beautiful is? it really is, and I've never had someone ask me that and it was a deeply, deeply meaningful part of the book for me and actually a healing part of the book for me. Right, you know I'm writing this for readers, but really the truth is this book healed me as well. And, yeah, i even say in the book that as I write these words, i was tearful because here was his story, for I mean, it's so touching to me that you are now sitting here as a podcast interviewer, who, you know, didn't know my story before we interacted and now knows Cookie story. I mean, think about the ripples of that beauty, right? And so, again, the meaning we find in our suffering and the way that we can grow and recognize our thriving in our pain is so joy filled. Yeah, yeah, even as I feel tearful, right.

Liz Wiltzen: 48:18

Yeah, okay, i want to. I want to pivot to what, for me, was the juiciest part of the book, because I can't wait to hear this, yeah, yeah, yeah, because I very much believe in an animate cosmos, i believe in spirit realm with which we are in touch and receiving guidance from, and you have two stories in your book that one follows the other and validates the one that came before, but some guidance that came to you from two different sources a few years apart.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 48:56

I am almost confident that you're referring to my Masi and to Michael. Yeah, Yes. It's funny. Michael just texted me yesterday because he just finished the audio book and he was really deeply touched by the whole thing. So my Masi, which means mother's sister, is a deep, deep, deep soul, sister of my mother's, their first cousins, but more like sisters, and she died early. She was only about 55 and died suddenly of a heart attack. And I was doing a meditation, an imagery, a guided imagery around finding your safe place and a wise guide, and so, for anyone who's listening, there's more about that in the book, but basically it's another way to dialogue with your inner wisdom. And I told the truth, which is that I had done this meditation, this imagery, hundreds of times and never seen. I mean I'm jealous when Liz says, you know, she has this belief in this animate world. I mean I believed it but I never saw it And everyone I worked with saw it and I thought what is wrong with me? And so it was kind of an inner joke and a joke between me and my husband that, like I'm never going to find this light filled spirit wherever these people are. And in that moment life changing I would say I went through an imagery where she came to me in a setting and was as clear as day. I could feel her hand stroking my hair. She was there and I got a chance to ask her a question and all I wanted to know this was actually only a year after Zubam was diagnosed. And all I wanted to know was Masi, how am I going to do this? Because I did not know how I would make it through. And finally she said let him teach you. And it is the simplest guidance and yet the most profound. In that moment I realized it is exactly full circle to what you were saying, liz that what is in front of you can be your teacher. I was looking in my head externally for how the hell am I going to do this? Somebody give me a blueprint, right? You know I'm an overachieving, accomplished woman. I got through medical school, i skipped, i mean, i did so many things. I can figure this out. Just give me the blueprint. But the truth is there's no cognitive blueprint to what the heart must tell you, and that is that your life is your teacher, your pain is your teacher. And that may be the biggest guidance I've ever received from anyone, and it came from someone who ostensibly is not here anymore, although I don't believe that anymore.

Liz Wiltzen: 51:49

Okay, so then, a couple years later, Yeah.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 51:53

Then, a couple of years later, michael, a friend of mine who's a surgeon, who seemed like he had no way of being in touch with himself, was, i guess, going to see shamans in South America And he came back from a trip and I literally hardly knew him, but he called me to say he had to talk to me, that he had gotten a message that was so important. He had to talk to me and I thought what could this be about? But by this time I had understood that you don't say no, you say give it to me, right. And so he gave me a yet another message that he received in a journey where he got the wisdom somehow that Zubin was a big deal in the spirit world and that he was here to teach me and here to let my soul grow higher and more. The whole story is quite beautiful, but that's the synopsis and you know it has. Fundamentally, those two things have changed everything about how we see this life. And I don't remember, liz, i can't believe, i can't remember if I wrote this in my book. I mean, how could that be? But in that story Michael tells us that he doesn't know how to explain it. It's a spirit message. But it's like Zubin's, the chairman of the board up there, and I don't think I say this in the book, i'm pretty sure. But the funny part of it is Steve, my husband and I I mean this is how we actually reference him between ourselves, you know. So on a hard, hard day where it was so physically taxing or literally we could spend 12 hours in terms of his personal care and hygiene and all that where we feel like we need more sleep, we could get in bed, and this happened just last week We can get in bed and literally my husband will look at me and go damn, the chairman really took us out today. You know, And so between he and I, that's how we reference him as more than just a child who's suffering and declining and whose body is breaking down, but as a wise, wise being. Yeah.

Liz Wiltzen: 54:09

Yeah, what you do say in the book is that also, what Michael shared with you was the message that Zubin had chosen to come here to have a short life with much suffering, because through that he could teach, And that you had a contract. you didn't quite say those words, but essentially you had a contract the four of you, the four others of you in your family or other two children, you, your husband and him to come together into this experience for the sake of your evolution and your learning. And I just really wanted the listeners to hear that, because what a way to frame the most heartbreaking challenges of our life. You know you could debate, is it true? Is it not true? Does it matter?

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 55:01

Right.

Liz Wiltzen: 55:02

What is the result? What is the impact on you? to frame it that way And that brings me back to what you said about the unconditional love and the like it just resonates so deeply with me because it then has our human experience be able to extend infinitely, well beyond the parameters of this one embodied lifetime.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 55:30

Yes, and I think you know that story is so powerful I know I wrote it, but it's so powerful And what you, what you are also touching on about the story, about it's actually in a chapter called What's Your Truth, because it is about learning what your truth is in this lifetime. right And it is. I am with you 100% less. It does not matter to me if people agree with it or believe it. It doesn't even matter because we could sit here all day and do that. Right It is. it's very much like I do psychedelic medicine with my patients and studies and research. I work with psilocybin and ketamine and MDMA and you know people will always ask me in the lay public is what they're actually happening? It's like just a hallucination, is it real, like? and the truth is it does not matter. What matters is how they pull on those threads to integrate the wisdom into their life and make it durable for their survival and thriving. And I would say the same about this story that I never even questioned the validity because it happened, it was real, so I don't have to question it. But what people may think or not think about spirits or messages, i don't even care, because what matters is that, you know, some days I look at my two other children and you know it breaks my heart the way they suffer around their brother. It really truly does, and at the same time it fills my soul to watch what beautiful humans they are. The amount of wisdom, compassion, love and care that those two have is beyond what I think most 15 and 20 year olds have, and so should I question the validity? That's just not even. That's irrelevant, yeah.

Liz Wiltzen: 57:26

I remember when I was first learning how to journey, to do journeys and have conversations outside of the physical realm, and I had the question did that happen or am I imagining it? And one of my teachers said yes, yes, we have made imagination, we've denigrated it, we've made it this thing. that means it has no value, it doesn't mean anything, it doesn't count. it's not true. That's not what imagination is. Imagination is the scaffolding, it's the way we reach the Spirit realm from here. it's the way we access more guidance than in our practical, pragmatic, physical, living, day-to-day world. So I absolutely say imagination is so valuable, but also what you're saying, and in the end it's your personal experience. you get to say does this support where I'm going? does this create a feeling of expansiveness, of possibility, of joy in my being? because if it creates joy, why am I going to say no, right?

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 58:41

Why am I?

Liz Wiltzen: 58:41

going to talk myself out of it.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 58:43

Yeah, and I would invite anyone who's sitting and wondering like I'm not sure about that, i would say great, then sit with that. There's really no wrong way to journey into this idea. What's right is what feels right to you. Yeah. And I think that people also discount the way a story resonates. Story is medicine, liz, and the way anybody's story resonates with us, or a story we're given resonates with us and the way it doesn't leave us, that's medicine that matters. So I would say, if you hear something that sticks with you, that either prods you to feel like I'm not sure about that or to say yes, deeply, yes. Either way, that's a story that could be medicine for you.

Liz Wiltzen: 59:29

Yeah, yeah. And that comes back to trusting yourself. Yes, you can trust yourself to feel in and say what happens for me when I have this experience, when I hear of this thing, what happens for me, you can trust what happens for you. You can trust yourself.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 59:46

Yes, And I think that the you're making me remember very strongly that right after Zubin, my son, was diagnosed, someone said to me and this is the quickest synopsis of this story they were Buddhist and they offered to me that in their tradition and belief system, they believe that these, what they call Bodhisattvas, these enlightened beings, are given to the world and to us to teach us, and that it is a blessing to cultivate our soul's growth. That this is a blessing. And I will tell you the truth, liz. I still remember where I was when this person told me that on the phone and I thought F you, like you, can have my little Bodhisattva spiritual journey.

Liz Wiltzen: 1:00:33

You know what I mean. I want a healthy son back, yeah.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 1:00:36

Yeah, and it never left me. It never left me. I still remember exactly the day I was told that, and what I would say is that I wanted to believe it. Even as I said F you in my head, i thought, god, i wish I believed that because that would help, but I don't believe it.

Liz Wiltzen: 1:00:59

Yeah.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 1:01:00

And the truth is that to feel something is right and true, for us to feel trust in something, we have to not believe it, we have to embody it, and that comes full circle with all these practices. And so it was through these two experiences, especially my own guided imagery, where I met my Masi, where I embodied Oh, i believe it.

Liz Wiltzen: 1:01:24

It doesn't just sound good.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 1:01:26

I believe it. I feel it. And so anyone who would listen and say that just is really irritating or it doesn't sound right, i'd say you may be at the precipice of your truth. I would just stay with that feeling of F? you and honor it.

Liz Wiltzen: 1:01:44

And you don't have to decide if it's true or not. Exactly, yeah, you just included. Keep going, yeah, which is what you did, and then it worked its way into your body to a place where you then felt the truth of it. Yeah, okay, you speak to a formula, which I think is. It's always fun to have a formula and get people to like have this in their back pocket, because I think it's a really great formula to help us understand the complexity of our experience and what's happening in our experience when we're caught, when we're struggling, when we're constricting, when we're like, and we can't seem to find a way through it, and so the formula is it's S equals P times R, and that means suffering equals pain times resistance.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 1:02:40

And it's a formula I first really explored in that TED talk of gratitude, and it's a formula I represent in the book as a way of understanding that the pain, the P, is always there, it's just there. Now, sometimes we can change it and sometimes we can't, but it is the R, the multiplier, that causes the suffering on top of the pain. And so the example I give is my son's example, but I do it all the time, humans do it all the time. I do it in the car. Sometimes I'm like, damn it, why is there so much traffic? And then I realize I'm causing myself so much stress and suffering, when in fact the pain is just that I'm sad I'm going to be late to something I said I would be on time for, and if I can just sit with that, it actually feels much more simple, like, oh, that's just human. I'll just say sorry, but now I'm sitting in the car thinking, can I drive on this sidewalk? like ridiculous. But in a bigger picture, i of course don't want to lose my son. And yet the R is not what you would expect sometimes. My R sometimes is more about why does my life have to be this way? Why did this happen? How can this be true? Why do I have to do this again and again? Why do I have to transfer him? Why do I have to change him? Why do I have to? you know, on and on and on, and then my suffering just continues to multiply. It feels overwhelming because the layers are so thick. When, if I can just say to myself, this is what it is, this is hard, i mean even now in my body. When I say that, i can feel how it just is lighter Now. I just see the pain, that it's a sad story. It's a sad thing I didn't want to have, but it's not the overwhelming layers of what I've piled on it Right. Yeah, i did a video about this formula on Instagram that got a lot of response And what? what I said in that video was don't get stuck in the pile on my friends And I showed the formula and because it's a pile on that we're making Right. None of us caused or deserve our pain, but we often create the suffering. That masks how to manage the pain. Yeah, yeah.

Liz Wiltzen: 1:05:17

Okay, so I'm going to close with a bit of a harder question, i think. For me personally, it's like I would just love to hear your wisdom on this. So you know, the theme of your book and what you advocate for is that we are all deserving of joy. It is our nature. It is in our nature and it can support us through the most difficult times. It's not an antidote. It's something that holds everything that's happening for us, yes, yes, and that even if you've been oppressed or had bad things happen to you or life has been difficult for you, you deserve joy. Okay, what would you say to someone who has done something that has caused irreparable, irrevocable and significant harm? What would you say to them about if joy is something that is theirs to have?

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 1:06:24

I've not been asked this. I love this question. This is a big one, liz. My first answer is yes, joy is theirs to have. We all deserve it, we all have the right to it and they have the access to it. The bigger part of that question is how to get there, because what is most likely happening for any of us who have done many? I mean, all of us have made mistakes, but sometimes those mistakes are grave, large and the harm can never be undone, right?

Liz Wiltzen: 1:07:01

And just want to layer in intentional. Yeah, so we're not. Because I know you tell a painful story in the book of Steve moving Zubin when his bones were quite fragile and actually breaking his femur and that was the last time he ever walked, which he could not forgive himself for for some time, which we can understand that and why. But it was not intentional. So I'm going for the big gun here, like the Hitler or a Putin or a you know like someone who's really well, you really went big there, Wow. Okay, just to get us all like all the way to the fringes of it, yeah.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 1:07:46

All right, Will. you went really big. I was thinking someone who committed a crime, but you really went there. If we're talking about someone as evil as Putin or Hitler, what I would say is joy is accessible to them if they can connect back to their humanity. Oh, pause. Yes.

Liz Wiltzen: 1:08:10

I just need that to land. Wow, that was in itself, such a powerful answer. Okay, carry on. I've been just feeling that who? my whole gut is just reverberating with that answer, because I can feel the truth of it.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 1:08:27

Yeah, yeah, i'm sitting with it now too, you're right, because I didn't know how I was going to answer that. The reason that came out is because I believe strongly that if they could connect to the fact that they did harm see, that's the key of what you're asking. I'm not sure people like that think they're harming. I think that they think they're exerting their power and they're getting what is right in the world. If they could connect to the fact that they did irrevocable, massive harm, i think that joy would be accessible and that they could connect to their humanness and connect to the fact that they've heard other humans and that they probably need to ask for grace from themselves and others. I just don't know if people like that ever connect back to their humanity. That's my hope, yeah.

Liz Wiltzen: 1:09:26

So I went as far out as we could go. Yeah, but who I was asking on behalf of is someone who comes in closer to that, who has caused irrevocable, irreparable harm and is deeply remorseful but feels like I don't deserve joy. Yeah, Okay.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 1:09:48

So this person, i would say, is already connecting to their humanity because they know they did harm, yeah, okay, So we're starting in a different place. I think this person also will have to do some very intricate and serious work around untangling the difference between accountability for movement forward and shame, yeah. And so this person will have to understand that, to recognize their human flaw of what they have done, and that includes the flaw of intending to harm. That is a human flaw, by the way, it is something we get entangled in. Once they untangle, or even recognize that to untangle, they are going to have to start sifting through how do I move forward and change and repair with others, while holding shame as something that is a human construct but will not serve me as I tried to heal, Yeah, yeah, well, i wasn't going here, but it seems that we have this is lettuce right here because you make a distinction between forgiveness and grace, so I would love you to share that distinction. I do. I'm all for forgiveness. I get it, but it doesn't work for me. It feels like another job to do And, frankly, there are many ways I cannot forgive evil. I cannot. Yet when I use grace as a construct, a beautiful, flowing exercise of grace, when I give myself grace, i'm acknowledging my humanity and the humanity of others. When I give others grace, i'm acknowledging that they have flaws, just like me. I can also acknowledge that I don't want to be around them, i don't need them and their flaws around me. They aren't helping me, but I give them grace and space to go do their own work. When I give grace to myself and in this world, i give grace to myself that I deserve to stand in this world despite how it has harmed me. So grace is just a softer yet fierce way for me to practice what some might call forgiveness. It comes from the Latin for gratis, meaning thankful. It has gratitude at its root. It allows me to be grateful for my strength and resilience, yet not needing to impose more harm on myself by being around someone who has harmed me.

Liz Wiltzen: 1:12:36

Yeah, You can find your book there And the book is available in audiobook as well. Wow, you did that fast. That's awesome. So, if you have your preference, audiobook over print, book over ebook is available in all of those forms. And is there anything else that you would like the listeners to know or point them to?

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 1:13:24

Yeah, you know on my website, you can contact me through Instagram most easily if you want to reach out. I would love to hear if people had takeaways from this or things resonated or they felt pushback against. I love hearing all of that. Like I said, that's where the magic is. I love hearing from readers And on my website it's really fun. If you sign up for my weekly emails, i offer exercises like this and tips and real life stories for my week of how I'm really pursuing joy in a practical way.

Liz Wiltzen: 1:13:58

Okay, awesome, awesome. So we'll make sure that everything's in the show notes for people to find that. And yeah, thank you again for coming on the show. It's been a pleasure to have you.

Tanmeet Sethi, MD: 1:14:09

Thank you so much.

Liz Wiltzen: 1:14:13

Thanks for joining us today, everyone. If you like the show, i'd so appreciate it if you'd subscribe and share it with people you think would love it. You can also become a patron by going to tracking yescom and clicking on the support the show link in the top right of the navigation panel. Subscription starts as low as $3 a month and it supports the work I'm doing to bring you guys clear, well edited and, hopefully, engaging in inspiring stories and conversations. It's an unpaid labor of love and your support encourages me to keep it coming. Talk to you next time And in the meantime, have a great week and keep your compass lined up with yes.