Developing Meaning

#14: Integrative Psychiatrist Dr. Bliss Lewis Shares Her Story of Holistic Healing, Building Communities, and How She Sets Her Life Intention

• Dirk Winter • Episode 14

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Dr. Bliss Lewis is a child and adult psychiatrist, expert in integrative and alternative treatments, and creator of Mind Body 7, one of the most innovative and successful group psychotherapy practices in New York.  She learned natural healing approaches as a child in in Russia and Poland, then combined these interests with modern Western medical training at Harvard, Columbia and NYU.   She also has passion for dance, music, yoga, meditation, and her curiosity and creativity have allowed her to build heart-centered practices and holistic wellness communities around these interests. Discover how trauma-informed care, self-compassion, and artistic expression can guide you towards a more fulfilling existence. 

Learn more about Dr. Bliss Lewis at:
https://www.mindbody7.com
https://www.youtube.com/@DrBlissLewis

Learn more about Developing Meaning Podcast at:
https://www.developingmeaning.com

Timestamps
0:00:17 Exploring Integrative Psychiatry With Dr. Bliss-Lewis
0:11:59 Personal Growth Through Dance and Travel
0:27:14 Exploring Integrative Healing Modalities
0:45:49 Building Integrative Psychiatry Group Practice
0:59:52 Exploring Meaning and Life Direction
1:13:00 Meaning and Life Rapid Fire Questions
1:17:02 Finding Meaning Through Values and Self-Compassion
1:23:00 How Bliss Sets her Life Intention

Theme music by The Thrashing Skumz

This show was produced by Dirk Winter and Violet Chernoff

Dirk:

Hello, welcome back Meaning Seekers. This is Developing Meaning the show where I, your host, dr Dirk Winter, child adolescent and adult psychiatrist, take you along through the world of various mental health healers to get their stories, find out what they've figured out about meaning, how they apply it to their own lives and how we can all build more meaning and purpose into our lives. It to their own lives and how we can all build more meaning and purpose into our lives. There is one person that really has played a huge role in starting this podcast.

Dirk:

There's a few people, but today I'm going to introduce you my friend and colleague, dr Beate Bliss-Lewis. She is also the head of integrative psychiatry at the American Psychiatric Association. She is the founder of an integrative psychiatry practice called MindBody7, which is innovative and really incorporates all of these wide-ranging perspectives and techniques that I have now become recently interested in. She has been interested in for a long time and you are going to hear about how that interest started in her childhood in Russia and Poland many different aspects of how she thinks about healing, how she creates healing communities, how she is able to set a North Star for herself.

Dirk:

You want to stay tuned at the end there are four words that she came up with that guide her life, and she has a crystallized sentence that inspires her and she has been able to do so many things and touch so many people with this beautiful, warm, loving energy that brings things to fruition and puts things out into the world. And she had this sort of whispering moment of Dirk, you just got to do it and I did it. I put out this podcast and I'm emulating her. I'm working to emulate her in learning as much as I can about these various techniques and then integrating them and working towards building a clinic that can help a lot of people. So I am very excited today to present my friend. You are going to really, I think, be touched by her warm, healing energy and by her perspective and how clearly she can identify what's important and set her mind and intentions in ways that lead to beautiful outcomes and actions and creating communities beautiful outcomes and actions and creating communities.

Dirk:

So, without further ado, I'm going to present to you my conversation with Dr Beata Bliss Lewis. Welcome, I'm so excited to be talking with you and I really appreciate you doing this with me and you've been a really big part of this podcast project. And so, just to begin with. I want to just talk a little bit about how you and I are connected. We went to residency together and at that time we were kind of in different circles.

Dirk:

I had little babies and you were doing all kinds of neat stuff with dance and all kinds of things that just trapeze through, I think, my shifting into this area of interest, which is your focus in integrative medicine and through this podcast, and you agreed to do an early episode, which really was very helpful, and then you really gave me multiple big psychological boosts along the way to get this podcast going. So this is really neat now to be looping back, and so to begin with I just want to maybe give you a chance to introduce yourself. You have a big practice called MindBody7. It's an integrative psychiatry practice. You do have a lot of other things too, but I, where do you sit in the world of mental health and what is mind body seven?

Bliss:

yeah, yes. So I'm so uh proud of you for launching this podcast and I'm so uh glad I was there along the way as you were figuring it out and thinking about it and to encourage you to just do it. That was so helpful.

Dirk:

I had been planning and hemming and hawing and getting distracted and you have a gift of focusing on the critical piece, and you did say you know, just do it. And then when we were recording before there was also this piece of and I had tried a lot of or several colleagues and it would always sort of be too personal or not quite right and you just said you know, just just relax, just do it.

Bliss:

And that was really helpful yeah, and you were on this beautiful path of figuring out what exactly the theme would be or what you wanted to do, and that was that journey of figuring out a frame. And you have right, you found your frame right and it's beautiful. I have, I love what you figured out.

Dirk:

I'm finding it and I have found it and I had this idea of meaning that that was what I want. And then, starting with Viktor Frankl, kind of these ideas that mean he has these three components, which are relationships, achievements and accomplishments and experiences, and I feel like this has been rewarding for me. In terms of relationships, I feel like our relationship really flourished through this podcast experience. I don't think we were as deeply connected. So I think that the relationship domain, the accomplishments and just putting something out in the world and seeing what it's not perfect but it's out there and I learned from it and then the experience of you know, we're just learning to be present and there's a long way to go, but I feel like these loops are sort of connecting.

Bliss:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and we were in different camps within psychiatry. I was in this holistic, complementary and alternative world, integrative medicine, integrative psychiatry from the start and you joined me. You joined me a few years ago by going on the same journey right of taking a variety of trainings and getting very interested and very engaged and excited in this world of like, what else is there outside of mainstream psychotherapy approaches and mainstream medication and kind of the psychiatric model and it's there's so much and it's so fascinating.

Dirk:

So yeah, I feel more alive.

Bliss:

Yeah, yeah, and I think our relationship deepened, because that's what's of deep interest to me for a long time. And to find fellow psychiatrists interested in what else is there? What is the full spectrum of all the possible ways that we heal and all the different ways to work with patients and with ourselves. Yeah, it's so engaging.

Dirk:

so, yeah, I'm glad you, you, are on this journey and we're on this journey together yeah, I feel like a defector and and I I'm so glad to connect with you on in in this, in this road, and and maybe can you say more about what is integrative psychiatry and so it started off complementary alternative and, yeah, what is that?

Bliss:

Yeah. So let me just kind of like share, like the journey that you asked me to share, and it will come in. And so I was born in Russia and grew up in Poland where using herbs and honey and various mushrooms and iodine and salt and all these like natural remedies was part of everyday life and at least in my family, at least in the part of Poland where I lived, and everybody in my family knew these things. So it was just growing up absorbing this natural knowledge that was passed through me. You know, on the weekends we would go to the forest and pick mushrooms and also like pick leaves from various plants and then make teas and prepare all kinds of things for the winter and grow various foods in various ways. So then I came to the US when I was 15 with my family and I entered medical school just already with this orientation towards using plants, using food, using uh you know what maybe are elements of lifestyle medicine, like uh in russia, uh, use of hot and cold with the banya, with the bath houses. It's just, it's how you live, it's how you make it through the winter, how you boost your immune system. So I entered this mainstream training, harvard College and then Harvard Medical School, just with a natural orientation towards, of course you use lifestyle to be well, and it's almost like I wandered away from it during college and medical school because it's such a intensive experience of kind of indoctrination in the Western scientific approach and evidence based this and that and a certain way of thinking about the body and a certain way of thinking about what body and a certain way of thinking about what medicine is and what doctors do. And luckily Harvard College, Harvard Medical School, are open-minded institutions and also home of a lot of the research on the mind-body connection. Herbert Benson was one of my professors at Harvard Medical School and the society I was in the school is divided into four societies. I was in the Walter Cannon Society, so it's kind of the descriptions of mind-body connection fight or flight. That was just part of my mainstream education in medicine too.

Bliss:

And then we met in New York at Columbia in psychiatry residency. We met in New York at Columbia in psychiatry residency and even there you know, even at this quite conservative institution there were a couple of people. Right, we had Tony Tringruge and Phil Muskin was there right, phil Muskin was approaching complementary and alternative medicine from this like what is the evidence, what is the research? But also there was, like, this big knowledge base about hypnosis, right, which is one of the big mind body approaches that came out of Colombia. So there was enough open-mindedness there to allow me to like continue to do my own studies and my own research.

Bliss:

And while we were doing our mainstream psychiatry training, on the side I was learning all kinds of other things. I was learning hypnosis and that was that was during residency, and I was traveling a lot and I was dancing and I was doing all kinds of workshops and exposing myself to a variety of ideas, and I did various herbalism trainings even back then. So it's not part of our mainstream medical education or training, but it's available, right. So for those of us interested in it, right, it's something that is easy to access just outside of the mainstream medical institutions. And then I took a year off, you stayed and you went on, I think, straight into child, right.

Dirk:

Well, I did a fourth year. I slow tracked. So I have three kids and we had another kid and I had an early. I got in early I mean fast track into NYU and then I decided to slow track and then I applied again and then they didn't want me the second time. We would have been classmates, yes, no. Yeah, they really wanted me to go and I was like, no, I'm on a slower track, which was nice because I got to do you know that fourth, have a lower key and be home with little baby. But they wanted somebody more ambitious than than me. I think they figured out that I wasn't.

Bliss:

oh, that's not it. I'm a slow comer.

Dirk:

Yeah, I'm a slow comer, yeah.

Bliss:

You have the most incredible life story that reaches way back and every time you know I get to hang out with you and have dinner. There's like some new aspect. That is like wow and what. And you were on the forest floor for how long doing what? Yeah, yeah, or how long doing what? Yeah, yeah.

Dirk:

I love the forest, decomposing fungi and completing the life cycle and the decay turning into life.

Bliss:

Yes, and somehow I picked up a PhD along the way. Beautiful, yeah, so we both did that. The thing is, you had a baby and I'm younger.

Dirk:

So that fourth year of psychiatry residency, I took it as a year off, as a gap year and which is so cool, yeah, to be able to, to do that, and and so, yeah, tell me, and I I lined it up, I guess I was on the same track.

Bliss:

I deferred my nyu child, uh, and they allowed me to do it. I think you know I had a cover story because I got a Fulbright, so I had a. The year was kind of legitimate because I did a Fulbright to Russia, so I spent.

Dirk:

What was the idea? What were you going to do in Russia?

Bliss:

I mean, my idea was I was going to learn. I was going there to learn a different way of thinking about the body and the mind and see what was there. You know, it's a really fascinating place that's quite isolated and the thought process around how the mind works, how mental illness works, how we heal, what therapy is, is so different. It's like a. It's a parallel world. I'm sure there are many parallel worlds. I'm sure in China there's like a whole separate line of thinking. So I was going to just be and to learn. Of course I had a project and I was also. I was affiliated with a medical school, I did a lot of teaching and I did research on stigma. So that was the topic of my project. My interest was in stigma, stigma of mental illness, stigma of the field of psychiatry and an exploration. But really, you know, in parallel.

Bliss:

The moment I landed, you know, got placed. I wanted to be in Moscow and instead I got placed in Ufa, which is a city on the like, eight hours south of Moscow, on the border between Siberia and western part of Russia. Western part of Russia in my mind, in the middle of nowhere, in Ural mountains, in a republic where most people speak, don't even speak, russian. There's a, there's like a local language and local dialect. So, um, it was like landing on the moon and I didn't know, anyone.

Bliss:

And it was this incredible experiment for me of like okay, here I land in Ufa on the moon. How am I going to find myself Right? How am I going to find my direction, my meaning, my place within this magical opportunity to? Land on a different planet.

Dirk:

That's such a neat story and I'm just associating to. I feel like, since doing my ketamine training, I have this very different perspective to what I used to think of. Just there's a purpose behind everything. I don't know how come I think this now, but it's like whenever I don't get what I want, I get very curious and I'm just like, hmm, there's some meaning coming out of this. So as I'm listening to your story, it's like you get placed in this town. That's nowhere, which is not what you want, and so now I'm curious what's going to happen?

Bliss:

Yeah, yeah, and so was I right. And yes, and you know it's happening. So the best thing I could do was just to take it as a redirect and some kind of opportunity was in some way. I had to adapt to the situation and make the best out of that time in Ufa and I was already so deeply in the path of, you know, following yoga and meditation and Eastern spirituality and dance. For me that was contact improvisation and these various kind of somatic slow dance practices that have a spiritual component. And I got too far and week one I was like, okay, I'm going to find my people. I looked around and you know this divine guidance to it's like immediately I found some kind of a poster for, like, a yoga class and then a poster for contact improvisation class or jam or you know some kind of event.

Dirk:

So yoga, I think most people have heard of. But what is contact improv? And I've, I've, I've seen some videos now based on knowing you, but it's super cool, but maybe just tell people what that is.

Bliss:

Yeah, so contact improvisation is like one form of contemporary dance and it is a very technical dance form. There's a lot of knowledge of, like how to do it safely, because what it is it involves contact between two people and this very embodied, deep way of being with another person, of listening and co-creating a dance or movement you know, it doesn't need to really be dance by deeply listening to the other person and the other person's, like you know, subtle movements, subtle energetic shifts and uh, maybe there's, you know, even if it's like two hands touching, right, just listening. There can be this whole embodied, mindful journey of just listening to another being, another person. And often this dance form is done in silence. There's no music because there's so much to listen to in just another human's you know, arm or shoulder or foot or knee or back, and it can get very slow and meditative and you know it's, it's transports you into this inner world of you know, just listening to sensations and kind of this deep felt sense of being in one's body and being with another human. And it can get very fast and athletic and spinning on someone's shoulders and jumping up and down and, uh, a lot of acceleration and playfulness and athleticism. So it has a huge range.

Bliss:

Yeah, look it up on youtube contact improvisation and new york has a booming, booming contact improvisation dancing. So I've, you know I've continued here, but I fell in Ufa. I fell into this group, contact improvisation group. They met twice a week for, like, I think like a three-hour practice and it was one of my like, deepest, most meaningful dance journeys that I've had and I've been dancing my whole life falling into that little group. Maybe it was 10 people, but it was committed. In New York it's like a different group that comes to every event. There's no committed group over there. It was the same group of 10 people coming twice a week for three hours, listening deeply to each other and, you know, quickly hang on a second.

Bliss:

You have a siren, yeah yeah, I mean, there's like so much to it that I fell into like a saibaba community and there was like a harikrishna community. I was like I was a yes to everything. I was like, okay, I reinvent myself I'm.

Bliss:

I get to just find myself in this parallel universe and likely I will never return to this place. And there's another magical piece is that the city where I was placed by the Fulbright program is the city where my grandparents met. So my grandmother was in St Petersburg during the blockade during World War II, where the the city was cut off. There's no food, nothing, no supplies entering the city, and she was saved. Her mother died. She was saved by being sent to a labor camp in Ufa making bricks, and that's where she met my grandfather and that's why I'm here. That's how they survived the war, that's how she survived.

Dirk:

So that was Stalin saying we need bricks. It was World.

Bliss:

War II, during the blockade. Yeah, stalin, of course. Yeah, but it's, you know, it's. Yeah, it's a miracle, because we don't even know exactly like her age. She was too young, her papers had to be changed. It was all kinds of miracles along the way. It was a lucky thing that she got sent to a labor camp because a lot of people who were in St Petersburg died of starvation.

Dirk:

It was a tragedy.

Bliss:

The world doesn't know a lot about what happened in Russia, but Stalin is potentially responsible for 50 million people die people Right. So anyway, that's a whole different story, but where we're heading is eventually I came back. I did child fellowship at NYU and NYU I was very welcoming and open-minded to complementary and alternative medicine and the program director at the time was Jess Shatkin, who taught himself the portion of the psychopharmacology course that covered supplements and herbs. So he encouraged me and I learned so much during that time and he also created this opportunity to develop a course for NYU undergraduates and now you know different students at NYU which I still teach 12 years later with one of my classmates from NYU and the course. He gave us this creative freedom to just develop a course on whatever was of interest, and the thing, of course, that is of interest to me is complementary and alternative medicine as applied to mental health. So we developed this class called complementary and alternative mental health, which has been available to NYU students since 2012,.

Bliss:

Since we started teaching it we're still going 12 years later and through that class I developed a lot of deepened my expertise and kind of developed focus. You know my areas were mind-body medicine and biological approaches, and that was nutrition supplements, herbs, you know all kinds of biological interventions. And yeah, and I was the one person from my child fellowship group who went straight from training into private practice and I just I knew I needed to de-institutionalize myself and give myself as much freedom as I could to work in a way that I felt was in alignment with what I believed, what I saw as like the way that I wanted to work with people and not to be constrained by institutions and the demands or frames put on doctors by institutions. So it was a brave transition. Luckily, it all went well and then I worked alone as solo private practice from 2012 through 2015, just three years.

Dirk:

So yeah, at this point you've really accumulated a wide body of knowledge, both all the you know traditional stuff from the big name institutions and the traditional approaches, and then you have the lifelong complementary interest and story, the deep cultural roots, and then this course, which sounds really interesting. I'm curious how many lectures is it? And I'm imagining I mean, I don't know enough about mushrooms and supplements, but I'm imagining EMDR, neurofeedback, hypnosis. I don't know what are these different?

Bliss:

Yeah, so the way we organized the class. You know, at the time when we were launching and developing this class 2011, 2012, the label that was being used was complementary and alternative medicine to this field. Now there are many different labels there's integrative medicine, there's functional medicine, there's lifestyle medicine, there's ecological medicine. There are just so many subfields all overlapping, but at that time that was the label and it was organized into five subareas. So that's how we organized ourselves and that's how we organized the class. And that's biological treatments. So that's how we organized the class and that's biological treatments. So that's the supplements food, things like that. Energy medicine.

Dirk:

What's that?

Bliss:

Reiki.

Dirk:

I know nothing about that, yeah.

Bliss:

Yeah, and I would say many people put spirituality in this category too. Then mind-body medicine this category too, then mind body medicine, right, so those are all the technologies where you use the mind to help the body.

Bliss:

Right, mindfulness yoga neurofeedback neurofeedback, emdr, right, all these different things, hypnosis, right, you know things where you really tap into the mind to maybe decrease inflammation in the body. And then there's whole medical systems, so ayurveda, traditional chinese medicine, naturopathy, homeopathy, whole systems of thought. And then the last one is like manipulative and body-based treatment, so that's chiropractic massage, various like hands-on Feldenkrais Alexander technique, things like that.

Dirk:

So we organized the class. This is so cool because each of these is like this big community, healing community in and of itself, and I feel like a big thing that I'm realizing is just how isolated we are and how we fall into these little community with social media, everybody's in their own little camp, and I recently have sort of opened myself up to this idea, that which, in some ways, is kind of obvious. But looking from multiple perspectives leads to a deeper. I guess you can choose one group and you can go really deep, and that's one way of doing things, and another way is to really look from a lot of different perspectives and what you're describing is really having a lot of different lenses to look at healing and hell. So in getting those very early on in your career.

Bliss:

So that's really yeah, and there's like a blessing and a curse in this broad, big picture approach. It is my approach, it is the thing that I just deeply believe and orient to that you have to consider all of it, all aspects of health, you know, and I can later I'll talk about why mind, body seven, like what the seven is and those various areas. But this, you know, yes, it's like a way to just know like, what are the options? Like what's out there, like what are? You know there's like the best of the west and the rest, but what's out there, like what are? You know there's like the best of the West and the rest, but what's the rest?

Bliss:

How to organize this infinitely huge field of complementary and alternative medicine or whichever new label we apply to it, how to have a bit of organization, right, to just be able to like, quickly orient oneself, to like okay, what are the potential options, what are the modalities which might be relevant or useful in the situation or that situation, or to this patient or that patient, depending on what's going on with the patient, but also depending on the patient's fundamental belief system and orientation towards themselves and the world and their body and their condition. Right, because really what works for people is the thing that aligns with their beliefs, that fits them.

Dirk:

Yeah, I really got to this through the Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kocken. I really got to this through the Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kocken, kind of Tony Trangooch and leading to hypnosis and EMDR, which is such a different model of the mind. But then reading the Body Keeps the Score and going to Bessel's trauma conference where he talks about really you have to have a lot of different tools, Every person's different. You have to have a lot of different tools, Every person's different. And I don't think I got that message in my training early on.

Bliss:

I'm coming to it late, yeah, and Western medicine and what conventional psychiatry has to offer for something like trauma? Right, if we have a patient with trauma or PTSD, there's a handful of treatments and then people are left to do their own research, and they do, they do they research and they look for what else is there to feel better, because often a medication and psychotherapy are not enough for someone's healing.

Dirk:

And trauma is so ancient and every culture has their tradition for healing trauma, and so there's a lot out there once we step out of the Western approaches, so that's been really enriching of the Western approaches.

Bliss:

So that's been really enriching, yeah, and in a way, maybe those of us who are entering this field of integrative psychiatry, integrative medicine, as we become knowledge holders of like what are all the different options and what is a reasonable approach, right, and what is not so reasonable right, what's safe, what's not safe, what's more likely to be effective, what's less likely to be effective, we become these guides to help people orient to all the possible different things, different treatments they could try. And the book yeah, the body keeps the score does go through a lot of those different approaches. You do need to engage the body, right?

Bliss:

So somehow finding something yoga or some kind of a somatic approach must be a piece of it Right, and maybe there's a way to reparent oneself or recreate certain experiences right. So these like interactive, group based creative odd therapeutic. Certain experiences right. So these like interactive, group based creative odd therapeutic psychodrama and other things.

Bliss:

Yeah, yeah, offer an opportunity to have an experience of being reparented. You know which I find, like you know I recently I experienced it at an ISTA retreat. You know, ista is like a workshop I did recently and then offered it to someone at a circle medicine, like dance, retreat, movement.

Dirk:

So what was the experience that you're talking about? I had an experience where this was in an IFS training, where I was talking about an internal conflict, and then we were in this small group of four of us in a room and the guide said, okay, you be this part, you be that part, and I could sort of choreograph. And it's not just fun, because when we access our memory systems we can change our whatever the brain networks that create the trauma responses, and so it's very deep, but this idea of reparenting, which I guess is early. But what was your experience that you are touching on?

Bliss:

Yeah, so I attended this workshop which is called Medicine Circles, which is like a very interesting and shamanic way of working with a group and individuals, where maybe there's a facilitator or a couple facilitators and a circle kind of holds the space and, one by one, individuals have an opportunity to come into the circle and be held by the group and guided by whoever is facilitating, hopefully in like a not from the facilitator's point of view, but hopefully a hollow bone of allowing you know whatever spirit or some kind of a higher intelligence to come through them to help the person create whatever experience or work through whatever thing it is they want to work through, right, maybe there's a theme.

Bliss:

So in this one circle, the youngest participants in the workshop was probably younger by like 20 years. Then everyone else chose me to represent the mother and chose someone else to represent the father, and there were various other people representing all kinds of other things and a lot of different things happened. But one of these experiences was me as just channeling the, the mother archetype wasn't really about me as just channeling the mother archetype. It wasn't really about me as an individual. I was representing something. I was the mother, the ancient mother, like this universal mother, just that archetype for her. And there was an archetypal father and we just created a little cocoon and we held her between the two of us and we first checked in like, what messages would you like to hear from your mom which, what messages would you like to receive from your dad?

Bliss:

and she told us, she told us, so we had material to work with but, then she was just our little baby, our little child, and we were channeling and whispering to her these words of affirmation and love and recognition and acceptance and understanding. She requested to be given to hear, and so we gave that experience. I've experienced that myself, too, multiple times. This is highly recommended.

Bliss:

I think all of us should have a chance to experience this many times, and it doesn't even need to be like a mother and a father. It could be two friends or a group of friends just whispering these affirmations which we need to hear. And there's even one amazing technology that we've developed with a friend group and maybe someone I don't even know where it came from where you have two people whispering at the same time, one into each ear, one into the other ear so your resistance and your ability to not take it in goes down and you're just bathed in affirmations and love, and that allows a certain reset, reset, right. So the more we can create these communities and bubbles of holding groups, holding each other, holding an individual in a space of just this acceptance and non-judgmental love and allowing someone to take in maybe the thing that they didn't get when they were little, maybe that affirmation love, safety, sense of being held and welcomed in the world, and a sense of belonging and a sense of being admired and recognized and seen, which all of us need. All of us need right.

Bliss:

So it's like how to create these bubbles, these opportunities for ourselves, right, as individuals, as clinicians, and how do we do that for our patients. Do we do that for our patients, right? So with each patient, I feel like, yes, I have, you know, 50 different modalities and techniques and trainings and workshops and I have all kinds of you know things I can offer. But really fundamentally, it's like how to create a relationship that gives an opportunity for reworking some fundamental nervous system experiences, right, like loving people. Right. In a way, it's like what do we do? Like we have relationships with people where we love them, right in this non-judgmental, accepting, celebratory way of like seeing them and wanting to know them, helping them know themselves, right, and if we want to know them, if we are curious about them, they become more curious about themselves and their own.

Dirk:

Yeah, I'm getting a little chill. I talked with Richard Brockman and that's going to be a podcast that's going to be out when ours comes out, and so he survived his mom's suicide and found her when he was seven and he became an expert in suicide and it's a tragic story, obviously. He just wrote a book about this and he became a mentor of mine. I had a patient who suicided and he really helped me through that and we developed a friendship and so he really talks about love and love towards our patient, and I had a part of me as you were talking.

Dirk:

I was like well, how are you going to build for this? I see you have a lot of different services on your practice. And are you going to build for this? I see you have a lot of different services on your practice Are you going to have your two practitioner whispering in the ear service? But I'm kind of joking, but really, this is really important and this is what we do and it's also why I'm very much now resonating with IFS, because it's sort of a heart-opening practice that the idea as a practitioner is to recognize the parts that are in the way of our loving self-energy and, if we can have those step back and radiate openheartedness. That's what creates the healing energy in the therapy session.

Bliss:

So it does really get at what is the healing force in our work, yeah, and maybe it gets at these deeper levels of what's the meaning of our work, right? What is it that we actually do? Yes, we can provide CBT and yes, we prescribe medications, but that's just one part of it. Yep, and us fine-tuning ourselves as these instruments, right of the more we are able to dwell in, you know, whatever you call it, self-energy, right? This mindful state of being where you can really stay open, open mind, open heart and non-judgmental, accepting and really focused.

Dirk:

It's a much more healing and energizing way to work. It's not as draining at the end of the day. You're not, you know, because in psychiatry there can be a lot of struggle with patients. I feel like a lot of my colleagues. There's a little bit of frustration and almost anger at patients and they should be doing this but they're not doing that, and why not? And this paternalism that then gets foiled and frustrated and those kinds of cycles. So I feel like finding a way to move away from that and be, you know, this sort of Rogerian, just super accepting cohesion.

Bliss:

I feel like that's where I naturally align with and that's the work we do on ourselves, you know that's why you want to find a therapist or psychiatrist who has done a lot of work right, Like you can only take someone as far as, like you have gone.

Dirk:

But there's a lot of yeah, yeah, and that's also why I want to sort of peel back this mask of anonymity and have people, because I do feel like in some traditional models you really people can sort of hide behind anonymity and seem sort of all-knowing. But I myself have worked with an analyst where I didn't trust them. I just they're nice or seem nice, but I don't really know, and I do think it's possible to send that hard energy. But there's also other branches that feel like there's a lot of sort of criticism towards patients and I don't know if that's sort of a tangent. I want to get back to your story.

Bliss:

So in the story we were you know. So I went into my own practice and I did a solo practice for three years seeing patients doing lots of therapy, just being with people, figuring out. Actually, you know what is my way of working with people.

Dirk:

So this is the first year, three years out, of your child training. You're teaching this course in your office and you're doing it all by yourself.

Bliss:

Yeah, seeing children, young kids, adolescents, adults, elderly, everyone with everything, all kinds of diagnosis, and three years into it, one I felt like, wow, there's only one of me.

Bliss:

My practice filled and so many people wanted this like softer approach, this integrative psychiatry approach, which was welcoming of lifestyle interventions and also I knew about food and supplements and herbs and various things that lots of people know about more, you about more knowledge about those holistic alternative treatments with the general public than with the medical community.

Bliss:

It's definitely grassroots driven interest. So I started hiring people and looking for other like-minded minded practitioners to work with me, to also build a community for myself to teach and to create a practice where that specific way of working with patients was welcomed and celebrated, because many clinicians really either don't have time or it's not welcome, like they're not really supposed to talk about food or supplements with patients. So and I also felt like okay and access to care, right, like there needs to be an option for people from various socioeconomic backgrounds to access this way of treatment. And I always had mission driven, visionary, idealistic ideas and initially I developed an out of network practice but eventually I added an in network practice to which was that was a completely mission driven. It is not a way to make any money. It's a practice I've had to support.

Dirk:

So yeah, so out of network is maybe people outside of New York don't even know what that is, but that's basically in New York a lot of psychiatrists are able to just charge fee for service.

Dirk:

Now it's $400 or $500 an hour and there are people who are affluent can afford that and maybe get reimbursed out of network and I think most of the country there's less access. But in-network means I'm on an insurance panel. You're saying you started, you built out of network and now you have an in-network, which is much needed component and that's not making money, which I want to hear about, but just to stay with maybe the chronology. So I'm imagining you now you have this vision of a bigger thing that you want to build or you just say I want to just hire one person or two people. Like, how do you do it? And of course I'm asking a bit selfishly because I have similar interests and I would like to have a bigger impact and I would like to hire people and start mentoring them and create more of a treatment framework with a vision that I'm overseeing and collaboratively creating rather than doing sort of the med backup for people who are just various therapists that I've had relationships with which I've been doing a lot of up to now.

Bliss:

Yeah. So you know, I actually didn't know that I would start a group practice. It wasn't necessarily something that I was like intending to do or dreaming about for years and years. It just naturally evolved because I was seeing patients and my practice filled and patients kept calling. There was this natural it's like, oh okay, well, just turn everybody away, or I guess I could try to hire somebody, which was also beautiful Synchronicity and a little miracle sent to me was that my practice manager, whom I hired in 2015, and who is still with me in 2024, was a wise grounded at that time. You know, maybe 25 or 27 year old, new mom with an MBA.

Dirk:

Oh, wow.

Bliss:

With an MBA.

Dirk:

How did you find her?

Bliss:

I think I found her online somehow and we are from different worlds. You know, I'm from Eastern Europe, she's an African American woman from New York City, an african-american woman from new york city, and the two of us have very different personalities. I'm, you know, like my mind expands in all directions and visionary and big, and she's very grounded and, uh like, operations focused and logistics focused.

Dirk:

So we were a beautiful balance and she had a background in this kind of thing or no? How do you hire from?

Bliss:

school she was coming from, actually working already as like a practice manager for another practice, but not in mental health. Yeah, we figured it out together, but but I had help you know, and it was also this message it's like don't do this alone, find your people there are incredible people out there and we were both new moms at that time. Our kids are three months apart, so it was also two new moms figuring this out in 2000.

Dirk:

But adding the yeah, the grounding and the business component. I feel like that would be incredibly helpful.

Bliss:

Yeah, yeah. So I think that's the first person to hire A grounded, detailed, focused young person, ideally with an MBA, but that's a bonus who can hold it right, who was really like, if my mind is really good at, you know, the visionary piece and her mind was really good at the logistics and we developed trust. You know now now I mean nine years into this like I don't even know how things work behind the scenes because she has been running things.

Dirk:

So what are all the things that she was doing initially? Was she answering phones and doing billing?

Bliss:

Yes, yeah, she did all of it. The website.

Bliss:

The website I did. Maybe she helped a little with hiring people to help, but I didn't do the website myself. I also hired somebody. We have a certain expertise. Our expertise is in mental health treatment. We are not business leaders, we are not website developers, you know. So I believe in, you know, division of labor, Like let me do the thing that I do and I love to do and I'm really good at, which is being a therapist and a psychiatrist, and I found people you know and that's a benefit of being a psychiatrist is we're good at finding good people.

Bliss:

You know, I can't say not everybody I hired over these years was a great match. I've misread sometimes, but for the most part it's like just being tuned in and looking for people who are the right people, who can help and join with developing something and joining in a mission, who can share the mission, who can share a vision and encourage the vision and help you actually put it into life. So she found our first employee or maybe even our first two was like a very, very, very holistic-minded therapist who was also a yoga therapist, a meditator, just a beautiful human.

Dirk:

That was a social worker or a Social worker? Yeah, Okay.

Bliss:

Then we hired a second social worker and then I interviewed, I found the nurse practitioner I felt like for hiring, so my practice manager found the initial few therapists and I found the initial nurse practitioner who joined us and then there were four of us plus the practice manager, plus Ashley, and it was all women. We're all pretty much on the young side, all moms in this like life thing together, of like. Okay, how do we do this? We all have tiny children and we need to work or want to work, and the work we do is like heart and love driven and takes a lot, takes a lot of emotion, takes a lot of presence, and we need flexibility because we have all these tiny children. So it was also for me building a community of women who were more or less, you know, we were very different, coming from different paths, diverse in many ways, but also we created a community which was supportive for all of us. And so that's maybe my other skill set or talent is I love to build communities I'm nourished by it.

Bliss:

It energizes me. I love people, I love to bring people together. I love to nurture a community and to build a community that feels good so it was very important for me to choose people who would be easygoing and likable and low drama possibility.

Bliss:

So, we could build a very supportive community, which still there's diversity and we can hold that diversity. We can hold people with various temperaments and needs, but there's a fundamental quality of love and presence that allows the community to thrive. And so, over the years, it was just adding more clinicians who we vibed with, who I vibed with and the other clinicians vibed with, who were seeking the same thing. Right, a very supportive cozy group to not be isolated in doing mental health work and to have this freedom to practice in a way that we believed was in integrity with our beliefs. Right, and, of course, I attracted people who are interested in these more holistic and integrative approaches, or mind-body approaches, and we're a community. You know, now it's just, I guess it's yeah, it's nine years.

Dirk:

Yeah, what is it now? How many people? I looked at your website. There's a.

Bliss:

Yeah, so I actually, you know, I don't know, I think mind-body seven. I have two practices, so mind-body seven, maybe there are 24 of us or 25 of us, and integrative mind is six people. Yeah, so you know, and when I was visioning early on I was like, okay, I will never go above 30 because I want to actually be in an intimate community where I know everyone, we can all be connected. So I think I'm hitting that intimate community where I know everyone.

Bliss:

we can all be connected. So I think I'm hitting that and. But you know, it's just, it's all organic, it's like flowing with what's happening.

Dirk:

And you had the vision of the mind body. Seven that stayed the same. And what are the seven?

Bliss:

Yeah, so mind body seven, you know, in a way it's like I'm not sure if it was like the best name to choose for practice. It was also more like this is my idea, or my ideology, rather make a difference in someone's life and to really transform, not just to relieve a symptom, but to really work towards wellness, well-being, optimal health, right. These for optimal health, right. These not just not depressed, right, or not having panic attacks, that's not enough, right? That's not well-being, right. So from the start I knew my orientation was like I. I for myself, I strive for well-being and wholeness on all levels and of course, of course, my patients want that for themselves too. They are not striving for just not having panic attacks, right, they also are striving for wholeness and well-being and meaning and living their best life and having the best health they could possibly have, right. So, and to get there we need to cover all of it and that's a lot, right. So that's that was where the seven was like okay, how can I organize my own thoughts into some kind of finite list? So it's not infinite and disorganized, right? And that was the seven. Uh, you know, and I have to admit my how, what I label or how I organize things under the seven, continues to evolve. I have I have arranged and rearranged the labels a little bit as I am deeper into this practice, but I'm still that's my approach this comprehensive, slow, deep, lifelong journey towards complete well-being, towards liberation, towards like we're heading for, like optimal. We're not just aiming low, right? Uh, you know, if I want that for myself, like, yeah, let me encourage everyone to strive for that too.

Bliss:

And there are basic elements there, right. Like the first piece of the seven is physical health, right, like you have to address physical health issues, you have to deal with the body, right? So you know, that's actually not number one, but that's somewhere on there. The number one, actually, I would put like basics are basic, like sleep, food, exercise, right, those are basic. Right, we're not going to get very far if someone's sleep is completely, you know, out of whack. So basic things are basic. So I start with that sleep, food and exercise, right, just basic foundations. Right. Then we go to physical health, because if there's something major going on and it is not being addressed, that that is going to get in a way of well-being. So if someone is dealing with a chronic health issue and the chronic health issue is not being addressed, or or even you know something like a thyroid dysfunction. You know?

Bliss:

things that are maybe more difficult to spot anemia, vitamin deficiencies, things like that, right, just things. That physical body is real and we need to take very, very good care of it. Right? Physical health is essential and important and a prerequisite, a foundation, right, before we can, like, go to the next level. Right, and then we can go. Let's look at other aspects of life. Let's look at relationships. Relationships are so important, right? Our patients probably spend at least half of all the time in conversation with us in therapy on the topic of relationships right our roles as partners, as parents, as children, as friends, as employees.

Bliss:

Right, all these social roles, how we are embedded in the social world, is so powerful and so impactful on how we feel. Right, if there's a even minor disturbance in a romantic relationship, you know someone, someone will, if we feel it.

Bliss:

It's just part of being human right and if there are lots of issues that has to be looked at and felt into and grieved and you know, recognized and seen, and you know we can get better at relationships right. So then it's building skills to get better at relationships right. So I spent a lot of time with myself and with my patient right, getting better at relationships, getting better at communication, getting better at clearing things, at overcoming conflict and transforming conflict, at repairs, and all of that, and it's not so simple right. This is a lifelong journey to get better.

Dirk:

It's essential and it's complicated.

Bliss:

Yes, yes, and better and better and better at relationships, because that will make everything better, right and that will allow more and more freedom, more and more love, more and more of like quiet, quiet, peaceful mind. So relationships are a huge component.

Bliss:

Next thing work we spend so much time at work and it is an important part of life and we have such an interesting mixed relationship to work. On the one hand, we resist it and we don't want to work. On the other hand, for most people it's an opportunity for focused, engaged, a positive, you know, state of. You know at least some direction, accomplishment, you know some, some linear activity moving towards some goals, checking off some to-dos and focused, right so ability to you know there's so much chaos in our minds and what a blessing that for four hours, eight hours or however many hours a day, one can tap into work and have something to organize the mind.

Dirk:

Yeah, and hopefully have a positive relationship.

Bliss:

Yeah and work provides opportunities for states of flow right. Work is an opportunity to use our strengths and express our strengths right. So if someone is really mismatched and in work that does not allow them to express their strengths, well, that's maybe something that needs to be looked at right. Or someone is boggled down by interpersonal issues at work, well, that's a skill set, that's something right. So work is a very important part of life and, as much as we are conflicted about it, embracing, embracing it as a blessing is something you know. I work with so many patients around work.

Bliss:

And the last piece, the seven, is the big picture, and sometimes I put it as number one, sometimes I put it as number seven. And those are these bigger questions. You know your question meaning what's the meaning of life? What are the core values for me or for the person sitting with me? And those are like pizza toppings, you know, it's like it's just your preferences. It doesn't matter what mine are right, there's no right and wrong. What are your values? What are your orienting principles in life? What is your North Star? Where are you heading? What direction would you like your life to go in? What are some meta-larger principles? What qualities do you want to cultivate. We can call this spiritual or not spiritual. It's so personal, right, you can just really talk about values and meaning and goals and direction and qualities to cultivate and intention, right. Or you can get quite spiritual yeah, I.

Dirk:

For me, the this segues nicely into meaning and I agree that sort of finding a North Star and this is a question that is unique to everybody and changes all the time, and so I feel like a lot of what's exciting for me about being a therapist is getting this sort of window into people in their deepest existential crisis or just opening up in this special way and helping people with this question. But that also helps me and that's part of my motive. It's a shared journey, so I'm curious. Yeah, I mean, you've sort of touched on this already, but is there anything more that you want to say about meaning, how you think about it? Is there things that you've learned from your patients that you apply to yourself? Just, however, you want to take that sort of your perspective on meaning.

Bliss:

Yeah, dirk, this is such a big question and I could take it in so many different directions, right. In a way, it's like what is the meaning for me, and maybe in which aspect of life work or personal, or all of it aspect of life, work or personal or all of it and what am I seeing with my patients and how is that shifting my own orientation? I mean, what a blessing this thing that we do, that it's even called work is, is amazing. Right, because we get to sit with people and hear their stories and to deeply understand at least try our best to deeply understand how they see it, how they experience life, how they orient and, for so many people, this interaction between two nervous systems, and how I'm able to see the sacredness of their path and their life and the beauty in them or, you know, in their story, or the sadness or the tragedy, all of it, the victories, the losses.

Dirk:

You know, it's such an enriching thing for me, I like the interaction between two nervous systems and the story piece of it. And there's um a writer, george saunders, who is a professor, who who talks about sort of an expert in russian short stories and talks about meaning from a story perspective and how a writer creates meaning by every little piece of the story, has some kind of a connection to whatever the point is of the story and an impact, and I've been trying to understand what is meaning. And, yes, meaning is like a symbol that represents something else. But the deeper sense of meaning is this sense of connection and impact. How much do we connect? How much is that impact? And then connection with nature, connection with bigger. That's kind of where, where I'm at at this point, but I'm still figuring it out.

Bliss:

Yeah, and maybe one element of this is like, how can we stay humble and open to change? Right, like, how can we stay in a beginner's mind and in this acceptance that we don't know everything and that we don't even fully know life and ourselves? Right and what, and what seems like the meaning or the definition? It's such a big concept? Right, there has to be flexibility and room for evolution and adjustment and change. Right, and this, approaching it with this open-minded beginner's mind, you know, like I don't know, I'm willing not to know, I'm willing not to attach myself to a fixed idea about what the meaning of life is. And also, as I come with every patient, right, this is absolutely individual and subjective. Right, and what I may identify? Know, okay, I got it.

Bliss:

This is the meaning of life for me, in three sentences versus, each patient is coming in with their own. And the humility, right to be open to each one of those being valid, and a humility for me to be permeable and allow myself to be influenced. Right To to get something to, to tweak how I see things in response to an encounter with some, you know, beautiful human being who was sent into my office somehow. Beautiful human being who was sent into my office somehow. You know that's. I think that's like I insist. I insist on this permission to not know and stay flexible and in the celebration of the unknown and flow and change and evolution. And it would be tragic if one day I get stuck on like, okay, I got it, dirk. This is the meaning of life one, two and three. If that ever happens to me, please show me this episode and remind me that oh, maybe there's room for I love that.

Dirk:

Yeah, the looping back to the beginner's mind. So, bringing this interview sort of a finishing, I like to ask some rapid fire questions.

Bliss:

Okay, rapid fire. Huh, rapid fire yeah.

Dirk:

So yeah, feel free to take this any way you want, but um, first question sentence completion. According to me, beata plus lewis, the meaning of life is love nice do you want? To ask the same question. Do you want to elaborate A?

Bliss:

bunch of answers. Oh, elaborate, I thought it's a one-word answer.

Dirk:

If you want.

Bliss:

Oh, okay, love, openness, striving for liberation, striving for our highest and best self, engaging fully with life, internal freedom to be fully ourselves, more and more and more ourselves, and clearing clearing of blind spots and obstacles which may get in a way of full expression and dwelling in love. Dwelling in love and calm and whatever else matters at any given time. And, yeah, flexibility, adaptability to things shifting, including the meaning of life. You know, I feel like every January I have to like rewrite the meaning of life that's applicable for that year.

Dirk:

We're just capturing it for January 26, 24 at 3.30 pm. And the most meaningful thing that I did yesterday was Yesterday was Thursday.

Bliss:

Yeah, be fully present, fully alive, fully engaged with external life and my internal life, pausing to actually notice and take it in and register.

Dirk:

Was there a moment in the day, or is this just an ongoing practice for you?

Bliss:

Oh, there are so many moments. My children are eight, now have eight-year-old twin.

Bliss:

Now have eight-year-old twin gorgeous girls and they provide constant opportunities, for they are. You know, meaning of life is very clear when you have two little girls in your house. I know exactly why I need to stay alive and why I need to do whatever I need to do, because it's immediate feedback of I'm nurturing, taking care of these two beings. And you know, I picked them up from their after school and there was just such. They welcomed me with just joy and a hug and that's it. They're cultivating a space of love where they feel my love and they feel my acceptance and they can feel free to share whatever happened that day, their triumphs and disappointments, and yeah, that's so much. That's so rich, so blessing of having children.

Bliss:

So as many challenges come with that they do simplify a very clear, deeply felt sense of why I'm here and what I'm doing on Thursday or Friday or Saturday or any day.

Dirk:

Yeah, for sure, Nice. And if I come to you and I say Beate, I feel like a speck of dust in the universe. I don't feel like I have meaning. How would you approach helping me?

Bliss:

yeah, maybe the first thing, let me validate and just join you in that and be like yes, we are specks of dust, we're literally made from stardust and it's a very large universe apparently there's infinite universes. I mean the scale of things. So I I think it's quite accurate that sentiment. So let's first just like be in there and acknowledge that that's what's happening, that's what you feel, that's what you're feeling this moment, and I'm going to say yes to your feeling.

Bliss:

I'm not going to dismiss it, invalidate it, talk you out of it. I'm going to just allow you to feel your feeling first, yeah, and then from there, okay, so what's next? Right, if we're just these tiny specks of dust, maybe we get to make up the meaning. Maybe that means you're free to play and drift around the universe like this speck of and do whatever it is that you find meaningful, right, like it gives you this incredible freedom, then, to just okay, well, if there's, you know, just this little speck of dust, and do whatever you want to do, right, find your own way, make it up for yourself. You're free. You're free to make it up.

Dirk:

That's nice. I feel your energy and I feel the to make it up. That's nice. I feel your energy and I feel the shift in perspective. It just it feels very nice, feels good A couple more when I am dead and gone.

Bliss:

What I would most like to be remembered for is I think how I loved, how I loved, how I created bubbles of safe loving spaces for people, for my family, for my especially my girls. They're my first responsibility to create that for them, for my partner, for my friends and community. Yeah, how I love. She loved fully and generously. That would be a beautiful way to be remembered.

Dirk:

And so true, and you do create these amazing communities, and I'm lucky to be part of some of those, and the most meaningful artwork that I've seen in the last week could be music, could be painting, or a TV show or movie or book or anything, any meaningful artwork.

Bliss:

I saw the most beautiful dance show. I'm a dancer, I go to lots of dance shows, so I saw like a real performance at the Joyce and it was a French, algerian choreographer, the French group of dancers beautiful, diverse group, and it was this display of what human bodies are capable of incredible movement. Yeah, so just like this reminder of like wow, the awe of what humans, when we do something in a focused, dedicated way, what we're capable of is incredible what, what was?

Dirk:

is there a title or a? I can look up. Let me see where's my phone?

Bliss:

it's. It's a french name, so tell you one second my friend leticia, who's a french artist and photographer. It's one of my best friends and a large piece of her art is hanging on my wall, so I see that every day. So this is a. I am not a french speaker. I speak four languages, but french is not one of them, and the name of the show is soul invictus Sun.

Dirk:

It's contemporary dance, yeah, cool.

Bliss:

Yeah, and I have to say that what I saw this morning. I go to a dance class every Friday morning, so this morning I went to my dance class. The incredible beauty of just people dancing. You know, the dance class I go to is kind of like a movement meditation dance your prayers, it's called Five Rhythms and it's a sober, barefoot, Friday morning dance gathering where everybody dances their prayer and their truth and their feelings, and just to pause from time to time and notice the room is breathtaking. So I get to be immersed in art. You know, every time I go to dance class it's not even a class, whatever it's called.

Dirk:

It's cool. Yeah, it's a neat thing. I went one time after you, oh yeah, you came to Piper. I came and I saw it and participated. It was amazing. And, yeah, I've been injured in various ways, but I'm not as connected with dance as you are, but it's a special group.

Bliss:

You find your practice right. It's like, yeah, and I injured my foot recently. So it's also like, oh, I will have to reinvent myself because I need to cut down on dance, so I will be doing a lot more psychiatry and making videos.

Dirk:

You can join me in stand-up comedy.

Bliss:

I'll be making podcasts and things to stay off of my foot.

Dirk:

And then, if there was a big message that you could get out to the world, is there something you would like to share on a big level?

Bliss:

well, I don't have it like formulated to put on a poster, but this message, is this invitation to self-compassion, I think would be the first message for me. That's the way to start to shift the world and individuals is first through self-love.

Dirk:

Well, thank you, this is so much fun and I'm amazed at how integrated your story is in so many different threads that weave back and forth and connect and sort of reset to this beginner's mind and then continue to grow, and how many communities you touch and bring together and appreciate you spending this time with me and look forward to continuing our friendship.

Bliss:

My pleasure. Yeah, this was fun for me to talk about these topics and, yeah, I feel like there's so much more to explore and to say what a rich topic. The meaning yeah, I thought we would get to some. I have these certain things like formulations that I've made for myself, but we didn't.

Dirk:

It didn't come up well um tell me the formulations.

Bliss:

I can, we can yeah, so a few years ago I went on this journey of learning and thinking about values and ways of being and attended a whole bunch of different workshops which maybe facilitated some of that thinking, and had so much information in my mind that it was too much. It was too much and I needed to distill. I needed to simplify and distill and what I did is I extracted four words. I was like, if I'm just allowed four words to give some direction to myself, right to myself right, and I chose the words calm, compassionate, present and playful. And these four words have been this North Star guidepost, anchor point of reference to me for several years now. And yes, I did this beautiful exercise which I found extremely helpful that I recommend to everyone of write a vision of where you want to be in 20 years, not in terms of, like you know, whatever money, like that's not logistics in a like a more spiritual, psychological, emotional way how do you see yourself? Where do you want to be in 20 years? How do you want to be? And so in that exercise, that list grew from four words to like an entire essay, but I don't remember the whole essay on like daily basis. All I can really hold on to is four words. So these have been so useful to me and I think you would have different four words, but these are four words that work for me and allow me to make decisions and allow me to stay connected to. What do I really value? How do I want to live? What states of being do I want to cultivate? What do I say yes or no to? So these have been extremely useful for me, and sometimes I add a new phrase and I'll work with a sentence and, for example, a sentence I worked with last year was there's nothing worth closing your heart for nothing. And so whenever I feel a little contraction or somebody's upset me or I'm whatever hurting for whatever reason, or something didn't work out or you know something, I just take a breath and I'm like, okay, apparently nothing is worth closing my heart for. So let me just sit with this and see how I can relax my body and unwind and open back up, because no matter what that was or how bad or whatever, apparently it's not worth closing my heart for. So that's a sentence that has been a big blessing. And I have a new sentence for 2024 that came up for me. It was my birthday on January 17.

Bliss:

And I had this beautiful guided journey and received the phrase for this year, which is I am safe and this is a core belief in psychotherapy, emdr, all these things right. We work to develop with people a deep belief in psychotherapy, emdr, all these things right. We work to develop with people a deep belief in I am safe. But often we're encouraged to teach people I to believe I am safe enough. I had a realization that actually I don't want to feel, just safe enough, but somehow it's like it invalidates the first half of the statement I want to feel I am safe.

Bliss:

And the next sentence, maybe, is no matter what, no matter what happens in life, I am safe with myself. Right, I am safe in my mind. I am safe because, no matter what happens or what's happening, I have a choice in how I adapt to it and I believe in my mind and in myself. I trust myself that I will find a way to come back to open heart and quiet mind Somehow. It may take time, but if I can trust my mind in that, then I am always safe. Period, no matter what. So it's the beginning of the year I have 12 months.

Dirk:

I love it. I feel like that's a gift, those two sentences and the four words, and I'm going to do the same exercise. Those four words are all part of the IFS C and P words, that playful perspective presence. I love your four words and in the playfulness For me, a guiding word is fun that sometimes I forget about and I don't know how to fit it in, but I feel like bringing that back. But also for sure compassion, self-compassion, open-heartedness. Yeah, I feel like you've opened up some channels for me and this will be fun to explore. I feel like that sort of continuous resetting is very powerful.

Bliss:

You know my other ambition, like if this whole psychiatry thing didn't work out or wasn't an option, my other path would have been some kind of a cult leader or spiritual leader.

Dirk:

So might still happen.

Bliss:

Yes, one day we're just combining it, bring it all together, yeah, yeah I would like to be a guru, cult leader with freedom to dedicate all of my time to thinking about these spiritual principles.

Dirk:

And healing people and bringing them together. Yes, and pulling everybody with me. Yeah, yeah.

Bliss:

This, you know this concept of bodhicitta, right Of like, we move forward in this evolutionary direction together. Right, so, always this effort to like. I got to bring everybody with me. I got to bring my community with me. I got to bring my patients with me. I got to bring my colleagues and friends with me. Right, we grow together, we free ourselves. Our liberation is interdependent and if we all commit to that right To like, really recognizing that we are not competing, we are cooperating, collaborating, that your growth, your happiness, your success, you know your expansion, your capacity so important.

Dirk:

Yeah, the more you succeed, the more I succeed, for for sure.

Bliss:

Yeah, the interdependence yeah.

Dirk:

So thank you for listening. I really enjoyed that. I had a lot of fun, as always, talking with Dr Bliss Lewis. Find out more about her work in integrative medicine at her website, mindbody7.com, and also she has a brand new series of integrative medicine YouTube short videos at Dr Bliss Lewis on YouTube and other social media handles. I'm excited to see you next time. I have a whole series on an exciting treatment modality that is exploding now in popularity parts work, IFS, internal family systems therapy. It is a really interesting way of understanding our mind as composed of little modules that interact and stay tuned. I'm going to have a series of interviews on this topic. As always, I appreciate your support. If you can leave me a nice rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, that helps the show, and until next time, I hope you have a meaningful, meaning-filled month. Send me questions and comments and I'll try to answer them, and if you figure out the meaning of life, let me know. Smurring pop tarts In pomegranates.

Bliss:

Dance the way across To the red chest.

Dirk:

Moscow pumpkins To kill the beetles. But my British desire, and what shouldn't? This, she says as she turns on campus In a particular tone of voice. So on and on and on, they spun no turn of the world, thank you.