If I’m not trained as a psychologist or counsellor, how did I learn what I teach?
It was entirely by accident.
When I was five years old, a massive wooden garden swing collapsed on my head, crushing it. I was saved thanks to my 15 year old baby-sitter, rushing me to her nurse-Mom, two doors away. While her Mom called the hospital, I was sitting on her toilet, while she compressed towels into the blood gushing from my head.
The baby-sitter’s sister was sitting on the bathroom counter watching. She recalls how the bathroom light was shining down in such a way that she got an excellent view of the inside my head. Fortunately, her Dad was a doctor for our local football team, so he was able to arrange everything before I got the hospital, and an excellent surgeon came in from holidays to save my life.
My motivation for a lifetime of studying the brain happened just as accidentally. When I woke up in the hospital, the first nurse that spoke to me, told me about how people die and come back to life. Imagine that idea hitting the mind of that deeply philosophical five year old.
The questions were obvious to me: Where had people gone when they weren’t in their body? And what are we made of, if we can leave our bodies and come back? Is it the same thing I’m made of at night, when I am dreaming, and I can do things my body cannot do when I’m awake? Also, is what I ‘am’ before birth, the same as what I ‘am’ after death? And if I can die at only five, then what is the point of being alive at all?
The list was endless. And each question spawned ten more. In the end, you’d likely have trouble believing how obsessed I’ve been with finding the answers to those questions. As I pondered deeper and deeper philosophical questions, I realized there really were solid answers. But to teach them to others, I had to better-understand how other people used their personal thinking to create their own unique realities.
Following that accident, for the rest of my life, no matter what it looked like I was doing on the surface, in Reality, I was always doing everything with my little observer-self watching both me, and others, in fantastic detail.
I did countless thought experiments that got remarkably sophisticated. I spent decades putting myself, and unwitting friends, family members, teachers, co-workers, and acquaintances into detailed and sometimes lengthy behaviour experiments. I would sometimes intentionally put myself in unpleasant and difficult situations just to watch my thoughts as I reacted.
The more I thought about thinking, the better I got at tracking my own—which was fantastically helpful in understanding the principles governing the brain in general. If you’re wondering what tracking thinking is, you do this too in a very minor way.
For example, when trying to remember a name, you might recall what letter it starts with, or how it sounds, or how it looks written out. But it takes you a while to trace that information back to the actual name, and you may not ever do it at all. I just got extremely good at that sort of thought-tracking. Especially for thoughts that are far more complex than someone’s name. The more I did it, the better I got at it.
It started right after the accident but, over time, I did increasingly refine the skill of seeing human behaviour in a very synesthetic way, similar to how some non-neurotypical people ‘see’ math, or how some people perceive words, or music, as being colours, or shapes.
Importantly, I can now also make detailed shapes for human-created societal concepts like, a job description, the concept of politeness, or of government, integrity, or punishment. These are not word-based ideas to me, they are three-dimensional aspects of capital ‘R’ Reality, and they shift and change nature, depending on who is looking at them.
This means that, for me, when someone is looking for a job, or two people meet romantically, it looks like two shapes merging—and the ‘changes’ required, are really just a reorienting of those ‘shapes.’ For me, it certainly doesn’t take a psychological form based off of outside-in teaching, about this group or that group. That’s all word-based illusory thinking, and the Buddhists warned us about how that leads to unnecessary suffering.
In the end, understanding Reality changes how you use your mind, and how you live your life. Most people undermine themselves with unproductive thinking. Without that disruption, the natural confidence that we all were born with—the same courage and confidence that helped us learn to walk and talk—shows back up.
That effect means that we no longer need to be liked, which frees us up to be more honest, and courageous with the people around us. That also leads to fewer regrets, which leaves us feeling more self-assured. We sleep better at night.
That confidence then translates into the sort of humility that allows us to be more open to hearing about our own mistakes, and to learn from them. And since we’re less judgmental of ourselves, we’re also less likely to take on other people’s judgments about us. We also don’t feel as compelled to make judgments about other people. And that alone can make a remarkable difference to someone’s life.
We also end up being more forgiving, so it also becomes difficult if not impossible to hold resentments, or a grudge. It’s harder to feel jealous, and almost impossible to hold any sort of ill-intent. We become more open, vulnerable, and loving. Simply put, we act like healthy people do.
None of this means that people will lose touch with who they are. They will simply forgive themselves for not having every strength available, and instead they will begin to maximize the strengths that are naturally theirs.
It may cause complications in their lives, but the people who’s anger creates anything from Live Aid to #metoo don’t want to lose that fire in their belly. Likewise, the sort of people who recoil from high emotions and intensity, do not want to lose access to their ability to be patient, gentle, and caring. We all need different sorts of people in different sorts of situations, so it’s good to know where we fit, and where we don’t.
Over time and with training, each type of personality eventually learns to be more comfortable and relaxed, simply by recognizing that everyone wasn’t ever supposed to be good at everything. If we waste time trying to do that impossible thing, we miss out using that energy to develop who we really are.
Everyone has genuine value. We all have plenty to offer. Even a wheelchair-bound child with severe cerebral palsy, is literally one of the best teachers of patience and decency that exists. It’s why their siblings are so often such exceptional people. If you want to find your value, you simply have to stop undermining yourself with illusory over-thinking. And I can help with that.
How does the training differ from psychology, counselling, or other mental health approaches?
One of the biggest differences is that I’m actually teaching the skill I use to achieve the benefits noted earlier. I’m not doing therapy, so my lessons can take on multiple forms. That means that while some people fly from overseas and do two weeks of concentrated all-day training, others do a walk in the ravine for an hour every two weeks. It’s whatever suits you and your life best.
I also avoid clocking my sessions whenever possible. And since people are paying for knowledge, not time, within reasonable limits, we talk for as long as we’re being productive. People tell me they feel that approach makes me feel more present, and that I feel less like a clinical professional and more like a caring friend.
In contrast, they often describe psychological settings that feel more like there’s some clinical, well-adjusted, university-trained, expert human, who is reaching down to help some lesser person, by talking almost exclusively about their failings as a human.
Of course the doctors don’t mean to convey they are flawless. Psychologists actually have a fairly high suicide rate. All of us are just humans, regardless of what job we do. But they are working within a system, and the formal medical establishment has only recently come to realize that it’s still quite paternal in its approaches.
That history of male-dominated, top-down approaches means that the distance is largely just a lingering, unintended byproduct of people’s training, licenses, and insurance—which all urge doctors and counsellors to exclude themselves from their sessions. Despite those instructions, even their own studies have shown that the best indicator of success for the patient isn’t found in what approach they use—it’s in how well they connected to their therapist.
I’m confident that many of the really good ones are breaking some rules to connect, because otherwise, if they’re following their rules, you share, they don’t. I’m not against it, but it’s an approach that simply doesn’t feel fair to me.
If you’re going to be vulnerable with me, then I have to be prepared to be vulnerable with you too, or no significant human connection can be made. I can’t have some artificial set of rules interfering with us being human with each other.
Brains learn by seeing, and copying. It’s why we speak the languages we grew up around, and why we walk or run like one of our parents. But what if our parents were bad at handling various circumstances?
No one can learn how to achieve healthy behaviour under stress, unless we have some healthy person who can model, and inform us—materially, and in detail—about how we can manage to be healthy under difficult circumstances. I have to be honest about my own issues, as a way of explaining how I deal with them.
All of this means that my answers aren’t vague terminology, like ‘that’s unhealthy,’ or ‘stand up for yourself,’ or ‘stop thinking about that.’ It’s easy to know what to do. The trick is to know how to do it. There isn’t a lot of vagueness with me. When someone’s done a session, they have concrete things they’ll know, or things they will start to do, that will materially improve their situation.
Also, with psychology or counselling, you are a patient or client, and so you do most of the talking. To me you are a student or friend. And that difference means that a session feels more like either a fun class, or a back and forth conversation that could sometimes have me talking more than the student.
With me, who does the most talking will depend on whether I am gathering information to decide what to teach next, or whether I know what that is, and I’m busy teaching it. Again, this is a class, not therapy, so each session is designed to build on the next, until you simply don’t need me anymore.
It’s the cases where the issues are physiological, that’s when the doctors and their training are more appropriate. They can prescribe medications, for instance. That said, I want to be clear that even if I could prescribe, I wouldn’t. My position is that human mental health interventions should start with the least risky things first.
We still want drugs for biological situations where a person’s control over their consciousness cannot help them. But otherwise, I believe that people should be taught how to properly use their own mind long before someone considers the idea of influencing their biology with drugs that change the brain. Especially when the drug-makers often can’t fully explain how or why they work.
When it comes down to talking as a route to mental health, the main difference between me and others is that, my post-accident mind simply won’t put people into categories the way all word-based thinkers naturally do. On top of the cultural influence of all language, trained therapists are further taught to put people into even more precise categories that may or may not be applicable.
Sometimes temporary states, or the influence of temporary events, can lead to people being given word-based definitions that literally prevent them from being healthy. In those cases, because I cannot help but to see them originally, one of the groups of people that do the best with me are people who have been incorrectly defined, as in the case of the woman in this video. She’s an excellent example of other people I’ve worked with, who’ve been freed from anguish, simply by using more scientific methods of assessing and influencing their well-being. (I will include a longer interview at the bottom of this page.)
How I learned about the brain
Of course, any formalized approach to mental health is nothing more than a formal declaration of the value generated by a collection of theories, that were then presumably ‘verified’ by repeated observations. Those observations and conclusions are then categorized, named, and associated responses are then applied to them, whether a practitioner has direct experience with them or not.
That outside-in learning means that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, (the DSM) has, since its inception, been considered a reference standard for psychology and psychological education.
While a very significant number of psychologists and psychiatrists strongly disagree with its use, many psychological associations still support the use of the DSM. But that is increasingly under scrutiny due ever since the National Institute of Mental Health pulled its support, after studies found that there was little real scientific evidence to support many of the claims made in within it.
Even if the book and the training was perfect, I simply cannot participate in that approach to mental health because my knowledge about the brain was not taught to me, from the outside, as an adult.
Rather than learning about other people’s discoveries and realizations, thanks to that serious accident and brain ‘injury,’ I was powerfully motivated to understand human thought and behaviour myself. And I have been like that ever since I was five years old.
With a lifetime dedicated to the subject, where I did almost no rumination, but instead used my mind-time to observe and learn, means that I doubt there’s many people alive who have spent more time thinking about the brain and thinking as I have. And, as it has turned out, for very logical reasons, five years old is great age to start learning about the brain and Reality.
Think about how open children are. And think about the questions little kids naturally ask. And how smart they are. All on their own, they develop the Theory of Mind, where they begin to realize that others thoughts are unique from their own. I just kept going.
Unlike adults, kids are fascinated by death, and what it means for living life. They ask us incessant questions about bizarre philosophical ideas. And if we stay with them, their questions eventually lead to deep and profound discussions about the nature of the universe, and of Being itself.
Now, imagine my five year old mind, already being in that super-curious state, and then I experience that serious brain injury, and subsequently realize that I can literally watch myself think.
I became fascinated by the process I was witnessing. I didn’t find out about Buddhism until I was an adult. But I later realized that, after my accident, I could suddenly see how ruminating thoughts formed the very real and troublesome ‘illusion’ that the Buddhists refer to.
While I have lived without a near-constant internal, ruminating monologue, I eventually learned that others are almost always engaged in those ruminations, and that they start as soon as you can talk.
That difference means that, while others live inside the busy-minded confines of their personal thinking, my perspective can make no sense of processing the world through a rigid sense of Self. Especially when I know that this so-called Self is really only created through thinking. It’s like a snake eating its own tail.
The more of those sorts of I, me, you, they, and them thoughts that a person engages with, the more miserable they will become. Meditative thoughts are impersonal and they create clarity and solve problems. Ruminating thoughts undermine our sense of ourselves and of others.
Despite the damage they do, as we’ve seen, more and more people have become addicted to over-thinking, and we can see the growing negative effects in both personal mental health, and in the health of common society.
Does this learning relate in any way to spirituality?
That is a difficult question to answer because it depends on how you define ‘spirituality.’ Certainly, if someone wants to discuss deep concepts around God, or religion, or even the very strange quasi-spiritual nature of Quantum Mechanics—I’ve been doing this learning for so long, those are very enjoyable and deep discussions for me.
I mostly find those discussions primarily come up with specific types of people. Some are generally happy people, who are genuinely interested in the subjects around Reality, perception, physics, and how those impact our sense of spirituality. Others are people facing a religious crisis, or a terminal diagnosis, and they want to achieve a kind of peace. And that can be some deeply powerful and meaningful work.
If you have profound religious, spiritual, or nature-of-the-universe type questions, then I do represent a strange nexus between science, nature, spirituality, and common sense.
In conclusion
In the end, if you want to know how I differ from spirituality is that, while I am open to religious discussions, I am strongly grounded in the evidence that is generated by logic and the Scientific Method. But these two things are not mutually exclusive, which is why there are often Monks from various religions invited to physics conferences—because they’re asking the exact same questions.
And if you want to know how I differ from psychology or counselling, it’s that rather than using an outside-in, taught, word-based construction of Reality, I synesthetically see shapes in motion. And I very much doubt that is even a skill a psychologist could develop, let alone master after starting in adulthood.
First off, the accident is likely required. But even after that, people also learn psychology as adults. Starting as a five year old, I have done five decades of very scientific thought-problems that are required for me to know what I teach. So it is the combination of my perspective and my meditations that is at the heart of my work. And there is no school that can teach that.
None of this means that I am against other modes of care. Whether its with a priest or psychiatrist, I am happy to see anyone advance in their mental health and understanding regardless of who teaches it to them. In the end, for any mental health professional, or friend, the proof is in the pudding. Are people improving their daily experience or not?
While many psychologists are clearly helpful, the National Institute for Health has done several studies, and most peg the success rate at 30% or lower—some even say below 3%. And that can be after years of ‘therapy.’ Psychologists and others often write about this issue themselves. But because some people need drugs, or maybe the approach of cognitive behavioural therapy works for them, I’m not right for everyone.
There are, for sure, people I cannot help. But while I mean no offense to others, I couldn’t continue doing what I do with the success rate that psychology has. I have worked and spoken with psychologists who have confided that they often feel they are not making enough of a difference. Rather than therapy and improvement, they and their patients often see sessions devolve into current ruminations about past ruminations. It’s still all about I, me, you, they, and them.
Rather than spend time discussing people’s problems, I solve them by teaching a class in how to operate a health consciousness. The lessons are universal. Psychologists deal with different things with different people. I deal with what we all have in common.
Rather than deal with the content of people’s thoughts, I focus on your usage of your brain, regardless of your thoughts. I want you to pay less attention to what you are thinking, and to be more aware instead.
So what does this all result in? People come to me for specific issues and we tackle them. But outside of that, there’s a lot of other valuable stuff to learn. And if you did learn all that I can teach, you would only have fleeting thoughts about enemies. You would could dismiss grudges, or guilt, or resentment.
You would not hate yourself. You would feel closer to others by seeing the things we all have in common. And rather than constantly thinking about other times or places, you would live in the Moment, and by doing so, you would become far more Present.
Living life is a tricky thing. So it helps when we can get guidance from someone who cares about us, and who has given a lot of thought to those tricky aspects of Being. For you, that may be me.
Most of my students come from recommendations from past students. But even without a recommendation, between this and my testimonials, you likely have a sense of me already. So I’m prepared to trust you. I won’t pursue you with marketing. I’ll just be the caring me I am, and I’ll wait to see if I’m what you’re looking for.
I hope you found this description helpful. I realize you may still have many questions so, if you would like to know more, please email me at scottis@relaxandsucceed.com, and we can arrange for a no-obligation conversation about how I might be able to help you.
Thank you for your time. Enjoy your day.
PS: If you don’t feel a psychologist is appropriate to your questions, or if you feel you have been misidentified, as in the case of the woman in this video, then I may be just the right person for you. I’m particularly good with people on the high-functioning section of the Autism spectrum, including Asperger’s, and the people near them who don’t pass the official tests, but who are far more comfortable living a life in better alignment with that type of thinking. But, whether your brain works like that, or more like the other major way that brains work, I’ll slowly see your unique pattern emerge.
Sometimes people arrive with multiple definitions like Depression, ADHD, OCD, Bi-Polar etc. that they’ve carried for years. And after five sessions, I’ll hand them a page of description, or a list of ‘symptoms,’ that feels immediately familiar to the person. When they ask where the list came from, it changes what they think about their ‘symptoms’ after they learn I often find the right lists on the websites of some high-functioning autistic at NASA or MIT. Those people naturally see large aspects of Reality, but they are often quite bad on the artificial components of life, like social norms.
For the majority of people, who rarely see Reality and who live largely within their thinking, their change comes more when they realize that the Buddhists weren’t kidding about their being a literal illusion. But ,once they can see it, they stop reacting to it as though their thoughts are reality. And that alone can erase many of the behaviours that are otherwise defined by others as ‘mental health symptoms.’ Many people do not need therapy. They only need to develop a deeper level of understanding about the nature of Reality.
