Unlocking Inner Harmony: A New Path to Spiritual Connection

Richard Zwicky: Hi everyone, it's Richard Zwicky with High on Healthy, the show where we know there's no one path to healthy, so we explore them all. And one of the questions that came up in a conversation, then it came across my desk considering different slots for doing an engagement here was about the meaning of life. And the question that came up is what if the problem isn't that life lacks what is the meaning of life but rather are we trying too hard to manufacture one? We spend a lot of time worrying about our careers, our relationships and creating the best of everything, our productivity and everything all around us and aspiring for more which is wonderful and progress and how we need to grow. But some people never stop to appreciate where they are in the journey and some people unfortunately arrive at the end of their life asking a question is this all there is so joining us today we have Dr. Joshua Pritiken who is a quantitative psychologist bringing an interesting insight as to how we should approach the question about the meaning of life and is this all there is and welcome aboard the show Joshua so I can't imagine many people haven't wondered about the meaning of life why we're here what's the purpose what is it we're supposed to do and

Joshua Pritikin: Thank you for having me.

Richard Zwicky: Why does it matter you started approaching the questions cically, not philosophically. Tell me a little bit about that.

Joshua Pritikin: Unfortunately life doesn't come with an instruction manual like it your washing machine. So that's what we've been struggling with. So you mentioning that my clinical background so I've been doing the talk therapy. I practice internal family systems. I'm not sure if your listeners are aware of that. Should I introduce that or So internal family systems is a talk therapy model that was developed some decades ago by Dr. Richard Schwarz. He was trained as a family therapist, but what he noticed working with his individual clients is that they would report their inner experience as if they were talking about like an inner family.

Richard Zwicky: Please do. Yeah.

Joshua Pritikin: And inspired by this analogy he developed a model and u the easiest way to understand what we mean by parts is to recall a situation when you had mixed feelings suppose you're driving to work late and a part of you wants to get there on time another part might be afraid of law enforcement another part might be frustrated with yourself for time to get to work in the first place. So in internal family systems, it's like a systematic way of unpacking these mixed feelings into their component parts or subpersonalities and then improving the relationships between them. So it builds trust between parts and between you and you and your parts and through this trust building process then people u get the benefit of greater inner harmony and less inner conflict. Does that make sense?

Richard Zwicky: It does. But when we consider that you get to the inner harmony. But why is it that people ask later in life or too often is this all there is that more spiritual?

Joshua Pritikin: What is that sentiment I'm not sure but one guess might be that maybe these people haven't had very regular access to religious experiences and what I mean by religious experience is like a moments of awe or beauty or a sense of connection with something larger than yourself. Does that resonate for you, Richard, or you could say spiritual. I'm kind of agnostic about the terminology that and even the description of the experience I'm describing in very kind of vague terms because I wanted to be inclusive of all the different diversity of spiritual and religious beliefs and experiences. So that's kind of my way of being kind of vague but trying to cover my bases.

Richard Zwicky: But everybody creates some form of belief system for themselves and

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Richard Zwicky: They may adopt part or all of one that's established. They may create one by taking elements from things they see that they believe in and align with what they value. They create a system around them. That system isn't necessarily what leads them to the meaning of life.

Joshua Pritikin: I fully agree with that claim.

Richard Zwicky: So what's the distinction between creating and discovering a meaning and cultivating it? Because if you're going towards a system as you were talking about before, you're cultivating meaning as opposed to discovering it. ~~Joshua Pritikin:~~ ~~I can imagine going in a lot of different directions.~~ ~~Richard Zwicky:~~ ~~We'll stop for a sec.~~ ~~Joshua Pritikin:~~ ~~I Yeah. Maybe this is a good place to Yeah.~~ ~~Richard Zwicky:~~ ~~ ~~ ~~Joshua Pritikin:~~ ~~This is helpful. So the reason I'm struggling here is the question. So, I introduced this idea of a religious experience, that I gave this definition for and then you're switching back to asking me about meaning and~~ ~~Richard Zwicky:~~ ~~that's why he asked you about the spirituality. Do you mean because an interpretation do you mean religion in terms of organized religion or ~~ ~~Richard Zwicky:~~ ~~do you mean spirituality which is where I was asking which direction you were going to take go in?~~ ~~Joshua Pritikin:~~ ~~Okay. But ~~ ~~Joshua Pritikin:~~ ~~then what doesn't my description of religious experience is that answer it?~~ ~~Joshua Pritikin:~~ ~~I mean what would you call that description? Is that spirituality a religion? Okay. F we can go with that definition. I don't mind.~~ ~~Richard Zwicky:~~ ~~Because religion is organized to me, ~~ ~~Richard Zwicky:~~ ~~right? ~~ ~~Joshua Pritikin:~~ ~~Yeah. Spirituality is a connection.~~ ~~Richard Zwicky:~~ ~~so then spirituality is a connection.~~ ~~Joshua Pritikin:~~ ~~So going with your definition we can say that probably these people haven't had many occasions to experience that have spiritual experiences.~~ ~~Joshua Pritikin:~~ ~~that's kind of because okay Yes.~~ ~~Richard Zwicky:~~ ~~So why don't we go back into it and ~~ ~~Richard Zwicky:~~ ~~what I'll do is I'll ask you to differentiate what you see as because you use the term religious I came back with spiritual ask you to differentiate how you view the two differently and where and if you're trying to approach the question of meaning how each one would apply to I'll go back in there. A few seconds more dead air and I'll make a note on the time.~~ So, let's take a step back towards something you said earlier about, a religious experience. Then I came in and questioned about do you mean spiritual or how do you mean to Explain to me the difference in terms of how you're looking at this between when you describe a religious experience versus a spiritual experience because my framework for religion is organized although some people practice just in small groups but it's still some form of organized where spiritual is built more ad hoc around connection to the world around me. What do you look at and how do you look at it? And then how does it tie into meaning?

Joshua Pritikin: So okay so first the terminology let's address the terminology the what I'm getting from you is when you hear the word religious you imagine that it's organized and for spiritual that's more like the inner development is that right okay and so I use other terminology usually but let's stick with your terminology.

Richard Zwicky: Along those lines. Yes.

Joshua Pritikin: And so I would say that when I was introducing the idea of religious experience, we could just rename that to spiritual experience but the elements of that I think I would say there's moments of awe or beauty and then may maybe also accompanied by sense of connection to something larger with yourself larger than yourself. And many people find these experiences very meaningful. What is less well known is how to encounter spiritual experiences. And it seems for most people it's like a accidental or haphazard kind of like how Moses encountered the burning bush and in the Bible he wasn't looking for He didn't have any expectations about what he would find. It just kind of happened.

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Joshua Pritikin: And that changed history.

Richard Zwicky: It did. But I mean most people remark things that are wonderful and surprises and surprises that are stand out more in a rears because our minds are open and it's unexpected. Whereas if we walk into a room expecting something marvelous we're expecting it. We don't remember it the same. So when we're looking at that connection, how does that differ in terms of the discovery?

Joshua Pritikin: I think what you're pointing to is how do you have these spiritual experiences if in the past it's been accidental or haphazard and so what I've been working on and in this new book that I've released recently is that I try to offer a process that makes touching these spiritual experiences much more predictable and reliable to the extent that you can put them on your calendars and just plan. Yeah, I'm going to dedicate this weekend to experiences that are very beautiful and have a lot of meaning.

Richard Zwicky: So dedicating time to appreciating specific things around us be it in nature people or different aspects. So taking mindful periods

Joshua Pritikin: So I think you're describing something like a gratitude meditation. Is that what you had in mind?

Richard Zwicky: That's what I'm asking. Is that what you're describing or what's the process like?

Joshua Pritikin: So the process that I propose in my book is starts now we have to go back to internal family systems and so it starts there because I want this process to be applicable and welcoming to anybody who's interested whatever their burdens or even pe for people who are struggling with severe mental illness And then once people develop some practice or comfort working with a talk therapist then I have a suggest a meditation practice and then once there's comfort with that and the sense of effortlessness in meditation once you develop that effortlessness then you could consider using psychedelics. And these are very powerful tools for accessing altered states of consciousness.

Richard Zwicky: They're incredibly powerful. They can be incredibly useful for many people under different circumstances. And I mean on that we've covered quite a few of them on this show and for different reasons. In fact, a show last week was on eyeball gain for people who are suffering from addiction. Of course, we've also talked a lot to people do who advocate and use ketamine, people who use psilocybin and mushrooms and you name it. And they're all interesting and amazing doors to open for the right person at the right time, And how do you recommend using them within your practice? Because you're in the Portland area, A southern right for sorry right.

Joshua Pritikin: Actually southern Medford. S southern Oregon near Medford. So that's exactly the right question to ask is how to use these substances safely and to minimize the risks because they do have risks. So to answer this question I have to introduce another concept from internal family systems is the terminology of blending or unblending with a part and sorry okay and

Richard Zwicky: Is it right? Go ahead.

Joshua Pritikin: So let me just give an example suppose there was a part of myself that was very anxious about doing interviews and If this part didn't trust me and took over, then it would control my behavior and I might lose track of what I was saying. My mind would go blank and I wouldn't be very good doing this interview.

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Joshua Pritikin: But if I built a relationship with this part and it has enough trust in my leadership then it won't feel the need to blend and I can be with that anxiety. I still feel the anxiety. It's still there but it doesn't control my behavior. So it stays unblended. This is the key distinction in internal family systems. That's used throughout the model. So does before I continue,

Richard Zwicky: Of course it does. Yes.

Joshua Pritikin: Does that make sense? Okay, great. So this process that I'm suggesting in the book is a progressive challenge. So what we're doing in when I work with clients in internal planning systems is helping them to understand their parts and develop a more trusting relationship so the parts can stay unblended and as this becomes easier for clients then they need less help and I might ask them if they're interested in starting a meditation practice and in a meditation practice too. There's a way of approaching it so that you're practicing building that trusting relationship with your parts and helping them to learn that they can stay unblended that they don't have to interrupt you that they don't have to distract you during your meditation. So it gradually becomes more effortless. And then this is great preparation for psychedelics because when using psychedelics then the emotions of your parts can become more amplified. And if you end up blending with a part that can be problematic because your coping skills are not the same under the influence of a psychedelic. So the ability to stay unblended is really what keeps you safe when using psychedelics. That's kind of the conclusion I reach. Does that make sense?

Richard Zwicky: No, it does make sense. I mean, part of the psychedelic process is also to confront those areas which you're having a hard time wrestling or grappling with. And they're often driven around fear of opening the door and looking inside of on the other side of that door. So your comment is to be, being unblended is you're able to separate yourself from your reactive inner parts, which is in a sense when you're going into a psychedelic experience you're attempting to confront them. I'm a little confused

Joshua Pritikin: What you're getting at.

Richard Zwicky: Because you're kind of like you have to be unblended, but actually you're going you're doing the experience exactly to deal with them because you can't become unblended. So that's where I'm

Joshua Pritikin: So I'm proposing a use of psychedelics that's kind of the reverse of how most people are using them. Usually when you take psilocybin or something like your goal or your intention is to e how psilocybin changes your subjective experience to explore what the substance offers you. And that's an important way to use psychedelics like that's very useful. As you said you can discover parts of yourself you didn't know about and develop more understanding more trusting relationships with those parts. Okay. So but there's another way to use psychedelics which is what I describe in the Santo religion. That's a religion started about 100 years ago in Brazil and the way they use psychedelics is that you're asked not to go into your private experience an internal exploration. What you're asked to do during the ceremony is to participate in making music. So you have to keep track of where you are in the lyrics. Keep track of the rhythm. In some works there are specific dances that you need to coordinate physically. And the psychedelic is seen more as a u creating this challenge or that these classical psychedelics like psilocybin or LSD they make your inner experience more alluring, more vivid, more enticing.

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Joshua Pritikin: And what you're asked to do in the Santai ceremony is not to go inward not to blend with those parts but to stay unblended with the group. Does that make sense? So these just two ways of using psychedelics.

Richard Zwicky: And how does that and one of the things when people are asking a lot of these questions is for the certainty. It's the fear of not having the answer of not knowing that's driving them. So, how does your process you're describing help with that or align to that? Because a lot of it is confronting the challenges where we don't know what's there, but it scares us.

Joshua Pritikin: U so we don't know what's there. I mean I mean there's always going to be questions that we can't answer. Why are we here and who created the universe or whatever. I'm not sure we'll ever have perfect answers for those questions. But maybe you could tell me more about this fear that's a part of yourself and do you have any other parts that are concerned about getting to know that part better what like that's kind of the way I'd approach it is through a talk therapy kind of approach.

Richard Zwicky: And once they have that fear and you've been able to identify it, you're trying to work them to unblend from being reactive to it which is what coping mechanisms generally are that anybody who's gone through abuse or trauma has to learn. That process, when you're working with patients, do you separate that or how do you make the decision when they're best pursuing a psychedelic route versus a traditional route? Mhm.

Joshua Pritikin: So I would be assessing their ability to stay unblended. That's really the key question in my mind. So if I'm working with someone in the talk therapy context that means that they need help they are still kind of unpredictably blending with their parts and that's really having a facilitator is so it's so important is when you're blending with a part then your yourself is less available to be with that part. And that's why it helps to have a facilitator there that they can hold space for that part that you've become. And as people become more skilled in doing this inner work and being with their parts, building more trust, then they develop more independence and that's when meditation becomes more of a feasible practice, more suitable as they develop more trust and skill in working with their internal system. They need less help and meditation provides more of a challenge and then as meditation becomes effortless and easy then you could consider psychedelics. So that progre progressive challenge is as you have more trust in self leadership then you need less external scaffolding and assistance

Richard Zwicky: I'm listening to the concept of unblending and I understand it from a perspective of coping, but where there's also a line at which some people would use as a form of avoidance. How do you help prevent that?

Joshua Pritikin: Maybe I could just describe the meditation style that I recommend. I'll just briefly introduce so in the usual way that meditation is taught is your selective a focus or target that you are to bring your attention back to usually it could be anything a visual target or whatever but let's just take a suppose it's my breath so in I'm doing a breath awareness meditation so the process is basically that

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Joshua Pritikin: You monitor your breath and then maybe you notice that you become distracted or absorbed in some future past thinking. Once you notice that then you bring your attention back to your breath. So this is a kind of standard meditation process and the small adjustment that I propose for that is when you notice that you're distracted or become absorbed in some internal part that you make a note on p on paper just write down okay I need to call mom tomorrow or thinking about the conversation with my fiance whatever it So just make a note, write it down and then return to your breath. And then after your meditation session, go back through your notes and spend time with each of those parts. And with this modification, you're accomplishing several things. You're making sure that each of these parts get some attention. Maybe you can't solve problems but you can keep that problem in mind, keep working on it that the part is bringing ward to you and you're also developing a more trusting relationship with these parts. So they begin to understand that they don't need to interrupt your meditation. They can come to you outside of that meditation session and they get the attention they need and they can demonstrate more patience and understanding while you're trying to do your meditation. So you're kind of building this internal trust. With the different subpersonalities of yourself that helps you to create more space in your meditation. And by practicing this consistently, you can develop a effortlessness. And so these parts will learn that they can stay unblended not disturb you but also that you're have that trusting relationship because you address their needs and that's how you can avoid spiritual bypassing.

Richard Zwicky: Which when that whole concept of spiritual bypassing is people often look to get to the finish line and they don't take the time to integrate properly. More I love the experience along the way and do they then begin to focus too much on the experiences and not the culmination and or how do you guide against that happening

Joshua Pritikin: I think I would describe it a little differently, but I think what you're talking about is if we go back to the traditional meditation approach, these parts are coming up and you just white knuckle it. You just say I'm going to focus on my breath and you use willpower or you try to force things to happen and then that can be successful you can reach samadei or these Buddhists talk about these different altered states that you can achieve through meditation which is possible but white knuckling it like that, it's not a sustainable, long-term path to success. You're going to have more success if you develop that trusting relationship with your parts. And then you don't have to white knuckle it. It' just becomes effortless. They don't appear and you don't have to ask them to leave. They just understand you're doing your meditation session. Does that answer your question?

Richard Zwicky: Does to a strong extent. And let me take a step back. You began your career on Wall Street and you studied then quantitative psychology and moved into clinical practice. What drove you from one to the other? What motivated you?

Joshua Pritikin: So, I've been trying to align my career with my hobbyist interest which started back when I was a teenager. There were some books I encountered that must have made an impact on me. My dad had a few of Carl Jung's books. I tried to read them. I don't know if I understood anything but they definitely inspired this interest in inner exploration and then I developed this hobbyist interest in eastern philosophy Buddhism, Hinduism, Dowoism and this had just kept snowballing like I started a meditation practice and I participated in some groups that

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Joshua Pritikin: They may have been cults or not, but whatever. I learned a lot. And I've been trying to align my career with this hobbies interest for a long time. So when I was a teenager, personal computers were just becoming available and that seemed really exciting. It was like I was in the right place at the right time and just happened to slide into that. But when I was working in New York for these financial companies it just wasn't very personally fulfilling compensation was great, but eventually I just got tired of the work and I wanted to do something more aligned and going back to school for quantitative psychology, seemed like a way to go. And so I learned all about experimental design and measurement and how to analyze data. So it's not a clinical degree. It's more of like a research degree. And then, I got stuck again because I didn't publish enough academically to advance to a 10-year track kind of position so I was just stuck in a postoc and trying to figure out what to do next. And then as I encountered internal family systems maybe through a podcast and then as a client and that's when I really got excited about doing talk I'd never seen a talk therapy model that resonated with me but this one I felt was really made sense to me like it was appealed to me intuitively. And so that's when I decided I can shift my career over to doing talk therapy. Did I answer Yeah.

Richard Zwicky: That really helped. And with the background you have on Wall Street and

Joshua Pritikin: Myself differently.

Richard Zwicky: The work you've done now, are there things you've seen that you would love to be able to go back and help yourself differently? We all have the thing

Joshua Pritikin: If I knew what I know now, what would I do differently? Is that the question?

Richard Zwicky: But there's things we could do for others or things that we wish we could look at. There's one thing that geez with this knowledge I wish I could have go back and tell myself that from a perspective of how to look at the world that I wish I'd done sooner. I wish I could impart on everybody.

Joshua Pritikin: I mean that's why I wrote the book, but okay.

Richard Zwicky: But tell us about it because it is that path.

Joshua Pritikin: So, I've been fascinated by spiritual experiences for since I was a teenager. This possibility of going to another world or experiencing emotions that are much more beautiful than you would encounter on a day-to-day basis. And so that's sort of the aim of the book is to make these experiences easily available with the enough predictability and reliability that you can throw on your calendar. Is that answer your question? Okay.

Richard Zwicky: So tell us a bit about we are running out of time. So why don't you tell us a little bit about the book? People want to learn more about you and the book. How can they find out about it? Get a copy.

Joshua Pritikin: So the book has a promo website. It's at unbburdened.biz. And the title of the book is religion unbburdened by belief. I'm using slightly different definitions for these words. So for the purpose of the book's title, I'm thinking of religion more as what we've been talking about as spirituality. So religion is the kind of the interpersonal development and then the organized religion is kind of the belief systems that have evolved to help religions sustain through time to build up a community and identity through time that I guess I'm Google. Sure.

Richard Zwicky: And so people want to find the unbburdened.biz do they just come to the site, they get it through Amazon? And how else can they learn about your work?

Joshua Pritikin: It is available on Amazon. If you want the hard cover,

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Richard Zwicky: Anyone who wants to learn more about your work otherwise,

Joshua Pritikin: Then you can come to my website and in the collector's edition. What was your other question? Right.

Richard Zwicky: How can they do so?

Joshua Pritikin: And my counseling work. That I have a website for that too. It's Estrella Counseling. You can just search up my name, Joshua Pritikin, and it should be easy to find.

Richard Zwicky: Joshua, thanks so much for joining today on High on Healthy.

Joshua Pritikin: Thank you very much for having me. I really enjoyed your questions and I think you've asked me some new things that I haven't been asked in other interviews.

Richard Zwicky: Hopefully that's always useful. Thanks to everybody for listening. I'm Richard Zwick and we'll be back again with you soon.