Mel Schwartz is a psychotherapist, marriage counselor and  corporate leadership consultant. He is the author of The Art of Intimacy, The Pleasure of Passion and his newest book, The Possibility Principle: How Quantum Physics Can Improve the Way You Think, Live, and Love. Mel practices in Westport, Connecticut and Manhattan and works with individuals across the world. Mel is a member of the Society for Consciousness Studies and has been a keynote speaker at Yale University. His TEDx talk, Overcoming Anxiety, is receiving over 1500 views per day.

Contact Info

• Website: www.MelSchwartz.com
• Podcast: The Possibility Podcast With Mel Schwartz – http://melschwartz.com/possibility-podcast
• Blog: A Shift of Mind Blog – http://melschwartz.com/blog/
• TedX Videos: http://melschwartz.com/talks/

Most Influential Person

• David Bohm, quantum physicist.

Effect on Emotions

• I believe that mind or a thought in motion, (thought and feeling) are inextricably linked. My bias is that thought probably occurs first, although we may not see it, or be aware of it.
• So I have learned that when I'm in a particular mood, whether elevated or deflated, if I check in as to what was the last thought I had, I can find the thought that set up the feeling.
• Now the thing is, once you have the feeling, that feeling then will summon up more similar thoughts, which is why we tend to cycle up or down.
• But there are different words and labels that we put to describe human experience. So we think of thought being from the neck up.
• I can't say it resides there and we think of feeling as being in the gut, and who knows. But what we call thought and feeling are different aspects of the same whole.
• Think about a coin. The head and tail aren't separate. They are different aspects of the coin.
• Thought and feeling I see as different aspects of human consciousness

Thoughts on Breathing

• Breathing is not sufficiently part of my mindful practices. It's something I need to work on. I tend to reside in my spirit and in my mind.
• My work is to develop more awareness in my body and to be more conscious and mindful of my breathing. So to the point of embracing vulnerability and sharing your truth. That's work I still need to do

Suggested Resources

• Book: Read Alfred North Whitehead, the philosopher, 19th century. Also read author, David Bohm.
• App: Spotify – When I need a break from thinking, and from the things that impact me and don't allow my center, I'll turn on spotify and listen to music which will still me and quiet me.

Bullying Story

• This has come up in a number of circumstances around bullying in my work as a therapist. Take an individual in a marriage where one person felt bullied by the other, and in this case atypically. Perhaps it was the man who felt bullied. Now, why was he allowing and tolerating the bullying?
• Because his self worth, self esteem was questionable. So when other than someone physically bullying you and them being twice your size and in the moment not knowing what to do about it, bullying is often emotional and verbal. When it is such, the question is, if I am tolerating it, why?
• It reflects back to my core issue with myself. Do I value myself? What do I deserve? What stories and narratives am I telling myself about the bullying and why I might endure it.
• The story might be, if it happened to a child, if I told mom and dad, they'll be angry at me because I didn't stand up for myself.
• Or the story might be, the word will get out and then I'll feel embarrassed or ashamed. We make up stories. We have to penetrate the stories we tell ourselves and come to the authentic truth, which is what's my fear?
• No, we are taught to act strong and to avoid vulnerability. That is a misunderstood and misinformed belief. Acting strong is acting, it's weak.
• Embracing my vulnerability means that I'm sharing who I am, what my self doubts and fears and insecurities are, and that means I'm not worried about you judging me.
• That is authentic self esteem. Culturally self esteem is misunderstood. I call what we do other esteem.
• So you ask a parent, what will give your child good self esteem? Well, if they're popular and they're great in sports and they get great grades, that doesn't give you self esteem.
• So what we do is we betray our authentic sense of self to manipulate things so that others will like us or approve of us. But when we do that to an extreme, we don't develop a core sense of self. That will lead to allowing bullying.

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