Spiritual Reading List

Gavin Andrews shares the 10 Best Spiritual Books that influenced him the most on his life journey. Gavin Andrews is the UKMD of HeartMathUK. HeartMath will help you to transform your stress into resilience, achieve higher levels of performance, and to live your life with more heart, health, and happiness.

Transcript

Hello,

Welcome.

Joining me today to share the stories behind the 10 books that inspired him the most on his life journey is Gavin Andrews,

Who in addition to being the managing director for HeartMath in the UK and Ireland,

Is also the founder of a cool initiative called We Add Heart,

Which is gaining momentum around the world,

And the co founder of a beautiful audio visual relaxation app,

Which I'm very much enjoying called Syntropy States.

We'll find a bit more about that a little bit later.

So a little bit of background on Gavin.

14 years ago,

After a particularly challenging time in his life,

He discovered HeartMath,

Coherence,

And heart paced living,

Which played a big role in helping him to heal from loss and to connect with the heart of who he really was.

Since then,

He's found joy,

Meaning and purpose in sharing the science and the practice of coherence with others.

Gavin Andrews,

Welcome.

Sandy,

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Gavin,

Tell us what this process was like for you having to come up with 10 books to sum up,

You know,

Everything that's inspired you on your life journey.

Well,

What was the process like for you?

You had to chase me a few times,

Didn't you?

I was like,

Yeah,

It's um,

But you know,

It was really enjoyable.

It took some thinking,

Actually,

It really did.

Partly because I have read quite a lot.

You can see a bookshelf behind me.

But um,

Yeah,

And then there were a lot that I'd read that I had to sort of recall and go back to and dig off the bookshelf and flick through.

But that was really enjoyable.

And it Yeah,

I really learned a lot of stuff reminded me of a lot of stuff.

Some of the things that popped up were particularly useful.

I believe in synchronicity and some of the other things that popped up have a particular resonance in my life with some things that are going on right now.

So yeah,

I'm delighted that you asked me to do it.

And I apologise,

It took me a little while.

But it was fun writing it actually.

Good,

Good.

I mean,

You said that you've always been interested in,

You know,

The existential questions even as a kid.

But it wasn't until you lost your first wife to breast cancer in your early 30s that you began to spend more of your time seeking out different answers.

Were most of these books in your life after you lost your wife?

Or had you read some of them before?

Some of them for before.

Quick scan of them all actually,

But probably the majority of them before.

Yeah,

Yeah.

But I I subsequently reread some of these around that time,

Or the year or two following.

And they were very helpful to me.

But there's a few on the list,

Which are more recent ones as well.

Yeah.

What were you doing for a living before you lost your wife and before you discovered,

You know,

The road that led you to heart mass and heart coherence?

I was in the rat race.

I was in the corporate world.

I was working in media,

Which for a number of media organisations.

I know your background is media as well.

I,

The last job I had actually was I worked for the Guardian.

And I worked in some commercial side advertising and promotion and marketing sales,

That type of stuff.

And yeah,

It was,

It was my life.

I didn't really know anything different at the time.

They're a nice company to work for.

There was a lot of very intelligent,

Smart,

Fun people around.

But it wasn't really who I was,

Sandy.

And waking up as a result of losing somebody I loved is what set me on this new path.

So I consider that to have been,

You know,

Useful in kind of creating some of the skills that maybe I use now.

But that's a close chat to that world.

And I'm probably unemployable now,

Actually,

But I can't really see myself ever going back into the sort of mainstream world of work,

The corporate world.

Yeah,

I think many of us are unemployed now.

And that seems to follow once people do find a spiritual path,

You know,

That journey of discovery,

Personal discovery leads you to places that,

You know,

You can't go back from.

You can't know what you know,

Can you?

Exactly.

Yeah.

So let's talk about your books.

And you say that they had a profound impact,

They opened your heart and mind,

And helped you to explore your potential purpose and passion.

Well,

The first one is one that comes from,

I mean,

You were just seven years old.

And I don't know if you thought about potential and purpose and passion then,

But it was Life on Earth by David Attenborough,

Published in 1979.

Yes,

Yes,

Yes,

Yes.

Yes.

So this is an interesting outcome of you asking me to do this,

Is I realised that there are a number of books I'd read that at the time I certainly didn't consider they were spiritual,

And that you know what it meant.

But yeah,

Life on Earth,

As a seven year old,

I was just addicted to the TV show.

And I received the book from a Christmas present,

Actually,

From my parents.

And I just spent the next year or two just deeply engaged in this book and looking at all the pictures and reading about everything.

And so,

Yeah,

For me,

It was all about just the awe and the wonder of our world and like the incredible diversity of life that we got,

The variety of life that we have,

The miracle of it all,

Like,

How on earth did this all appear on it,

You know,

Some great big rock that was just devoid of all life at one point,

And then there's virtually every centimetre of it now is covered with life.

And so,

Yeah,

I was just amazed by it all.

And I love the TV show.

And for me,

That's when I started to sort of think,

Well,

There's got to be some sort of intelligence or purpose behind all of this.

But I didn't know anything about theories of evolution and,

You know,

Different belief systems like materialism or idealism or whatever.

But yeah,

I can I can recall thinking that,

You know,

Like this got here for a reason.

It wasn't just chance.

And I think as well,

Probably this is where I got interested in sort of the scientific side of it as well,

Because obviously,

That's coming from a biological perspective and evolutionary perspective.

And I was interested in all of that.

But really,

It was about just the awe at the magnificence of this planet that we live on and the incredible diversity of all the life on it.

Would you say that that really kind of created a thirst in you to know an awful lot more about nature and life?

Yeah,

Definitely.

I mean,

Some of the other books that I was really into at that time were books on dinosaurs and things,

You know,

I was really interested to know,

Okay,

What came before us?

And,

You know,

Some of the pre humans and stuff like my parents also gave me this book called The Last 1 Million Years.

And I was thinking through this massive tome,

Which was this wonderful picture of history,

And literally in the last million years,

You know,

I just love all of that stuff.

Yeah,

Fascinating.

So really,

There's a connection there,

I think with your next book,

Which is Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bart published in 1970.

And you say that you read that when you were in your teens.

But I mean,

When you think about,

You know,

Jonathan,

The Seagull,

Flying Free,

I mean,

And you know,

The vistas and everything that Jonathan experienced,

I can see a parallel there between the first book and this.

Yeah,

There is definitely.

And around the kind of,

You know,

Consciousness,

I guess,

And intelligence.

And for me,

That book's about an evolution consciousness,

Not just about sort of biological evolution.

And yeah,

I read that in my teens.

That was the first proper spiritual book that I ever read.

And it's funny if I read it,

Because a friend of mine recommended it to me,

He was like the least,

In hindsight,

Least spiritual person ever.

But he read this book,

And he said,

Oh,

Man,

You've got to read this.

It's incredible.

He waved the copy at me and thought,

Well,

That looks just like a crappy little pamphlet for a start with some terrible pictures on it,

Because it's fairly terrible images of Seagulls.

But I read it,

And it just instantly resonated with me and the metaphor of the Seagull,

Who looks around him and sees kind of like the chaos of squawking of the flock in a fight in each other and feeding and diving on the scraps from the fishing boat and just sort of like really a life of survival and one with very little purpose.

And I saw some parallels with the world around.

And,

And then this idea of the seagull who,

Who sees and experiences that things could be different and then decides to not spend his time fighting everyone else for the scraps,

But you know,

Perfecting his flight and dedicating all his time and energy to doing that and actually moving away from the flock,

The others,

Becoming a bit of an outsider,

Actually,

And laughed at by the others.

I,

Yeah,

Again,

I just identified and I thought,

I think I'd be like John the Lewis and Seagull,

Actually,

This is making a bit of sense to me.

And yeah,

So that,

That then set me on the path of,

Of choosing books that would involve the seagulls and the seagulls making a bit of sense to me.

And yeah,

So that,

That then set me on the path of choosing books that would enlighten me,

Open up my mind to different perspectives and beliefs and ideas and philosophies.

So,

Yeah,

And really,

I think,

Helped me understand that a lot of the things that I believed were not really choices of mind,

That they were just things that I'd assumed because I've been told that they were correct by family,

Friends,

Society,

Culture,

Religion,

Whatever,

You know,

And that started me on that question of,

Well,

Why?

Is that really the truth?

Is that the only truth?

Who says?

So yeah,

It stuck with me.

You say that in hindsight,

I mean,

There was an early lesson there that knowing is not the same as being or doing.

Knowing something without integrating it and acting on it is largely hollow.

Yeah,

I mean,

You know,

I didn't integrate what I had learned,

You know,

It resonated with me for a short period that,

Well,

It made some of the ideas may have stuck with me,

But I didn't really do anything about it.

And then sure enough,

I just caught up and got caught up again in the shoodings of life.

And,

You know,

Well,

This is what you do,

You know,

You get an education,

And then you try and work out what you want to do next.

And then you,

You choose something that you think is going to give you a good job,

And then you go and do that.

And then you jump through that hurdle,

And then you get on the corporate ladder,

And then you try and work out the core,

You know,

All of that stuff,

I got,

I did,

I fell back into that trap,

And didn't really question a lot of that stuff.

And so I wasn't connected to my heart significantly at that point in my life.

Yeah.

And it was your wife's death that really brought that back to you?

Definitely,

Yeah.

I mean,

That was that was the big wake up.

That was the what is this all about?

Because what I've been doing for the last 10 years of my post university life is,

Is meaningless,

Right?

It's not important.

In fact,

It just it I can remember sitting in a meeting and just feeling quite angry about what people were talking about,

Because I just thought it was so frivolous and pointless and meaningless.

So that's when I realised I've got a good reputation here up to now I better get myself out of this organization before I get kicked out.

So that's when I began to be I moved away from that world and I began to transition into this different life that I live now.

But it was it was due to that wake up.

Your third book is Childhood's End by Arthur C.

Clarke.

And this was published in 1953.

You say that you've always been a big fan of science fiction.

What was the fascination about this book?

Well,

There's definitely parallels.

Again,

This this for me is a book about the evolution of consciousness.

That's really what it's all about.

It's a great science fiction novel.

I do love have always loved science fiction.

And I think it's something to do with just playing with ideas of different realities.

You know,

There were no rules or laws in science fiction,

You can you can make up all sorts of realities.

And so I like science fictions that have strange worlds.

So big fan of Kate Dick as well.

And a lot of his books.

And I like particularly science fiction that that plays with the rules of cause and effect.

So that's one of the reasons why I love Childhood's End is that it suggests that humanity is on this or has been on this evolving journey of consciousness,

Which really 2001 Space Obviously,

Which actually is my favourite movie.

That's what that movie is about.

You know,

The big obelisks appear and they trigger a shift in the pre-human's consciousness.

Well,

Childhood's End is about consciousness as well.

And so,

Well,

We get to this stage where there's a significant and fairly unpleasant actually step change in humanity's evolution of consciousness,

Which occurs to the generation of children that are born after a certain point.

And what I love about it is,

You know,

The aliens turn up which is which is always great in a science fiction book or movie that the aliens turn up and they hide themselves from us for I think it's like 50 years or something like that.

And it turns out that they hide themselves from us because actually they look like devils and like demons.

And so they don't want to terrify the humans by turning up as aliens,

Which is pretty scary,

But then be you know,

It's like hello and they look like devils and demons.

But the reason they look like devils and demons is actually that we have a memory from the future of their arrival.

So this is again playing with this idea of,

You know,

Time and the hour of time cause and effect.

So like humanity has this memory from the future of these aliens turning up who look like demons,

Which is why in our,

You know,

History up till then we've mythologized devils and demons and been scared of them as evil because actually they yeah,

They help.

They're not evil.

They just happen to be aliens that are stewarding this transition in our evolution.

But it's yeah,

It's not a very pleasant occurrence for those people who are left on the planet at the time.

You say that many people view this book as dystopian,

But you think it's utopian.

Explain.

Well,

That's true.

I mean,

Yes,

It's not very pleasant in that this this generation of children basically go through a process of turning into energy and the earth is destroyed and their energy then goes on to the next stage of consciousness,

Which you know,

If we were if we as adults were witnessing this happen and as a father,

You know,

That would be obviously very traumatic.

But it's you know,

It's it's utopian I think because what it's saying is that actually yes,

There's a purpose to all of this which we may not understand but that it's going in a direction of order of increased complexity of kind of superiority or maybe even perfection at some point.

And so yes,

The passing of the human race as we may know it is not a very pleasant thing,

Especially for those who have to see it happen.

But for the generation of children that then go on to this higher level of consciousness that is a I assume,

A pleasant thing.

Well,

You know,

I read a little bit about this and it says that the overlords appeared suddenly over every city,

Intellectually,

Technologically and militarily superior to humankind.

But neverland they made few demands unify earth,

Eliminate poverty,

End war with little rebellion.

Humankind agreed and a golden age began.

Well,

That all sounds really,

Really good.

But then it says,

But at what cost?

Because with the advent of peace,

Man ceases to strive for creative greatness.

And the malaise settles over the human race.

So,

You know,

I mean,

We all talk about wanting that golden age to begin,

We want peace,

We want to unify the earth and eliminate poverty.

The question is,

What happens when we do?

You know,

I'm a problem solving animal,

Take away our problems and we get bored.

Well,

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Which which is where there's a parallel with the next book,

I guess,

Which is brand new world by Aldous Huxley.

So yeah,

Yeah,

Same thing.

Yeah,

Same thing.

Humanity gets itself to a place where there's not any wars anymore.

There's no disease.

There's pleasure everywhere.

You know,

You can do anything you want be anything you want.

You take the Soma pills and you're always happy.

No depression,

But people's lives and meaning about that part of being human,

You know,

Part of being human is suffering is the sadness is the need to strive is the yeah,

Needing to create and find solutions.

So yeah,

I guess,

You know,

We need to question what is a utopia?

What's a dystopian?

What one man's utopia is another man's dystopia.

Absolutely,

Absolutely.

Wasn't this also the theme of the Pixar movie,

Wally,

Where everybody,

You know,

Had left the earth and they're in these floating spaceships and they've all got cool lives and they're wearing their Hawaiian shirts and drinking their,

You know,

Margaritas and asleep?

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that,

You know,

I think we could we could draw some parallels with,

You know,

The world that we're in now or the way that,

You know,

Many of us choose to live our lives and some of the ways that we occupy our attention,

The diets that we have,

You know,

Emotional diets or media diets.

Yes.

Yeah.

So yeah,

This is the stuff that I love within the world of sci fi is these questions.

Yeah.

I think you wrote one of Huxley's main themes is the choice between truth and happiness.

That message is very important right now.

We should not give the power to shape the truth to people who offer us happiness in return.

Their agenda is not our happiness,

It's our compliance,

Something we should all be paying attention to.

For sure.

We've had warnings in the past and the likes of George Orwell and one of the other books that I read at the same time,

All of these dystopian novels together,

One that not that many people familiar with,

But Evgeny Zamyakin's We,

He's a Russian sci fi author and,

You know,

Similar kind of themes to Orwell and Huxley.

And I think in many ways,

If you join those three novels together,

There's some interesting parallels with what's going on in the world and the belief systems that exist and the belief systems,

Particularly those in power and how things like the rest of us to live our lives.

Yes.

Yes.

It's interesting how this particular novel anticipated scientific advancements in reproductive technology,

Sleep learning,

And psychological manipulation.

And if we hark back to the book we discussed before,

One wonders whether,

You know,

They can and you know,

These books do anticipate the future because they've been there.

It's happened before,

You know.

It has happened before.

History is full of these types of examples.

And,

You know,

A lot of it's not that long ago at all,

Actually.

And we shouldn't kid ourselves,

But we've evolved our consciousness to the point where we're immune from that.

I do think,

Yeah,

There are some worrying parallels with the way that many people's beliefs are being shaped and the way in which societies are being divided.

I mean,

Actually,

The Brave New World,

You know,

Is divided between the people who live the ultra high tech life of endless happiness and those who live outside of that,

The savages whose lives have become miserable and dirty and full of violence,

But arguably a lot more meaning.

So we should be questioning what's going on at the moment.

We should be asking questions about the agenda of the people who are telling us what we should be thinking and doing and how we should be behaving.

Yeah.

Okay,

Well,

Let's move on to number five,

Which is quite different altogether.

Truly groundbreaking book that radically changed our understanding of life.

A book I love very much,

The Biology of Belief,

Unleashing the Power of Consciousness,

Matter and Miracles,

Bruce Lipton,

Published in 2005.

Yes,

Indeed.

Yes.

So yeah,

You know,

One of the reasons I got into art,

I have to begin with this,

I'm a junkie for the science stuff.

And if you combine science and spirituality,

Then that's even better for me.

So I'm a nerd for the science and also the leading edge science.

And you know,

What I love about this book is it's beautifully written.

Although I'm into science,

I'm not a one for necessarily being able to understand very dense scientific literature and stuff.

So Lipton writes in a very clear way.

And I love the way that he explains cell biology.

I love the way he explains physics.

You know,

This guy is seriously bright,

Former medical school professor,

And is a research scientist.

And everything that he's dedicated his life to has come out of his own discoveries when he was a research scientist.

So he basically realised that that doctrine of like,

You know,

It's all in your genes,

Sorry,

You know,

Nothing to do,

Forget freewill,

Nothing to do with you,

It's all in your genes,

Everything's mapped out for you.

He realised from his own work and experiments that wasn't true,

That our genes and our DNA weren't controlling us.

But what happens is that genes and DNA actually receive information.

And then they respond.

So they don't dictate,

They receive and then they respond.

And there are many sources of the information that they respond to.

And a significant source of that information is our own thoughts and feelings.

So literally moment to moment,

Whatever we're thinking,

Whatever we're feeling is is impacting us on that cellular level and the level of,

Of genes and DNA.

So what we're spending our time thinking and feeling and believing and perceiving will have,

You know,

Positive or negative impact depending on the nature of what those sorts of feelings and beliefs are.

So I think that's really empowering,

Because we have choice around what we think and what we think and what we feel.

Yes,

We do.

Some,

Some,

Some,

Some people might not realise that or appreciate that.

But we do.

And when when you do realise that,

And the more you begin to exercise it,

It is incredibly empowering,

Because then what you realise is,

Well,

I'm impacting my health,

And I'm impacting my happiness and my quality of life by being able to regulate my thoughts and my feelings.

So we have control over that.

Not completely,

Perhaps,

But we have a large degree of control.

So yeah,

It's a wonderful book.

And it's got some lovely examples.

I like actually listening to this as an audio book,

Because I like the way that he speaks one of the few authors probably who have really enjoyed the audio book version.

Yeah.

What I took from this book,

I mean,

One of the things that really made me sit up and take notice was his chapters on parents as genetic engineers.

And that was just a,

You know,

A mind blowing idea,

A concept that,

You know,

What I'm thinking what I'm feeling is affecting my children on many levels.

Yeah,

Well,

Who was it?

So it felt like it wasn't it was the famous poem,

I said the word but you know,

He said,

The poem is they f you up your mum and dad,

And they never mean to,

But they never mean to never mean to but yeah,

Their experiences,

Their lived experiences,

The expression of their genes,

You know,

That can have an impact can predispose you.

And of course,

The way that they then live their lives and behave as parents will have an impact on the children as well.

And that's why I think we see sometimes we see,

We see these,

Unfortunately,

Cycles of chaos in some families,

In some aspects of society,

They just sort of repeat themselves these cycles.

But what is empowering is that those cycles could be brought to an end.

And I personally know a number of people because friends of mine who had really quite chaotic childhoods,

You know,

Traumatic childhoods.

And almost certainly their parents experienced that and their parents experienced that,

Which is why it happened.

But actually,

Those those people know they've broken the cycles,

Because they,

They are in control,

They can self regulate,

They do not behave like their parents did,

They don't make the choices that their parents did.

And as a result,

They're excellent parents.

And as a result,

Their kids are lovely,

Well adjusted kids.

And so,

You know,

The bigger picture then for society is that we do have choice,

If we know that we have choice,

We can exercise it.

And that,

That links with the heart and mouth perspective around individual coherence,

Social coherence,

Global coherence,

Creating more order out of chaos.

And creating a better world.

Yeah.

Well,

The next book is different,

Again,

As a man thinketh by James Allen,

First published in 1902.

Long time ago.

Yeah,

Long,

Long time ago.

I can't remember when I first read this one,

It was some some time ago,

And I can't remember who introduced it to me.

But I pick it up quite regularly.

He's quite,

Quite small anyway,

Easy to read.

And every time I do,

I'm really astounded at how far ahead of his time he was.

I mean,

He was basically the original personal development guru,

If he was alive today,

He'd be massive,

You know,

Multi-millionaire,

I'm sure.

And it's a book that's jam packed with powerful statements.

And it's all about,

You know,

Living life from the heart.

And it's about living your life well and living your life with purpose,

Because of where it comes on.

When it comes on,

You know,

Some people could read and be put off by some sort of religious or Christian overtones to it.

But I don't follow faith in it.

And that doesn't bother me at all.

I think the essence of what he's saying is,

Is wonderful.

It's about mental health,

It's about physical health.

And the physical side,

You know,

I think parallels a lot of what Lipsen talks about as well.

So although he,

Although Alan didn't understand genes and DNA and expression and all of that type of things,

He wrote them 120 years ago.

He's talking about the same thing.

So there's a lovely quote that I picked out,

Which is,

The body is a delicate and plastic instrument,

Which responds readily to the thoughts by which it is impressed.

And habits of thought will produce their own effects,

Good or bad upon it.

True.

He just didn't know that it was about genes and DNA and,

You know,

Emotions and biochemicals and all that type of thing.

I wonder what he did think it was due to.

Didn't have the science then,

Did they?

No,

I'm sure we have more around the spiritual side of things,

For sure.

Energy and consciousness.

Yeah.

Well,

Book number six is a book that I personally like very much.

Mind to Matter,

The Astonishing Science of How Your Brain Creates Material Reality by Dawson Church.

It's just a few years old,

Published in 2018.

Really good book.

Yeah,

Lovely book.

This is another one that I read and I've also listened to on audiobook.

I quite like Dawson's voice as well.

So yeah,

He's,

So literally,

What so Lipton's focusing more on like the biological impact of our thoughts and our feelings.

But what I like about what Church does is he extends that then out into the world and how our minds or consciousness is literally shaping our experience and the environment around us.

But he does that again,

Using science.

So this is a real reason why I'm into it.

So he,

He talks about the various discoveries across epigenetics like Lipton does,

But also things like wave phenomena,

Physics,

Electromagnetism,

Neuroscience,

And all of these types of things.

And then he brings this all the science stuff,

He brings it to life with lovely case study examples and stories,

Some of his own stories,

Some stories of people that he knows or he's worked with or whatever.

I find sometimes when I was going through this exercise,

I said,

I mentioned that there's some synchronicities and some stuff popped up,

I found to be useful with some things that I've done in my life at the moment.

And yeah,

When I read this book,

There was a chapter on synchronicity.

The subject was synchronicity.

And I read this when,

Syntropy,

The app,

Was becoming a thing in my life,

Like it was,

It popped up unexpectedly,

It was just something that occurred from,

You know,

Some conversations and some meetings and some relationships with people.

But what I quickly realised,

As I'm not actually kind of reading the book at the same time,

Was that no,

What's happening now is synchronistic.

This is important,

And I need to trust what's happening,

I need to place my attention on it,

But I shouldn't push too hard with all of this,

I shouldn't,

I shouldn't make my mind up too quickly.

Because the chapter,

You know,

Explains how important it is to sort of stay in flow and to sort of keep with the frequency and let things flow.

So it was really helpful to me when I was helping to create Syntropy with my business partners.

And actually the name Syntropy was a synchronicity as well,

Because the,

This was before I knew that it was going to be called Syntropy,

The name kept popping up in different places.

And because I'd read Dawson's book in that particular chapter,

It was like,

It's come up again,

That word's come up again.

That was,

So I was researching the word and its meanings and its origins and stuff.

And that's when I thought,

Well,

This app idea that's popped up,

It needs to be called Syntropy.

And what's interesting about Syntropy is,

This is looking back to the books and science fiction as well,

Is Syntropy,

One of the meanings is about retro causality.

So the future creating the present instead of the past,

You know,

Cause and effect,

The future creates.

And I really have that sense about the way that Syntropy was evolving,

But it was evolving towards something that it was always meant to be and that exists in the future.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love that,

That whole concept of,

You know,

The future in forming the past.

One of my favourite books is Future Memory by P.

M.

A.

Chatwater.

And she,

You know,

Shares some of her experiences with stepping into the future.

Right,

I'm writing that one down already,

Future Memory.

Future Memory,

P.

M.

A.

Chatwater.

Yeah.

So let's move on to book number seven,

Which is Self Empowerment,

The Heart Approach to Stress Management,

Common Stress Strategies,

That's a mouthful,

By Doc Childress,

Published in 1992.

Yeah,

This was the first book that Doc,

The founder of HeartMath,

Wrote.

And it is quite a mouthful,

Actually,

That title.

At the beginning of the HeartMath journey,

Doc was quite a prolific writer.

I've got,

I've hunted down the books,

They were quite hard to find,

Actually,

Because they weren't in print for long.

But he wrote a lot of books.

Self Empowerment was the first one.

And actually,

I think it's more relevant today than it was when he wrote it.

It's basically about managing the stress of our lives.

So when it was written,

You know,

30 years ago,

Most people didn't even have a mobile phone,

And they weren't having hundreds of emails pinging into their hands.

We didn't know what stress was.

We didn't really,

Not to the extent,

I think,

That we do now.

You know,

Life was obviously was challenging then,

But it's much more complex now.

Yeah,

Chaotic,

Challenging,

Confusing.

It's another level.

And so that's why actually,

I think this book is even more relevant now.

And I've mentioned before to Howard,

I think they should get this book re-edited and get it,

Get it out there,

Change the title,

Probably,

As well.

Yeah,

Make it easier.

It's about managing stress through emotional self-regulation.

It's kind of just,

The way that Doc writes,

It's slightly awkward,

I find.

But having said that,

There's just a clarity to it.

It sounds like some kind of counterintuitive,

But yeah,

It's slightly awkward.

But it just,

There's a frequency to it that's so clear.

And when he writes about things,

You just think,

Oh,

Yeah,

That's exactly what it's like.

That's that.

So this is lovely,

Relevant examples.

Doc writes about emotions and the heart,

Obviously,

As an important source of emotion,

But of intelligence and of intuition and of discernment,

Of ways of cutting through all of this stuff that's going on and interfering with our ability to see things more clearly.

And to really get to that heart connection.

And so,

Yeah,

He writes about all the different emotional traps that we can fall into,

And then provide some of the scientific evidence as well,

What they knew at the time about heart brain coherence.

Doc was a big reader of some of the science that was around at that point as well.

So yeah,

It's lovely examples.

And then it's practical in terms of techniques,

Like how coherence can actually help you to learn to cultivate positive emotions,

And thereby benefit your health and your happiness and make better decisions about your behaviors,

Your lifestyle,

Et cetera.

One of the things that really stands out to me,

Though,

In that book is is what he has to say about men.

Because what Doc is saying is that men need to change.

And I really believe this as well.

And I know that myself before my wake up was,

In hindsight,

Fairly chauvinistic and bigoted,

Actually.

If I'm honest with myself,

I don't think I was a bad person,

But I was just,

I had those kind of masculine traits,

Unfortunately.

And so what Doc is saying in this book is that men need to be more open.

We need to open our hearts,

We need to be more sensitive,

We need to be more nurturing.

You know,

We need some of those more what you might traditionally call feminine qualities,

But that the world we've created by being the worst excesses of men,

Male behaviors,

You know,

Competing,

Dominating,

Often subjugating or crushing the opposition,

You know,

And just accruing power and wealth and all that type of thing.

That really is why we're in the mess that we're in right now.

That really is,

I think,

What is trying to cling on to power right now,

Because it's crumbling,

And it's the last ditch attempt to subjugate and sustain that power.

And so yeah,

Doc's talking about needing to change our operating systems.

And I know that since I started practicing heart-back techniques,

That I've connected more with my heart,

And I am a better and happier person because of it.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Just,

You know,

It makes me wonder,

Do you have any statistics on,

You know,

With the male and female use of heart math?

I don't have statistics,

But I can tell you that anecdotally,

It is still more female uses than male.

Yeah,

I think we,

I think we,

We,

I think we,

If you compared heart math to another modality,

I think you'd find that we did have a higher percentage of male users than others,

Perhaps because of the technology,

Definitely.

But it is still more of a female audience,

I think,

That we have than male.

And that's something that as an organization,

We need to think about how do we,

How do we go about connecting with men and more men and helping them understand that actually there's a different way of being that can still lead to high performance?

Yes,

Yes,

Yes.

Well,

It's the women,

I think,

You know,

It's,

It's the women of the men,

You know,

That can usually persuade them to try something different.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay,

So the next book is another one that I like very much because of the science by a man who worked on the US government's top secret psychic espionage program known as Stargate.

So you got to,

You got to sit up and listen to Dean Ladin,

Who wrote Real Magic,

Ancient Wisdom,

Modern Science,

And a Guide to the Secret Power of the Universe.

Yeah,

What a great title.

It is,

Isn't it?

It's awesome.

I want some of that.

Exactly.

Why wouldn't you?

So I,

The first book of his that I read was Entangled Minds,

Which I absolutely loved.

So then,

Yeah,

When Real Magic came out,

I obviously had to,

I had to buy that and read it.

And yeah,

So basically it is about real magic.

And so what Radin does,

And he's a great,

Great writer and storyteller as well,

Is he,

He blends all of the history of what we might call magic with scientific research.

And so the research into areas like telepathy and telekinesis and pre-pognition and clair sentience,

All of that type of stuff that,

You know,

Your ardent materialist and reductantist is just going to turn their nose up or laugh out or run away from,

But which there is a serious body of research,

Statistically significant.

And so,

Yeah,

You know,

Radin writes all about this.

He writes with humour,

Which I always enjoy in these types of books as well.

And what's very cool is he's actually got sections in there about how we can activate real magic for our,

Our own benefit and our own lives.

So things like,

You know,

Hand meditation and practices like heart math and coherence,

Then any of those types of techniques that basically enable you to go in and quiet things down and then open yourself up to other information that is available out there.

You know,

Techniques,

Things like affirmations,

Repeat affirmations on the intention work.

Absolutely.

And then,

Yeah,

The remote viewing,

Obviously,

A bit of a history with that type of thing as well.

So,

Yeah,

That's what I like about it is he,

He brings it down into the pay look,

You can do some of this stuff yourself.

I just need,

Just need to be dedicated to it.

But there's,

You know,

Some of the stuff that he includes is very cool.

And what I really enjoy some of the case studies about the people that he purports to have had,

You know,

Incredible ability,

People who could do absolutely amazing and astonishing things.

And,

You know,

There are clearly people in the world now and historically,

Who could do things that most people cannot.

And,

You know,

Those those are things that define the version of reality that materialists hold to be true.

And that's why they dismiss them.

And so yeah,

You know,

Things like levitation,

Manifestation,

Or whatever,

They're certainly not commonplace.

But some,

Some magic skills are more commonplace,

I think,

Actually.

And we see them a lot of the time.

So the things like synchronicities,

Yes,

And knowing things that you shouldn't know,

All of the research about being stared at all of that type of stuff.

Somehow knowing what somebody else is thinking or feeling somehow knowing what's going to happen next.

These are examples of real magic.

And so whilst people who can do astonishing things might be very,

Very rare,

There's a whole curve of distribution with all these things,

Isn't there?

There are a lot of people who,

Who can do these,

Do experience them might not even realize they're experiencing them,

But,

But we can all nurture our ability to do that.

So a lot of people dismiss their,

Their gifts.

What they do,

They don't follow their intuition.

And then they wish they had,

You know,

I wish I could come to my heart,

You hear people say it all the time.

Yeah,

I know people have healed themselves from terminal diseases and their medical professionals don't know how.

They're just like,

Wow,

Okay.

Amazing.

If you don't understand it,

Move on.

But it's real magic.

And those people who've done it,

They are people who've dedicated themselves absolutely to these types of practices and techniques and the power of their belief,

Their intention.

Yeah.

Lifestyle changes as well,

But they have killed themselves with terminal diagnosis.

And so,

Yeah,

It's amazing.

It's a great book and full of,

Full of all of the science and research as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And again,

We're pivoting because the next book is quite different.

It's Men's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.

I cannot tell you how many times this book's come up.

You know,

There,

There are a number of books that come up again and again,

But this one is quite high on the list.

And it obviously is a book that really leaves its mark on people.

Yeah,

I don't see how you can read it and it not leaving a mark because it's,

It's,

You know,

The guy's story of the horrors that occurred in the Nazi concentration camps.

And so,

Yeah,

It's his,

It's his description and explanation of how he was able to endure these incredible hardships,

Physical and mental hardships,

And somehow survive when he saw other people around him.

Many of him were like physically stronger than him,

You know,

And on some levels mentally stronger than him.

It was too much for them and they basically gave up and that's why they,

They,

They,

They died.

So when I,

You know,

I can remember reading it the first time,

I read it a number of times,

But the first time just thinking,

Wow,

Could I survive?

Could I have done what he did?

Or would I have been one of the people for him?

It was just too much and I gave up and you know,

I really don't know.

I hope to God I never ever find myself in a position where I'd never be tested like that.

But I do know that,

That from trauma you can achieve growth.

And a lot of,

A lot of the way that we view post traumatic stress,

We focus on post traumatic stress disorder and it's,

You know,

How people are damaged from that.

We don't focus a lot on post traumatic growth,

But I think that may be as common,

Or if not more common than post traumatic stress and,

You know,

Which kind of destroys people,

Compromises their lives and their happiness and health.

But people do grow and I grew as a result of losing my wife.

It had a,

It had a benefit,

Which might sound like a strange word,

But it did have a benefit to my personal evolution.

And,

You know,

I have beliefs about reincarnation and stuff like that.

And,

And I choose to believe that actually that was a gift that maybe on the soul level she made for my benefit.

And so,

Yeah,

Whenever I have other challenges pop up in my life and there's some stuff going on at the moment that's very difficult to deal with and it's triggering some of these types of memories of my first wife's illness,

I kind of recall that.

And,

And I,

And I recognise that I do have some choice in how I respond and react to these types of things.

And I,

I,

I,

I,

I,

I,

I,

I,

I react to these types of situations.

So it's,

Yeah,

It's,

It's,

It's a book that provides me with solace as well and reminds me that,

Yeah,

Life is also about suffering,

But suffering doesn't have to destroy you.

Suffering can actually make you stronger and benefit your unfolding and evolution.

Hmm.

Yeah,

Yeah.

I think I have actually miscounted.

I said that two of your books were number five.

In fact,

They weren't because this book is the last one on your list.

And I think you had a quote that you wanted to share with us,

Which I think is,

Is,

You know,

Really,

Really important and poignant.

Yeah,

Well there's a couple of,

Of fan called quotes.

So when I was flicking through this to write about the 10 books,

The copy I've got has got lots of underlined sections.

And I was just flicking through and this one leapt off a page at me,

Which is everything can be taken from a man,

But one thing,

The last of the human freedoms.

To choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances,

Any given set of circumstances,

To choose one's own way.

And that,

Yeah,

Spiritual life,

Choosing to live a spiritual life means choosing.

It's recognizing that we have choice,

That we have free will,

But may some things we may not be able to control,

Some things may be mapped out for us,

But we do have choice and free will.

Even in very,

Very difficult circumstances.

And so then there's the classic Frankl quote,

Which many people will be familiar with,

Which is a bit of a motto for me,

Which is between stimulus and response.

There's a space in that space is our power to choose our response in our response lies our growth and our freedom.

And that's a bit of a Hartman motto for me,

Because that really is for me what Hartman's about is by practicing coherence,

You sort of give yourself a bit of a space with all of the stuff that's going on around you.

The coherence is what gives you the space.

And then if you can,

If you can stay coherent,

When all of that chaos is occurring,

Then you do have some choice about how you can respond.

If you don't,

If you unfortunately get caught up in the chaos,

Then you're at the mercy of your emotions,

You're not in control of what you're thinking,

Feeling or doing.

Absolutely.

Well,

That is your 10 best list.

In your keywords,

You described yourself as a disruptor.

And what are you disrupting?

And what are you integrating?

I think I'm disrupting in the nicest possible ways,

I would never like to be a sort of a violent disruptor.

What am I disrupting?

I kind of like to disrupt a couple of things.

I like to disrupt the way that people think about themselves in the world,

But in a in a gentle way to introduce some of these ideas around coherence and choice and living from the heart stuff.

So that's,

That's a gentle disruption.

I quite like to disrupt,

You know,

How we might help people to do that as well.

So,

Syntropy,

The app is disruptive in that there's nothing else like it for a start,

But it's using you know,

Short music videos to entertain people really,

But to help them to learn how to practice coherence breathwork,

Or to help them intentionally put themselves in a state of relaxation.

And so in a way,

I guess that's sort of also disrupting some of the wellbeing world,

Certainly some medical perspective on things.

You know,

You don't always have to take a sleeping tablet or anti anxiety pill or antidepressant,

There's things that you can do for yourself.

And even if you're not able yet to go inside and meditate and do those types of things,

And actually just choosing to watch,

Look at lovely art and listen to beautiful music is a choice,

Which then enables you to have a physiological benefit and an emotional benefit.

So I guess that's where we're a bit of a disruptor as well.

What about integrator?

Well,

I just like to integrate different ideas.

So I don't,

I'm not a one for silos.

You know,

It's one of the reasons why I like HeartMath,

Is HeartMath is basically an integration of,

You know,

Breathwork,

Positive psychology,

A bit like CBT type stuff,

And then some technology.

Well,

You know,

Breathwork exists in its own right,

Positive psychology exists in its own right,

And there's lots of devices that will tell you what your heart rate is,

Or the heart rhythms are,

Or whatever.

But HeartMath integrates all of those things.

This entropy is an integration as well,

Because really it's a form of focused attention meditation.

It's breathwork.

It's impacting your positive emotions because it's using art and music to do that.

You know,

It's a bit of art therapy.

I mean,

You're not creating the art yourself,

But you're benefiting therapeutically from the art and it's a bit like music therapy.

So,

And it's integrating the coherence,

Breathwork into all of that.

So yeah,

Integrating in terms of the products that I might dream up.

But I like to integrate ideas.

And I think,

You know,

When I looked at this list of books,

There's all sorts of different types of science fiction,

Science,

Personal development.

And I integrate all of those for myself,

For the way that I make sense of the world,

Or the way that I try and learn about the world,

Because I just don't think there's a single truth.

7.

8 billion of us in the world,

We all experience a different reality.

Truth is probably integration of all of our experiences and existences and beliefs and philosophies.

And it's constantly changing.

And it's constantly changing.

What was true yesterday may not be true today.

8.

Yeah.

So tell me about We Add Heart.

What is this?

So we are,

We,

I guess that's slightly disruptive as well.

But again,

In a very nice way,

We Add Heart is a growing global movement,

Where small groups of people come together to practice heart focused meditations.

So it's coherence techniques.

It's not,

You know,

Badged as a heart math thing.

It's a separate entity,

But we're using broadly heart math techniques.

But the idea is,

Yeah,

That it's just a way for people to come together in small groups.

And at the moment,

It's heart math coaches who are facilitating these these groups.

So they're reaching out to their friends and their family.

But anyone could start a group or join a group?

Not at the moment,

But that's actually in my vision is that we will roll out,

You know,

Because we don't have loads of resources,

We'll roll it out in a way that we can manage it to the heart math trained community.

So we started with UK and Ireland,

And then we got some of the Greek coaches,

German coaches,

Dutch coaches,

French coaches.

The US are now coming on board.

They're like what we've been doing.

And we're working out how to onboard some of their coaches.

So it will be growing more and more rapidly.

But my vision,

Which I,

Of course,

Need to talk to my friends in heart math about is how we might make this something that anybody actually could facilitate with some help and some training.

But it is actually very,

Very simple.

I mean,

We provide all of the,

We provide a script,

You know,

If people,

We don't have to read it word for word,

But we make it so simple for people,

We give them lovely branding and materials and how they email,

Stick it on their Facebook pages and stuff like that.

So,

You know,

As long as someone's got the passion and enthusiasm,

Theoretically,

They could,

We're not there yet.

But that is my vision,

That that's how we would grow it to be,

You know,

A very big global movement.

And the idea behind the small groups is that,

You know,

People can get involved.

It's not difficult for them.

It's not intimidating.

You don't have to sit in a meditation with thousands of other people.

It's going to be more intimate.

You know,

You'll see the same sort of five,

Six,

Eight people each week or maybe some turnover.

But yeah,

The idea is creating community at a time when,

You know,

Community has been broken.

And,

You know,

It became popular during lockdown.

That was when we went online with it.

It was physical prior to that.

And that's what gave it life.

Lockdown actually was what helped it to grow.

And lots of our coaches said,

I want to do something or get involved.

So yes,

We're 30,

I think we're 35 countries now,

Actually,

I mean,

Some of those countries only got one group.

But,

You know,

The plan is that we'll keep growing it and it will grow organically.

We don't want to mess with it,

Don't want to make it complicated.

It is about coming together once a month,

Sitting in a Zoom room with a few other people,

And practicing some really simple heart focused meditations and sending love,

Care,

Appreciation,

Gratitude into the world.

Something very simple,

Very much needed.

Yeah,

I think so.

I should have put simple in those descriptions of myself as well.

People here in simplicity.

Okay,

So tell me now,

What are you reading at the moment?

What's piqued your interest?

Well,

What am I going to be reading?

I've just got this,

Expanding Reality by Mario Beauregard.

Yes,

Right.

It's just just gone relatively recently,

Just come out.

So the emergence of post-materialist science.

It's probably pretty clear that I'm a post-materialist and an idealist.

So that's what I'm intending on reading.

I've also been flicking through for quite some time.

Materialism is Bologna by,

Now I forgot my guy's name.

It won't come to me in a minute.

Anyway,

It's not actually an easy read,

Which is why it's been taking me a while.

So I've been flicking through that.

But yeah,

I'm really looking forward to reading this Expanding Reality.

And most of the books I read are nonfiction.

So before we close,

Can you tell our viewers how they can find out more about We Had Heart and Syntropy States?

Yep.

So We Had Heart,

Just simply go to wehadheart.

Com and there's a bit of information about it there.

And you can search a global map for groups.

So you don't have to join a group that's near you.

I mean,

Lots of people intentionally search the map to find a group that's on the other side of the world.

That's another nice thing about doing this online.

So yeah,

Welcome to join any group that you like.

So that's wehadheart.

Com.

That's wehadheart.

Com.

Syntropy,

You can either go to syntropysates.

Com.

So that's the website,

Which explains what the app's about,

The little video there and stuff.

And it explains more broadly who we are and what we do and what our vision is,

Etc.

Or you can actually try all the app for free for seven days.

So if you just go to the Apple or Google app stores and search for Syntropy,

S Y N T R O P Y,

Syntropy,

Then yeah,

You can experience it.

And then so basically,

The idea is it's already got like a library of different videos,

Beautiful art and music.

And what we do is every week we launch a new video.

And it's either a breathwork,

A hoot breathwork video,

Or what we call a relaxed video,

Which is more abstract art.

So every week you get a new video,

More,

It's our artwork up to the end of February,

But then from beginning of March,

We're working with new emerging artists.

And we've got a really exciting launch where we can be releasing video every day for that week.

And then going on,

There'll be artists from all over the world,

All sorts of different types of art,

All sorts of different types of music,

But it will always be videos either for breathwork or relaxation,

General meditation,

If you need some for.

And you are open to receiving emails from people,

Artists and musicians who might like to see if they work.

Absolutely,

Yeah,

We have an open call anyway.

We've already signed up the first 14 artists that we're working with.

We're about to onboard the second cohort as well.

But we're very interested in hearing from artists and all musicians who like what we're doing and would like to be involved as well.

So there's yeah,

That's that's open invitation.

Best thing to do there is to email me at,

I should just use my heart like the email just G Andrews,

G Andrews at heart math dot com dot UK will jump on the century website and there's a link through where you can send us an email as well.

Yeah,

Well,

I'm not getting paid for this folks,

But I do enjoy this app when my,

You know,

I've watched text me and says,

Hey,

It's time to take a little break.

I'm glad you set up that.

Oh,

Cool.

Yeah,

Yeah,

It is.

I mean,

You know,

It doesn't take long.

And it just gives you those moments where you can just decompress,

Which is really important if you live a stressful life.

Indeed,

We need to be having those moments of decompression more more regularly now than ever before as well.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

Well,

Gavin Andrews,

Thank you for adding your 10 best spiritual books to the no BS book.

Spiritual book clubs library of recommendations another mouthful right there.

It's a pleasure to speak with you.

And if anybody wants to go and have a look at your list,

They can go to the no BS spiritual book club.

Com website and check it out and read more of your descriptions and what those books meant to you.

Thank you for joining us,

Gavin.

Thank you,

Sandy.

Thanks very much.

And so as the spiritual book market becomes increasingly crowded,

It is becoming more challenging to sort the wheat from the chaff,

Which is why we launched the no BS spiritual book club.

So if you're looking for recommendations from authors,

Teachers,

Speakers,

And others who have walked this path before you check out our free 10 best spiritual books archive at the no BS spiritual book club.

Com where you can also view previous episodes of these face to face with interviews.

And if you want to save your space at future events episodes each week,

Sign up using our save my space form on the video web page.

And while you're there,

Checking out what we have to offer.

If you feel you have a book in you,

But don't know how to start getting it out of your head and into your hands,

Click on the work with me tab and find out how my experience helping others tell their stories might be just what you've been looking for.

That brings us to the end of this week's show,

Which will also be available on all the major podcast platforms,

As well as YouTube.

I'm Sandy Sedgebeare,

And I'll be back next week with another 10 best spiritual books interview.

Till then,

It's goodbye from me.

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