"We Attract People Based on Psychological Wounds" #1 Neuroscientist Explains How to Manifest Love!

Dr. Tara Swart 0:00 You know, when I'm in that mode of, like, everything's manifesting, I sometimes say, "Be careful what you wish for." My brain is limited by what it thinks I can get or I deserve.

Lewis Howes 0:09 Mm. If you had to break down the science of manifestation into simplest terms, as a neuroscientist, what would you say that would be? Okay, so please help me welcome...

Speaker 0:20 Dr. Tara Swart

Lewis Howes 0:21 Medical doctor, neuroscientist A bestselling author, a podcast host.

Speaker 0:26 Tara, it's so good to have you here.

Lewis Howes 0:28 Are there any secrets of neuroscience or the universe that you feel people aren't taking advantage of enough?

Dr. Tara Swart 0:34 Some of the research that I've been looking at recently is about smell. I feel like it's one of the most underrated senses.

Lewis Howes 0:40 Really?

Dr. Tara Swart 0:41 Yeah. Smell is the most emotive sense that we have.

Lewis Howes 0:44 Wow.

Dr. Tara Swart 0:45 I'm not just safe because I tell myself I'm safe, but I'm safe because I believe in something greater.

Lewis Howes 0:50 Yes.

Dr. Tara Swart 0:51 There's a lot of people suffering and, like I said, you can sound like you're crazy if you start talking about stuff like this.

Lewis Howes 0:58 So you think we attract people based on our psychological wounds?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:01 100%. You meet people on the same level of psychological wound as you.

Lewis Howes 1:06 Oh, man.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:08 You also leave people if you evolve out of that and they haven't been able to.

Lewis Howes 1:12 Wow. For someone listening or watching this right now, what do they need to know about their brain, their mind, and how the universe works to support them? Is there anything else?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:22 I...

Lewis Howes 1:27 Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness. I'm very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Dr. Tara Swart in the house. So good to see you back.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:34 Hi, so lovely to be back here.

Lewis Howes 1:36 Uh, I am, I'm fascinated by you as a human, but also by your brain and how you think. You're a neuroscientist, but you also study the universe, and kind of the untold mysteries of the universe, and how the brain actually manifests things and works within the universe, what the source of things is, and you just have such a, uh, a wide range of wisdom and knowledge. And so I wanted to dive into manifestation and the science of manifestation to start.

Dr. Tara Swart 2:08 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 2:09 And if you had to break down the science of manifestation into simplest terms with a few steps on how people could start to apply it to their life, as a neuroscientist, what would you say that would be?

Dr. Tara Swart 2:22 Okay. So thank you for the lovely things that you've said about me. And one of the things I really pride myself on is making complex subjects simple-

Lewis Howes 2:29 Yes

Dr. Tara Swart 2:29 ... and accessible.

Lewis Howes 2:30 Yes.

Dr. Tara Swart 2:31 Because I genuinely think what is the point of knowing anything if, if you can't help somebody to understand it and use it where it's gonna make a really big difference to their life. And, um, I actually received a similar compliment on Instagram today, and I don't, I don't always write back, I don't always have time to write back, but I said, "That is the best compliment. Thank you." Um, so I'd like to approach this in a few ways. The practical road to manifestation, which is based on neuroplasticity because of my background, and that means the ability of your brain to change and grow, and therefore your ability to think differently, manage your emotions differently, act differently in the material world. So based on that, manifestation is really just setting a goal or choosing an outcome and taking the actions that you have to to make that come true. It's as simple as that. But the neuroscience process starts with raised awareness. So, you know, if your life hasn't panned out exactly like you always dreamed it would, or you find yourself stuck, or you find yourself repeatedly making the same kind of mistake, then you need to understand why, because you can't change it if you don't understand why you're not achieving the things you want or, you know, what's holding you back, what's a barrier, what's an obstacle, um, and indeed what you could do differently. So once you think, "Okay, this is not working for me. This is how I would rather my life should be," it's not-

Lewis Howes 4:06 This is my vision.

Dr. Tara Swart 4:07 This is my vision.

Lewis Howes 4:07 This is my dream, my goal.

Dr. Tara Swart 4:09 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 4:09 This is the outcome that I want.

Dr. Tara Swart 4:10 Yeah. It's not immediately a case of doing something. So-

Lewis Howes 4:14 Really? It's not about taking action

Lewis Howes 4:16 right away.

Dr. Tara Swart 4:16 Not right away. And, well, I, I will, like, you know, use you as an example of all the mental rehearsal that you did when you were doing the decathlon.

Lewis Howes 4:24 Yes.

Dr. Tara Swart 4:25 You know, you know what you want to achieve with that decathlon, w- let's say with the pole vaulting. Then you spend all those hours just, like, playing it over in your head. Then you actually go out and do the practice pole vaulting, and then you compete. So it's kind of like that.

Lewis Howes 4:40 So it's mental rehearsal, visualization, then the physical practice, then the moment.

Dr. Tara Swart 4:47 Yeah, and that's, that makes sense for sport, right? And I wanted to use something tangible so that people could get it. But when it might be something more to do with I want to manage to regulate my emotions better or I want to stop, um, you know, choosing the same kind of guy where the relationship always ends up badly, um, then because it's a bit less tangible, the process that I've laid out is start with raised awareness and then a phase of being, not doing, which is focused attention, which is just notice when you fall back into old habits or notice, um, either the thought patterns or the behaviors that have, you know, been repeated over time and led to the same outcome that you don't want. Once you've gathered some data, because, you know, you have the awareness piece, but then you do kind of want to test, is this really true? Like, you know, is that bad, or will it change if I do something differently? Then you do the deliberate practice. So that is going out, dating, applying for jobs or, you know, looking into starting up your own business, maybe changing some health habits. You actually then do them and see, like, what changes. So do you sleep better? Do you meet different types of people? Um- Does your network increase? That kind of thing. And the last part isn't so much a stage, but it's accountability because as we both know, people set a lot of, you know, good intentions and then don't always achieve them.

Lewis Howes 6:16 Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 6:16 So it's either that you can achieve that yourself, like I'm really loving this app at the moment called HabitShare-

Lewis Howes 6:22 Mm

Dr. Tara Swart 6:23 ... and I've got 12 micro habits on it, and I have to like tick them off every day. And I find that if I do that and I focus on three for each quarter of the year, then by the end of the year I'll have at least 10 habits that I don't even think twice about anymore.

Lewis Howes 6:39 Wow. Yeah. What are three of the most important habits you're focused on right now?

Dr. Tara Swart 6:43 Eating more protein, doing more weight-bearing exercise, and... They're so, they're all so good, I'm just trying, trying to pick one. I think one I'm really into at the moment is, like, listening to chanting or doing a mantra or, you know, doing tapping or like a hypnosis audio.

Lewis Howes 7:05 Mm.

Dr. Tara Swart 7:05 One, if I do one of those each day, I, I am quite pleased with myself. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 7:08 What, what is the ultimate mantra to start manifesting more of what you want? And do you need to believe you're worthy of manifesting first before you can achieve it?

Dr. Tara Swart 7:19 Yeah. So I'll pick up on that second point, 'cause it is really, it's a really important factor in why people don't achieve the things they say they want, because deep down they don't believe.

Lewis Howes 7:29 Yeah. And if you bypass the belief-

Dr. Tara Swart 7:31 Mm

Lewis Howes 7:31 ... can you still manifest?

Dr. Tara Swart 7:33 I don't think so. Or not as well, let's put it that way. So let's... I'll give you an example of visualization and vision boards. So you know I call vision boards action boards.

Lewis Howes 7:43 Action boards. Yeah. I love that.

Dr. Tara Swart 7:45 Um, and that's to do with you going out into the real world and, you know, doing the actions that will bring your goals nearer to you, not just sitting at home fantasizing about things. But I have come across quite a few people who say, "I've been through the magazines, I've cut out the pictures, I know exactly what I want, I can't bring myself to glue them onto the board."

Lewis Howes 8:04 Why?

Dr. Tara Swart 8:05 Well, the first time someone said that, I challenged them really strongly and I said, "I think that's 'cause you don't believe you deserve them." So we had a whole conversation about that-

Lewis Howes 8:13 Mm

Dr. Tara Swart 8:13 ... and it turned out to be true. So a couple of times again when I've heard people say that or I, I check

Dr. Tara Swart 8:19 more now, I'm like, "Have you actually stuck them down and put it somewhere prominent?" Um, because the putting it somewhere prominent is a risk as well. I don't know if you recall that my first one was in the bathroom of my apartment, and I was in a one-bedroom... Well, I was in a studio apartment at the time, so.

Lewis Howes 8:34 You see it every moment. Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 8:36 But also anyone that c- came to my house could see it.

Lewis Howes 8:38 Oh, wow.

Dr. Tara Swart 8:38 You know, it's slightly uncomfortable, particularly in Britain, to be putting, "This is how much money I want to earn."

Lewis Howes 8:44 Right. "This is the house I want-"

Dr. Tara Swart 8:45 Yeah

Lewis Howes 8:45 ... "the dreams, the relationship."

Dr. Tara Swart 8:47 Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Um-

Lewis Howes 8:47 Yeah, yeah. The status, all of it. Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 8:49 But I said to myself, "If you..." You know, obviously only my, like, close friends were coming to my h- my apartment. "If you can't even show it to them, how can you tell yourself that that's what you really want?"

Lewis Howes 9:00 That's right.

Dr. Tara Swart 9:00 "And that you're gonna go out into the world and say, 'This is what I want.'" And what was really lovely was actually my best friend's husband came over once, and he obviously looked at it when he was [laughs] in the bathroom, and he said, "Oh, actually, I've got someone I could introduce you to about, you know, one of the things." So it already helped me that I let other people see it.

Lewis Howes 9:17 Yeah. I've heard different research of like, don't tell anyone your goals because when you tell someone, you get a false sense of accomplishment, of like excitement and joy that it's like... So you don't actually have to go make it happen 'cause you're talking about it. And then I've seen the other side where it's like let people know about your goals so that they can support you in accomplishing them.

Dr. Tara Swart 9:38 Yeah. I mean, I think letting people know so they can support you is one thing, but talking about it does not necessarily mean that you don't have to go and do something. You can talk about it and go and do something.

Lewis Howes 9:50 Yes.

Dr. Tara Swart 9:51 And because the brain doesn't like uncertainty, you may have some fear around actually grasping opportunities that are related to the things that you want. But if you've done the visualization, if you've talked about it, if you've felt in all your senses what it feels like for it to be true, and you've given gratitude for that, you have set your brain up to be in the love trust end of the emotional spectrum with oxytocin flowing around your blood, making you much more willing to take a healthy risk, to collaborate, to think outside of the box, and reducing, because it's kind of a seesaw effect, the cortisol, the stress hormone, that will drive your amygdala and hippocampus, the emotional and memory centers of your brain. In fear, in fear or stress, what, what happens is that your brain will bring to the front of your mind every single time you asked that girl out and she said no. And it will say, "Don't. Don't go and ask anyone out," because you remember what happened when you were that geeky teenager.

Lewis Howes 10:54 You got rejected. Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 10:55 Yeah. Exactly. Um, so we have to really set our brains up to override that 'cause that's kind of a survival safety mechanism. Um, so gratitude moves us from cortisol to oxytocin. Um, and talking passionately about what you want moves you from cortisol to oxytocin.

Lewis Howes 11:13 Oh, interesting.

Dr. Tara Swart 11:13 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 11:14 Is there ever too much gratitude someone can express where it actually hurts you or doesn't benefit you?

Dr. Tara Swart 11:20 I don't think s- I mean, [laughs] can you give me an example of that? I mean, I feel like it's one of those things that is just always good for you, isn't it?

Lewis Howes 11:27 Well, yeah. That's why I'm, I'm asking is 'cause I feel like I'm incorporating gratitude throughout my entire day. From the moment I wake up, um, to after activities, to when I see people that I'm talking to or in person, I'm expressing it, feeling it. I'm... When people say, "How's your day?" I say, "I'm very grateful." I'm just constantly trying to focus on that emotional state because I know the more gratitude that I focus on, the more abundance comes my way. I truly believe that gratitude is the gateway to abundance.

Dr. Tara Swart 11:59 Totally.

Lewis Howes 11:59 It's the gateway to peace, to health, to freedom, emotional freedom, and it creates a lot of perspective. If I'm not grateful, it means something's lacking, it means something's off, it means something's negative. And, or it's neutral, which

Lewis Howes 12:13 I guess is fine too.

Dr. Tara Swart 12:14 Mm.

Lewis Howes 12:14 And so it doesn't mean I should bypass spiritually when something is broken or when something is off or I'm being emotionally triggered or abused-

Dr. Tara Swart 12:24 Yeah

Lewis Howes 12:24 ... or a boundary is being crossed. You don't just say, "Ah, la-di-da, everything's okay."

Dr. Tara Swart 12:28 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 12:29 But it is reflecting on those painful moments and saying, "Um, those were challenging and hard moments, but I'm grateful for the lessons and the wisdom now." So it's finding the meaning in the mess as well.

Dr. Tara Swart 12:42 I was gonna say exactly the same thing. So I think I was going to use the term spiritual bypass as well. If, if something very bad or difficult is happening in this moment, if you're suffering in this moment, of course we are not expecting people to say, "I'm grateful that I'm in emotional pain or loss." But it is about getting to the point where you can say, "What c- what did I learn from that?"

Lewis Howes 13:06 Yes.

Dr. Tara Swart 13:07 And one of the things I've started doing recently, I've had a gratitude practice for a long time, is when I've been feeling particularly low and thinking, "I don't know what I can do now to, like, to deal with these emotions," I think, "Okay, what, what are 10 things I'm grateful for?" And that really helps. So it doesn't have to be about the difficult situation itself.

Lewis Howes 13:28 Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 13:29 It can just be-

Lewis Howes 13:29 I'm not grateful for this pain that I'm going through.

Dr. Tara Swart 13:32 No.

Lewis Howes 13:32 But I'm grateful for my, my dog. I'm grateful for my parents. I'm grateful for something else in your life.

Dr. Tara Swart 13:37 I mean, to be honest, sometimes it's just I'm grateful to be alive.

Lewis Howes 13:41 Yes.

Dr. Tara Swart 13:41 And that I'm grateful that my health is in good shape because that's such a... You know, if you've got those two things, people that don't have those two things would want that so, so much.

Lewis Howes 13:51 Would give anything for their health.

Dr. Tara Swart 13:52 Exactly.

Lewis Howes 13:53 Right? Yeah. I'm curious, are there any secrets, 'cause I feel like you study the secrets of neuroscience and the secrets of the universe and spirituality. You kind of blend them all, which I think is powerful with your book, especially THE SOURCE. Are there any secrets of neuroscience or the universe that you feel people aren't taking advantage of enough that they could be?

Dr. Tara Swart 14:14 This is a very interesting question [laughs] with potentially a massive, like, you know, ra- array of answers. Um, some of the research that I've been looking at recently through, um, my academic position at MIT is about smell.

Lewis Howes 14:28 Mm.

Dr. Tara Swart 14:28 And so I feel like it's one of the most underrated senses, but the pandemic kind of made people realize that actually when you lose it, it's noticeable. You know, you kind of take it for granted, but then if you don't have it, it's really noticeable. And smell, or olfaction as it's called in neuroscience, is really, um, special because of our five senses, the other four, so for example, the optic nerve, has to travel from here all the way around your skull to the occipital lobe, 'cause our visual cortexes are here.

Lewis Howes 15:00 Interesting.

Dr. Tara Swart 15:01 Yeah. But the olfactory bulb, which comes out to the top of our nose, the nerve only goes back about an inch to go to, um... It goes through this, like, netting area at the top of our nose called the epithelial cells or the epithelium, and then right behind that are the amygdala and hippocampus, and that's why smell is the most emotive sense that we have. So if I ask you what smell most strongly evokes a childhood memory for you, what would you say?

Lewis Howes 15:29 Oh, man. Let me think. Um, I'm thinking of, like, hot chocolate, cookies, baking.

Dr. Tara Swart 15:36 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 15:36 I'm thinking of, like, you know, Christmastime, something like that.

Dr. Tara Swart 15:38 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 15:38 You know, like pumpkin pie. Some type of smell like that.

Dr. Tara Swart 15:41 Very warm, homey smells.

Lewis Howes 15:43 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 15:44 And do they remind you of your parents' home or your grandparents' home, or both?

Lewis Howes 15:47 My parents' home. Yeah, my parents' home.

Dr. Tara Swart 15:50 So they say when you smell something that reminds you of your parents' or grandparents' home, you get what's called an avalanche of memory because there was so much going on in those formative years, you know, and you are learning about the world through your relationship with your primary caregivers. And so smells that take you back to that time actually, like, release a whole torrent of, of memory.

Lewis Howes 16:10 That's interesting. And so I guess if you had a traumatic experience growing up around

Lewis Howes 16:14 those smells, then that smell could recreate trauma within your nervous system as well, or it could recreate a nostalgic, loving, homey feeling-

Dr. Tara Swart 16:23 Uh-

Lewis Howes 16:24 ... based on the memory, correct?

Dr. Tara Swart 16:26 Absolutely correct. And so one of the reasons that kids who got car sick when they'd had family holidays, road trips, usually hate the smell of petrol or diesel-

Lewis Howes 16:34 Interesting

Dr. Tara Swart 16:35 ... or what you call gasoline.

Lewis Howes 16:36 Wow.

Dr. Tara Swart 16:36 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 16:36 So it reminds them of that sickness.

Dr. Tara Swart 16:38 Yeah. 'Cause they felt, felt... Yeah.

Lewis Howes 16:39 Wow. That's fascinating.

Dr. Tara Swart 16:41 So I'm one of those. I, I really dislike the smell because I would get car sick and, you know, on those little, uh... I love a road trip, but I hate that smell.

Lewis Howes 16:49 Interesting.

Dr. Tara Swart 16:50 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 16:51 You gotta go electric then. Gotta get the electric car. [laughs]

Dr. Tara Swart 16:53 Exa- yeah, yeah. I'll have to. Um, and then-

Lewis Howes 16:55 So what is it, what is it about smell then that we should be thinking about and how we can use it as a superpower for our life?

Dr. Tara Swart 17:02 So there are people who are super smellers and, um, the professor that I was talking to actually said he thinks I'm one of them, which is really interesting.

Lewis Howes 17:09 What is a super smeller?

Dr. Tara Swart 17:11 Um-

Lewis Howes 17:11 'Cause I feel like I have a very sensitive nose.

Dr. Tara Swart 17:13 Do you?

Lewis Howes 17:13 I feel like I do. Like, I notice smells all the time.

Dr. Tara Swart 17:16 Okay. That's quite unusual because, um, more women are su- way more women are super smellers than men, so you are-

Lewis Howes 17:22 I think, I think a part of it was, I don't know, uh, nurture, because my dad used to smell everything, so maybe I started picking that up as a kid and being like, "Oh, let me smell everything that I'm, like, drinking or eating," or just when I enter a room, I just kinda emulated the what, what he did, I guess.

Dr. Tara Swart 17:38 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 17:39 So I don't know if that's, uh, nurture-

Dr. Tara Swart 17:41 Yeah, well-

Lewis Howes 17:42 ... as well as nature, I guess. So.

Dr. Tara Swart 17:43 I mean, that's neuroplasticity, right? So maybe, maybe you wouldn't have been such a super smeller if you hadn't learnt that as a child.

Lewis Howes 17:49 Exactly.

Dr. Tara Swart 17:50 Um, so interestingly, olfactory enrichment is beneficial to your brain, a- and that means smelling lots of different things, like you do.

Lewis Howes 17:58 Really?

Dr. Tara Swart 17:59 Yeah. It helps to improve memory and cognition as we age, so it's actually implicated in dementia research now.

Lewis Howes 18:05 Okay. So how does someone develop the, uh, what do you call it? A super smeller or a, or a-

Dr. Tara Swart 18:10 Yeah. They call it a super smeller, but it may not necessarily get you there, but in your house if you have- Flowers or, you know, scented candles, but obviously ones with natural waxes and e- essential oils-

Lewis Howes 18:23 Uh-huh, uh-huh

Dr. Tara Swart 18:23 ... rather than those perfumes.

Lewis Howes 18:24 Yes.

Dr. Tara Swart 18:25 Diffusers. Um, maybe in your bathroom you have a lot of like, you know, products that smell nice as well. The more you expose yourself to tho- to different smells throughout the day, you're en- you're enriching the olfactory senses in that part of your brain. And because they're so close to your memory centers, it's actually inducing neuroplasticity in that area-

Lewis Howes 18:46 Wow

Dr. Tara Swart 18:47 ... and i- improving your memory.

Lewis Howes 18:48 Now, how does smell, um, support you or hurt you when you're trying to enter new relationships?

Dr. Tara Swart 18:55 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 18:56 Either romantically, career, business, you know, friends. How does smell... How is it incorporated in relationships?

Dr. Tara Swart 19:04 Brilliant question. So we're very visual, so I would say that that's probably the top one in terms of attraction. Or even if it's not sexual attraction, if it's in a team at work, then kind of knowing who your tribe is, um, is primarily visual. Also, secondly, I would say we're auditory. So if you like someone's voice or accent, that can have quite a strong impact on you as well.

Lewis Howes 19:27 Is that why I like being around you?

Dr. Tara Swart 19:28 [laughs] My friend Lily actually sent me a voice note saying, "Tara, darling, I'm listening to you on a podcast, and your voice is, like, up there with David Attenborough. It's so relaxing"

Lewis Howes 19:38 [laughs]

Dr. Tara Swart 19:39 So that was a huge compliment. Um, but thank you. Yeah.

Lewis Howes 19:42 Yeah, yeah. I'm just gonna text you. Please send me a voice note today.

Dr. Tara Swart 19:45 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 19:46 Tell me something positive, you know? [laughs]

Dr. Tara Swart 19:48 [laughs] I'll send you an affirmation every day. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 19:49 There we go. Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 19:51 Um, and I think third, we come to smell, because... So, because, yeah. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 19:57 [laughs]

Dr. Tara Swart 19:59 I was just thinking about taste and touch. You're obviously not gonna go there till-

Lewis Howes 20:02 Ah. [laughs]

Dr. Tara Swart 20:03 ... you smell the person, right? So-

Lewis Howes 20:04 Yeah, yeah

Dr. Tara Swart 20:05 ... think about it like this. Let's say there was... Oh, let's keep it real. Let's say there was a very famous, beautiful actress that you were super attracted to, and then y- and this is not [laughs] about Martha.

Lewis Howes 20:15 [laughs]

Dr. Tara Swart 20:15 But then you met her, and she had really bad breath.

Lewis Howes 20:17 Oh, interesting.

Dr. Tara Swart 20:18 That would put you off, right?

Lewis Howes 20:19 Yes. Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 20:20 So it's more of a detractor than particularly a primary attractor. You know, you're not going to, um, choose someone 'cause they smell really nice if you don't like what they look like, kind of thing-

Lewis Howes 20:31 Right, right, right

Dr. Tara Swart 20:31 ... probably. Um-

Lewis Howes 20:32 But if they look good but they don't smell pleasing to your nose-

Dr. Tara Swart 20:35 Yeah

Lewis Howes 20:36 ... then it's gonna push you away from them.

Dr. Tara Swart 20:38 Possibly, and there's a scientific explanation for that, which is called the major histocompatibility complex, and that is actually the, um, like, imprint of our immune system. And non-consciously we can smell that in a potential partner.

Lewis Howes 20:55 So if someone has a bad smell or if they have a, a smell of anxiety, stress, and overwhelm, do we attract that if we're also overwhelmed, stressed, and anxious? Or do we repel that and want someone else who has a smell of peace and a healthy immune sy- system?

Dr. Tara Swart 21:12 Well, I just wanna be really, like... I want to stay very c- I love this analogy, but in terms of the science, we're not necessarily smelling those words that you've used.

Lewis Howes 21:21 Sure. Sure.

Dr. Tara Swart 21:22 Um, with the stress thing, I think we talked about this last time, that cortisol is contagious. So you would be impacted by the cortisol having a physiologic i- physiological impact on your s- stress levels.

Lewis Howes 21:34 From someone else.

Dr. Tara Swart 21:35 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 21:36 So you can smell the stress on someone.

Dr. Tara Swart 21:38 No, I w- I wanna separate those things.

Lewis Howes 21:40 Okay.

Dr. Tara Swart 21:40 So the, the stress hormone, um, leaps out around us and it, and it affects each other's blood levels of the stress hormone.

Lewis Howes 21:48 Wow.

Dr. Tara Swart 21:48 I wouldn't say that... We can't say scientifically at the moment that you're actually smelling that, but it's having an impact on your blood levels.

Lewis Howes 21:56 Mm.

Dr. Tara Swart 21:56 The smell thing is more to do with the immune system. And so what's super interesting is that we're more likely to be attracted to people who have a very different immune system pattern to us-

Lewis Howes 22:09 Mm

Dr. Tara Swart 22:09 ... because of the benefit on potential children of having a much broader immune system. Also, the people that you live with, you actually, um, start to sh- like, give each other immune cells. So usually it goes from the person with the healthiest microbiome to downwards, basically. Um, and that's because you are either, like, sleeping next to them in bed, you're sharing the same crockery and cutlery, you're sharing the same bathroom, you're kissing, you're having sex. So there's a lot of exchange of, you know, bodily fluids.

Lewis Howes 22:44 Yes.

Dr. Tara Swart 22:44 And in that is, um, gut, you know, the gut micro-

Lewis Howes 22:48 Uh-huh

Dr. Tara Swart 22:48 ... the bacteria as well.

Lewis Howes 22:49 Uh-huh. Wow. So are we more attracted to people with different immune systems then-

Dr. Tara Swart 22:57 Yeah

Lewis Howes 22:57 ... through our sense of smell? Is that what it is? Like, if they have a, a diverse immune system from us, we will find that more attractive?

Dr. Tara Swart 23:05 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 23:05 Really?

Dr. Tara Swart 23:06 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 23:07 That's interesting.

Dr. Tara Swart 23:09 Mm.

Lewis Howes 23:09 So how do we know if someone has a diverse immune system outside of smell, if we don't have that ability to smell?

Dr. Tara Swart 23:15 Um, well, it's not conscious, so you're not saying... You're not kind of, like, saying, "I can smell that you've [laughs] got a d- different immune system." You're just, like, loving the smell of this person, right?

Lewis Howes 23:24 Interesting.

Dr. Tara Swart 23:24 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 23:25 Is that pheromones, or what is that? Is that, like, a-

Dr. Tara Swart 23:27 Yeah, I guess.

Lewis Howes 23:29 Is that hormones?

Dr. Tara Swart 23:30 Pheromones, hormones, everything that's, you know, leaking out of the sweat.

Lewis Howes 23:33 That's interesting.

Dr. Tara Swart 23:34 Um, yeah.

Lewis Howes 23:35 And I sweat a lot, so I'm glad Martha likes me.

Dr. Tara Swart 23:37 Yeah. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 23:38 [laughs] Oh, well, I hope it smells good.

Dr. Tara Swart 23:40 [laughs] As long as it smells good to her-

Lewis Howes 23:43 Yeah, that's all that matters, right?

Dr. Tara Swart 23:44 That's what I would say.

Lewis Howes 23:44 Yeah, exactly. Um, what else should we know about, uh, smell in relationships? Is there anything else we should know about this?

Dr. Tara Swart 23:52 In relationships, I wouldn't say that there's that much more. But just bringing it back round to the super smeller thing, um, do you know about medical detection dogs that can detect cancer?

Lewis Howes 24:04 I've heard of this.

Dr. Tara Swart 24:04 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 24:05 Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 24:06 So the research that I'm, you know, very interested in, that's the reason I was having this dis- discussion with this guy, is that he's actually made a simulated nose that can detect cancer to the same level as dogs.

Lewis Howes 24:16 Come on.

Dr. Tara Swart 24:16 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 24:17 Wow.

Dr. Tara Swart 24:18 It's amazing

Lewis Howes 24:18 That's fascinating.

Dr. Tara Swart 24:19 I know. Um, and also, in, um, nursing homes, cat- where they have cats and dogs, you know, just to, like, give people company-

Lewis Howes 24:29 Comfort, yeah

Dr. Tara Swart 24:29 ... and comfort, they go and sit outside the doors of people that are about to die in the next few days. Because when we're dying,

Dr. Tara Swart 24:38 our organs start to die off in a certain order, and that lysis of cells, cell death, otherwise known as apoptosis or, um, lysis, th- th- they- they can smell that. 'Cause obviously they're- they're down on the ground, they've got a lot more smell receptors than us. Because in the animal kingdom, they're not finding their partner attractive 'cause of visuals, they're doing it more on smell.

Lewis Howes 25:04 Interesting.

Dr. Tara Swart 25:04 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 25:05 Wow. So what, cats and dogs will sit outside of a nursing home of, like, the door of someone who's about to pass?

Dr. Tara Swart 25:11 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 25:12 Really?

Dr. Tara Swart 25:12 Even if it's not yet known by the medical staff that that person is soon to die.

Lewis Howes 25:16 They just do this intuitively? Why, why-

Dr. Tara Swart 25:18 Through smell

Lewis Howes 25:20 But why do they ... Are they trained to do this, or they just kind of-

Dr. Tara Swart 25:22 No

Lewis Howes 25:22 ... do this because they wanna bring comfort to that person, or ...

Dr. Tara Swart 25:26 So the medical detection dogs are obviously trained to detec- detect cancers, but what we see in nursing homes is there's no training involved, it's just that because they can smell it, they go and si- yeah, they go and sit there. They want to offer comfort. Maybe they want to signal to the staff that this is something that's happening.

Lewis Howes 25:41 That is fascinating.

Dr. Tara Swart 25:42 I know.

Lewis Howes 25:43 Wow.

Dr. Tara Swart 25:43 So what I think is, in terms of us being able to expand our consciousness, is that if there are biological models, and by that I mean cats and dogs that can smell death, or bats that can hear things that we can't hear, dolphins, you know, flies that can see things that we can't see. If there are biological models that can do that, is it possible that we can do more of that?

Lewis Howes 26:11 Hmm. That's interesting.

Dr. Tara Swart 26:12 And I'm applying that to cognitive science, 'cause obviously that's my area, and the question I love asking people is, "Have you ever thought of someone that you haven't been in touch with for a while and suddenly they message you?" Has that ever happened to you?

Lewis Howes 26:28 Yeah, of course.

Dr. Tara Swart 26:29 So everybody says, "Of course."

Lewis Howes 26:31 Is that why you messaged me the other day?

Dr. Tara Swart 26:32 [laughs] Um, no. That was 'cause it was your birthday.

Lewis Howes 26:38 Exactly. [laughs]

Dr. Tara Swart 26:39 [laughs] But if it was for no-

Lewis Howes 26:40 I'm thinking of everyone, that's why I'm getting messages. Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 26:42 I know.

Lewis Howes 26:42 [laughs]

Dr. Tara Swart 26:43 So if- if that h- if that phenomenon happens-

Lewis Howes 26:47 Why is that? Why does that happen when you're thinking of someone and then the next day they- they text you or call you?

Dr. Tara Swart 26:52 Well, we don't know, but that's what I'm, that's what I'm so excited to dive into next.

Lewis Howes 26:55 Fascinating, right?

Dr. Tara Swart 26:56 Yeah. Because if you can control that, then what are the possibilities?

Lewis Howes 27:02 So if you had a hypothesis on why we think of something and then that person calls you or, you know, someone or some, two people are talking about you and then you call those people-

Dr. Tara Swart 27:12 Uh-huh

Lewis Howes 27:12 ... what do you think, based on neuroscience, that is? If you had a guess.

Dr. Tara Swart 27:18 I'm gonna give you a science answer and a spiritual answer.

Lewis Howes 27:21 Mm. I love it.

Dr. Tara Swart 27:21 'Cause, you know, it just has to be-

Lewis Howes 27:22 I love it. Blend it

Dr. Tara Swart 27:23 Yeah. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 27:23 Let's go.

Dr. Tara Swart 27:24 So, um, the science answer is mostly based on, um, Carl Jung's psychological theories about the collective unconscious.

Lewis Howes 27:34 Mm.

Dr. Tara Swart 27:34 Which means that on some level that we are not consciously aware of, there is a connection between our psyches. And a couple of examples of this are at the start of the pandemic, there was a global phenomenon of vivid dreaming, and that hasn't happened in the world since the last World War.

Lewis Howes 27:54 Globally this was happening?

Dr. Tara Swart 27:55 Yeah. So literally, like, you know, me in my country house in England, you in LA, someone in a tiny village in Africa, we were all experiencing th- and it was mostly anxiety-based, which completely makes sense, right? But for people in very, very different circumstances, and dreaming is a huge part of our emotional processing, um, that was going on.

Lewis Howes 28:20 Mm.

Dr. Tara Swart 28:21 Then there's the example of people saying you thought of somebody and then they messaged you. Twins definitely seem to have a higher level of being able to know if the other one's thinking about them. Um, so that, that is to do with ... The only explanation that we have for that at the moment is this potential collective unconscious idea. And then, um, 'cause I've been doing some research into the First American cultures,

Dr. Tara Swart 28:48 one of the things I've learnt is that our construct of time as linear, which is that there's a past, a present, and a future, well, that's m- that's a man-made construct. We don't actually know how time works. Uh, a lot of the First American nations believe that time happens in a spiral. And so as you are progressing through your life, you are passing by times and things and people that you've passed by before. And most people just have blinkers on and aren't aware of that at all, but if you're more open to the fact that time works in a different way, then you would understand that there's no such thing as coincidence or serendipity. It's because you're mentally passing through places that you've been past before.

Lewis Howes 29:34 At the same time? Or you're going back in time, or ...

Dr. Tara Swart 29:37 Well, [laughs] it's ... No, not so that ... You're not going back in time. I don't think we can do that yet. But you're passing close to l- you know, let's call it memories or emotions or intuitions that we're not normally ... They're not in our brain. They might be ... W- what we're thinking now is that the brain is filtering our mind down to survive in this material world, and that actually our consciousness could be much bigger than that.

Lewis Howes 30:04 Mm.

Dr. Tara Swart 30:05 Um, and areas of research I've looked at around that are things like, I'll explain these terms in a minute if you don't know what they are.

Lewis Howes 30:14 Sure.

Dr. Tara Swart 30:14 Terminal lucidity, near-death experiences, and past life memories So terminal lucidity is when someone who's got dementia or they've had a stroke or a brain injury suddenly becomes completely lucid. So they go from not recognizing their own children, not even knowing that they have children anymore, to suddenly saying, "Lewis, son, come here. I want to say something to you that's really important to me."

Lewis Howes 30:39 Wow.

Dr. Tara Swart 30:40 And usually they die within one to 24 hours of that happening.

Lewis Howes 30:44 It's like when they come back to like who they were or where they are now-

Dr. Tara Swart 30:47 Completely

Lewis Howes 30:47 ... it's like quickly the, the end is coming soon.

Dr. Tara Swart 30:50 The end is coming, but-

Lewis Howes 30:51 Why is that?

Dr. Tara Swart 30:53 We don't know why, but there's a, so basically there's this amazing doctor called Dr. Alexander Batthyány who's, who's, this is his life's work. He's, um, head of the Viktor Frankl Institute and, um, from that, you know, lineage of Austrian psychologists that are kind of s- super famous. And so he's documented many cases of this. That means that a brain, that if you scanned it, would show a lot of damage-

Lewis Howes 31:19 Uh-huh

Dr. Tara Swart 31:19 ... can fully retain its consciousness. But we can't control that yet, but we can see that it can happen, right?

Lewis Howes 31:26 Wow.

Dr. Tara Swart 31:26 People who report near-death experiences, and this includes some high-profile doctors and scientists now, um, basically say that... A- and this is proven through, you know, they were in cardiac arrest for a certain amount of time. They flat-lined, their EEG also flat-lined for longer than you would think anyone could survive without oxygen, um, come back and, and they're alive again. And they have, you know, a lot of, a lot of stuff happens around that in terms of like spiritual awakening and like how you view life and death. But the main point is your brain became completely inactive and starved of oxygen for a length of time that we don't believe is possible-

Lewis Howes 32:06 Yeah

Dr. Tara Swart 32:06 ... to recover from.

Lewis Howes 32:07 5, 10, 20 minutes.

Dr. Tara Swart 32:09 And then you did.

Lewis Howes 32:10 Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 32:10 Fully back to full consciousness.

Lewis Howes 32:13 It's crazy.

Dr. Tara Swart 32:13 It's, and it just-- So, so the, you can't, we can't all have a near-death experience, right?

Lewis Howes 32:21 Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 32:22 But in Tibetan, um, Buddhism, they do dark retreats to stimulate a near-death experience. In the really ancient cultures like the Greeks and Egyptians, they used to bury people for days. But these people became the mystics and the seers of those communities. So just the fact that we've got-- I'm so excited about this, is you know, that we've got bran- brain scanning technology now. We've got really sophisticated te- technology. We know about, we're becoming, we're remembering some of these things that we knew a long time ago.

Dr. Tara Swart 32:57 The thought of putting those two things together and, you know, especially with AI rising right next to us like it is, I just, I just, I feel it's got so much potential for the humanity.

Lewis Howes 33:09 How many dimensions is our mind capable of being in?

Dr. Tara Swart 33:14 So I was just, I was just at this conference, um, which is a super spiritual one. A little bit even on the edge for me.

Lewis Howes 33:20 Fringey, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 33:21 Yeah. And, um [laughs] yeah, so there was a, a speaker talking about going from three dimensions to five dimensions and I-

Lewis Howes 33:30 'Cause we're in 3D right now.

Dr. Tara Swart 33:32 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 33:32 But the goal is, I guess the goal to manifest would be to get into 5D-

Dr. Tara Swart 33:36 Yeah

Lewis Howes 33:37 ... more frequently. Isn't that correct?

Dr. Tara Swart 33:39 Yeah. And when I really sort of tried to pin her down on how do you actually do this, it comes down to this-

Lewis Howes 33:45 And what is the difference between 3D and 5D as a neuroscientist?

Dr. Tara Swart 33:50 I have to say I'm not an expert on this, but it's, it's obviously opening up the dimensions of your mind and your consciousness to, one of the things that she mentions, and I'm not saying that there's science to this right now, but I think it's very interesting, is opening up channels of communication to the angelic realms. So-

Lewis Howes 34:08 Interesting

Dr. Tara Swart 34:09 ... uh, actually, I didn't really give you the context for this, which is that since the pandemic, people have lost loved ones to actual death. A lot of relationships broke down, and I'm talking marriages, friendships, working relationships, and a lot of, you know, mental health problems are massively on the rise, and that involves this loss of sense of self, this loss of purpose. "I don't know who I am anymore. I can't trust my gut anymore." And so I'm trying to find the answers to help people who've been through that. And if you take grief as an example, if you think that somebody in your family or a very close friend died, and you're never gonna see them again, and you're never gonna hear from them again, and you have to carry on in this life, that must be so painful. And I don't know how people can ever necessarily get over that. If you believe that our conscious- consciousness doesn't disappear with physical death, and that if we learn how to expand our minds to access different planes, that potentially you could remain connected and bonded in some kind of way to a person that you loved very much in this life, wouldn't you want that?

Lewis Howes 35:29 Mm-hmm. So how do we start to train our brain to unli- unlock new dimensions outside of this three-dimensional world?

Dr. Tara Swart 35:41 I am gonna take it back to this raised awareness that, that we talked about, because I guess you'd have to be open to thinking that it's possible.

Lewis Howes 35:50 Possibilities, yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 35:51 Yeah. And-

Lewis Howes 35:51 So if you're closed-minded to it, then you're not gonna be able to create that.

Dr. Tara Swart 35:54 No. Um, and you'll just think that it's a, it's gonna be a waste of your time because it's not going to work.

Lewis Howes 36:00 Yes.

Dr. Tara Swart 36:00 Um, so I would like to pose hypotheses to people like the one that I just said to you. Like, if you thought that there could be some way that you can remain connected to someone that you've lost, wouldn't you want that? Well, if-- 'cause your answer was yes. And your answer wasn't, "Well, of course I would, but it's not possible." You know? Like, there's, there's gonna be all sorts of answers that people would give. Then I would ask you to operate on the basis that that might be true. And so that could look like different things for different people. That could be have a conversation with that person in your head or have a conversation with that person out loud. I mean, I think that Richard E. Grant very famously says, "I was married to my wife for so long that I kind of know the answer that she would give, so I have conversations with her in my head as if they're between me and her. But obviously it's my brain that's kind of creating the answer, but it is based on what I think she would say." So that's, that's acceptable to most people.

Lewis Howes 37:02 Yes.

Dr. Tara Swart 37:02 That would be acceptable. Um, you could take it further, and people often report that they experience, you know, words or thoughts in their head that

Dr. Tara Swart 37:13 they don't believe are theirs. However, you're now veering into how I would diagnose someone with schizophrenia.

Lewis Howes 37:20 Right, I'm hearing voices.

Dr. Tara Swart 37:21 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 37:21 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 37:22 Or, um, thought insertion is also a diagnostic symptom of schizophrenia.

Lewis Howes 37:26 Thought insertion.

Dr. Tara Swart 37:27 Yeah, so that's, there are thoughts in my head that aren't my own.

Lewis Howes 37:30 Interesting.

Dr. Tara Swart 37:31 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 37:31 Are all of our thoughts our own thoughts?

Dr. Tara Swart 37:34 I mean, I just think this is becoming questionable. Um, I can't give you the definitive answer to that. But if I-

Lewis Howes 37:40 And, and where do our thoughts come from?

Dr. Tara Swart 37:42 Exactly. I mean, that's called the hard problem of neuroscience because there is- isn't a full understanding of whether we, our thoughts only arise from neurons and chemicals or whether we're a higher, you know, being than that and we have the ability to feel these emotions and have thoughts, and then the neurochemical response is a consequence of that. Um, something that people have been arguing about literally forever.

Lewis Howes 38:09 [laughs]

Dr. Tara Swart 38:10 [laughs] Um, so, you know, without all the answers, I would just ask people to explore.

Lewis Howes 38:16 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tara Swart 38:17 Um, another thing that you can do that is just like a very joy- joyous one is... So I'm, I've got this hashtag that I often use called I Find Hearts, and I literally like-

Lewis Howes 38:30 See hearts everywhere

Dr. Tara Swart 38:31 ... everywhere. Um, and, and it's just, you know, it's just so sweet and people love it, and they send me their pictures of the same. So up until recently, that's always been random. Like I'll be walking and then I'll see like a, uh, you know, like a defect in the pavement but it's heart-shaped kind of thing.

Lewis Howes 38:46 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tara Swart 38:48 Um, but one thing that I've started experimenting with is asking for specific signs that are really unusual things that you wouldn't expect to see in certain places, and then just seeing what happens and writing it into my journal.

Lewis Howes 39:02 Like almost asking for a, a sign to confirm something or to say, "Show me something unusual," or "Show me this if I should take this direction," or what do you mean?

Dr. Tara Swart 39:11 Yeah, so I wouldn't say, "Show me something amu- unusual." I would specify what it is.

Lewis Howes 39:16 Show me a pink elephant-

Dr. Tara Swart 39:17 Yes

Lewis Howes 39:18 ... um, in the middle of the night or whatever.

Dr. Tara Swart 39:21 Maybe not that specific.

Lewis Howes 39:22 Okay.

Dr. Tara Swart 39:22 Maybe just a pink elephant.

Lewis Howes 39:23 Show me a pink elephant.

Dr. Tara Swart 39:23 Show me a pink... [laughs] Yeah.

Lewis Howes 39:24 That's too unique. Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 39:25 Yeah. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 39:25 Show me a pink elephant, uh, if I'm supposed to take this action.

Dr. Tara Swart 39:30 Yeah, that kind of thing.

Lewis Howes 39:31 Okay.

Dr. Tara Swart 39:32 And you could easily say that really you're, it's just your intuition, and we understand how intuition works now. But you could also extrapolate it to being about something else, and that's kind of where I wanna push our thinking.

Lewis Howes 39:44 Uh-huh. What is your, uh, what does neuroscience tell us about signs, signals, and synchronicities? Are they, um, you know, something we should be paying attention to based on neuroscience and brain chemistry or is it more spiritual woo woo?

Dr. Tara Swart 40:01 Well, neuroscience doesn't tell us anything about that or much, let's say, about that at the moment, but that's why I'm probably going to write another book, which [laughs] I said I would never do. But I'm just so fascinated by this. Um, so when I get back, um, to London I'm gonna start like properly doing the research on this. So far it's been kind of something I'm interested in, and I have to say I wasn't sure if my book publisher would be okay with it. Um, and-

Lewis Howes 40:33 About these things?

Dr. Tara Swart 40:34 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 40:34 Signs, signals-

Dr. Tara Swart 40:35 Yeah

Lewis Howes 40:35 ... synchronicities?

Dr. Tara Swart 40:36 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 40:36 Well, that's fascinating. I love that stuff.

Dr. Tara Swart 40:38 And I think that it coming from a neuroscientist is a new angle. It's not that there aren't books out there on this kind of-

Lewis Howes 40:44 Mm-hmm

Dr. Tara Swart 40:44 ... thing. Um, but I really want to open up that conversation as well because there's a lot of people suffering. And like I said, you can sound like you're crazy if you start talking about stuff like this. So I want to open up the conversation, being open but trying to keep it as rigorous as possible to give people permission to come forward and share these stories.

Lewis Howes 41:10 Mm.

Dr. Tara Swart 41:10 'Cause I think that's only gonna be good for everyone.

Lewis Howes 41:13 Wow. That's cool. So when, when someone sees the signs, signals, and synchronicities happening in their life, what do you think that's telling them? That they're on the right path?

Lewis Howes 41:25 That they should be paying attention more? That they should be trusting their intuition more when they're seeing these three things?

Dr. Tara Swart 41:31 Mm-hmm. Um, so I feel like what it says, and somebody said this to me actually the last time I was, I was in LA, but it had to land really emotionally for me to, to believe it, and like that's what I want for everyone, is it tells you that you are being guided and it tells you that you're safe and protected. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 41:52 [laughs] All right. Wow.

Dr. Tara Swart 41:54 And one of the things I picked up from you a couple of years ago was that you said, "Sometimes, you know, if I'm feeling like in an emotional crisis, I just say to myself, 'I'm safe. I'm safe. I'm safe.'" And I can't tell you how many times I've used that in the last two years.

Lewis Howes 42:07 Wow, that's beautiful.

Dr. Tara Swart 42:09 But that's kind of like self-soothing the inner child, right?

Lewis Howes 42:12 Yes, yes.

Dr. Tara Swart 42:13 With this kind of interest in more esoteric things that I've had like since I met you that time, I'd like to think that it's not, I'm not just safe because I tell myself I'm safe, but I'm safe because I believe in something greater.

Lewis Howes 42:28 Yes.

Dr. Tara Swart 42:28 And I'm tapping into it and I'm allowing it to make me feel safe. Um, s- because- However good you become psychologically at soothing yourself, it, you can still feel very alone.

Lewis Howes 42:41 Mm.

Dr. Tara Swart 42:42 Um, so feeling like-

Lewis Howes 42:44 Unless you have a, a deeper spiritual connection to something.

Dr. Tara Swart 42:49 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 42:49 Yes.

Dr. Tara Swart 42:49 Exactly. Yeah, that's what I meant to say. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 42:51 Mm-hmm. Wow, that's fascinating. Do you believe that we can be in beautiful, healthy, loving relationships, and we can manifest everything we have on our vision or action boards if we have yet to heal the wounds of our childhood? As a neuroscientist?

Dr. Tara Swart 43:11 No.

Lewis Howes 43:12 Really?

Dr. Tara Swart 43:13 Um-

Lewis Howes 43:14 Wow. So if we have these visions and dreams and goals that we wanna go after, and if we wanna have a beautiful relationship, but we are wounded still, the inner child is wounded inside of us as adults, what will happen to us?

Dr. Tara Swart 43:29 So this is really about inner child and shadow, right? So we... I think people understand that you've got an inner child that maybe didn't get over things that you experienced in your childhood. Shadow is about the parts of yourself that you've rejected because, as a young child, you rely on your primary caregivers for survival.

Lewis Howes 43:49 Yes.

Dr. Tara Swart 43:50 And if there is something that they don't love about you, you wanna hide that for all the world so that they will still love you and, like, not let you die.

Lewis Howes 43:59 You don't want anyone to notice about you.

Dr. Tara Swart 44:00 No.

Lewis Howes 44:00 That's shame.

Dr. Tara Swart 44:02 So you hide it away in childhood, and often find yourself in adulthood no longer even aware of what those things are because you've rejected them so deeply.

Lewis Howes 44:11 Wow.

Dr. Tara Swart 44:12 Yeah. And but that's driving a lot of your unconscious behavior.

Lewis Howes 44:16 Right.

Dr. Tara Swart 44:17 So if you put together the inner child and the shadow, then what happens is you meet people on the same level of psychological wound as you.

Lewis Howes 44:26 Oh, man.

Dr. Tara Swart 44:28 You also leave people where if you evolve out of that and they haven't been able to.

Lewis Howes 44:33 Wow. Which I think goes back to one of the things that, one of the pieces of content I heard you talk about, which is, like, the sense of smell connecting to someone's stress levels or anxiety levels. Like, you'll kind of attract a similar nervous system, or I guess a certain similar, like, I don't know, stress level?

Dr. Tara Swart 44:51 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 44:52 Is that right?

Dr. Tara Swart 44:52 So it's not, it's not-

Lewis Howes 44:53 Not the nervous sys-

Dr. Tara Swart 44:53 It's not smell. [laughs] It's, it's, it's sensing, sensing-

Lewis Howes 44:57 Sensing

Dr. Tara Swart 44:57 ... not through smell the level of the stress hormone, yeah.

Lewis Howes 45:00 Interesting.

Dr. Tara Swart 45:01 But that's short-term, right? But the inner child and shadow stuff is longer term.

Lewis Howes 45:05 Gosh, that's fascinating.

Dr. Tara Swart 45:06 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 45:07 So you think we attract people based on our psychological wounds?

Dr. Tara Swart 45:11 100%.

Lewis Howes 45:12 Wow. And as we start to heal and grow, if the other person's not healing and growing, we kinda pull away.

Dr. Tara Swart 45:18 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 45:19 Wow. That's interesting.

Dr. Tara Swart 45:25 Oh, I can see the cogs moving in your brain. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 45:27 No, I just think it's fascinating.

Dr. Tara Swart 45:28 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 45:29 Speaking, I guess, about relationships and men and women, with all of your expertise on the brain, is the process of manifesting love and falling in love different from men versus women?

Dr. Tara Swart 45:41 I think if it's love you're really looking

Dr. Tara Swart 45:43 for, then it's not different, but-

Lewis Howes 45:44 Not lust.

Dr. Tara Swart 45:45 Yeah, exactly. [laughs] The issue is what you're actually looking for. [laughs] Um-

Lewis Howes 45:49 So you think men and women manifest love the same way, similar ways?

Dr. Tara Swart 45:53 Yeah. I think if, you know, if you want that sense of partnership and friendship and intimacy, and you wanna be loyal and you want it to be for the long term, then it doesn't matter what gender you are.

Lewis Howes 46:05 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tara Swart 46:06 Um, but if... The, the disconnect is often, and, you know, this is a bit of a stereotype, but usually it's more that men, or sorry, that women want a loving, stable relationship and men perhaps, you know, don't want that as much.

Lewis Howes 46:18 Want sex or whatever, yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 46:20 Yeah. Or don't, you know, just don't want it right now.

Lewis Howes 46:22 Uh-huh.

Dr. Tara Swart 46:22 But go through periods where that's what they want and go through periods where that's not what they want, which I guess could be true of any gender as well. But overall, more likely women will want to, like, be in a monogamous relationship. And-

Lewis Howes 46:34 Why is that based on kinda the brain science?

Dr. Tara Swart 46:37 Um, so it comes from evolution. So when we lived in the cave, women did need men to protect them from predators and to hunt for food. So women tend-

Lewis Howes 46:49 I guess especially if they're pregnant, too, and they weren't able to go out and-

Dr. Tara Swart 46:52 Yeah

Lewis Howes 46:52 ... hunt or gather or-

Dr. Tara Swart 46:53 Yeah, yeah

Lewis Howes 46:53 ... whatever it might be.

Dr. Tara Swart 46:54 They, I mean, they generally didn't hunt as much, so they gathered more. But then it's hard to get protein from what you gather rather than what you hunt. So, so for survival... And you know, they used the, the, the fat and the s- skins and everything. So it wasn't just food, it was shelter and-

Lewis Howes 47:12 Yes

Dr. Tara Swart 47:12 ... fire and, you know, all of that kind of stuff. So although we don't necessarily need a man for those physical things now, it's a very strong wi- survival wiring in the brain. And so what we have, you know, in, in the cave we lived nomadically. So often the men would go and hunt and be away for a very long time. Or if they went far enough and they found a cave of the s- but of the same tribe, they would just stay there and not go back. Why risk your life to travel back for s- you know, six weeks?

Lewis Howes 47:46 Right.

Dr. Tara Swart 47:47 But over time, a lot of societies in the modern world have asked people to live in unit families. And so we have seen, um, men's brains be rewired.

Lewis Howes 47:58 Really?

Dr. Tara Swart 47:58 Yeah. So quite rec- relatively recently, like maybe in the last 10 years, research has showed that when you become a dad for the first time, oxytocin rewi- rewires your brain so that you're more into bonding and less into the testosterone competitive stuff. 'Cause if you think about it, lions and tigers, they'll eat their own children.

Lewis Howes 48:17 You have to tame that in some ways, right?

Dr. Tara Swart 48:19 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 48:20 But how do you, how do you tame it but also harness it in other ways? You know what I mean?

Dr. Tara Swart 48:24 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 48:24 It's like a dance of, like-

Dr. Tara Swart 48:25 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 48:26 ... having drive and testosterone.

Dr. Tara Swart 48:28 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 48:28 Like, I never wanna lose that-

Dr. Tara Swart 48:30 Yeah

Lewis Howes 48:30 ... drive, right?

Dr. Tara Swart 48:31 I know. [laughs] I get this question-

Lewis Howes 48:32 But I-

Dr. Tara Swart 48:32 ... all the time as well

Lewis Howes 48:33 ... but I also wanna be, like, a great loving parent and-

Dr. Tara Swart 48:35 Yeah

Lewis Howes 48:36 ... partner and all these things.

Dr. Tara Swart 48:37 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 48:37 And not let testosterone drive me in doing damaging things-

Dr. Tara Swart 48:42 Yeah

Lewis Howes 48:42 ... you know? So.

Dr. Tara Swart 48:43 Well- So from about the age of 35, your testosterone will have started dropping significantly already.

Lewis Howes 48:50 Not mine. [laughs]

Dr. Tara Swart 48:51 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 48:52 Mine's gone up. [laughs]

Dr. Tara Swart 48:55 One's testosterone-

Lewis Howes 48:56 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Dr. Tara Swart 48:56 ... tends to drop from that age. Um, so when you do become a dad-

Lewis Howes 49:02 It drops after you become a dad?

Dr. Tara Swart 49:04 For the first time. Oxytocin goes up, testosterone drops, you become much more about, like, cuddling and bonding and wanting to stay in the home and look after the-

Lewis Howes 49:14 Interesting

Dr. Tara Swart 49:14 ... mom and the baby. And if you don't-

Lewis Howes 49:16 Less about, less about, like, lifting and, like, hunting, right?

Dr. Tara Swart 49:18 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 49:19 Interesting.

Dr. Tara Swart 49:20 If you keep lifting, then you would actually, like, keep your testosterone-

Lewis Howes 49:23 Keep it up

Dr. Tara Swart 49:23 ... levels higher. Also, if the baby sleeps in the same room as you, then your testosterone levels drop even more.

Lewis Howes 49:28 Come on.

Dr. Tara Swart 49:29 So you might want to move out for three months to a different bedroom.

Lewis Howes 49:32 Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 49:33 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 49:34 I've already told her, I'm g- I'm getting my sleep, you know, the first few months. So your testosterone drops?

Dr. Tara Swart 49:38 If you sleep in the same room as the baby.

Lewis Howes 49:41 Why is that?

Dr. Tara Swart 49:42 Because your b- 'cause the oxytocin's becoming, like, you know, higher and higher, 'cause you've got this cute little warm thing that smells so nice and is so, like, vulnerable and dependent on you, and it's, like, in the room with you the whole eight hours,

Dr. Tara Swart 49:55 you know, just oxytocin boost.

Lewis Howes 49:57 But are women attracted to men with less testosterone?

Dr. Tara Swart 50:00 Um, they are when they're not fertile, but they are not when they are at peak fertility.

Lewis Howes 50:06 Really?

Dr. Tara Swart 50:07 So mid-cycle, when you're ovulating, you're gonna want a bad boy, and the rest of the time [laughs] you're gonna want a nice man that will stay at home and help you look after the baby.

Lewis Howes 50:17 So if you're not a bad boy when you're at peak fertility as a woman, is that gonna hurt the relationship if you don't give women what they want?

Dr. Tara Swart 50:24 Hang on, say that again. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 50:26 [laughs] So if a man is not a-

Dr. Tara Swart 50:28 Not a bad boy

Lewis Howes 50:28 ... not a bad boy-

Dr. Tara Swart 50:29 Yeah, yeah

Lewis Howes 50:30 ... when a woman is at peak fertility-

Dr. Tara Swart 50:31 Mm

Lewis Howes 50:31 ... and the man just wants to cuddle and chill and not be driven by testosterone and-

Dr. Tara Swart 50:36 Yeah

Lewis Howes 50:36 ... give the woman that, that testosterone feel-

Dr. Tara Swart 50:39 Yeah

Lewis Howes 50:40 ... will that ultimately hurt the relationship long-term if the woman doesn't get what she wants sexually?

Dr. Tara Swart 50:45 I mean, I think if she's chosen him by then, so this is more about when you're, like, in the choosing phase.

Lewis Howes 50:50 Uh-huh.

Dr. Tara Swart 50:51 Once you've settled down with someone, then you have, like, a logical conversation about, are we trying for a baby or not, right? Um-

Lewis Howes 50:58 But logic and emotion are two different things-

Dr. Tara Swart 50:59 No, I mean, this-

Lewis Howes 51:00 ... in relationships, you know? You might logically say, "Okay, I'm safe," but emotionally you want something else.

Dr. Tara Swart 51:06 This is a reason that people cheat.

Lewis Howes 51:08 Right. Right, 'cause they're not getting what they want sexually.

Dr. Tara Swart 51:10 Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 51:12 And so it's like, how do you suppress the thing you want sexually to be like, "Oh, but he's such a good guy," or-

Dr. Tara Swart 51:16 Yeah, yeah

Lewis Howes 51:17 ... he's this, and ... but if he's not giving me what I want, then I'm gonna go find it from this other, younger, testosterone-driven man-

Dr. Tara Swart 51:23 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 51:23 Right?

Dr. Tara Swart 51:24 You're getting really jealous here. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 51:25 I'm not getting jealous.

Dr. Tara Swart 51:27 This, this, this fantasy, younger, high-testosterone man. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 51:31 Well, I, I'm just thinking is this what women deal with?

Dr. Tara Swart 51:33 I know.

Lewis Howes 51:34 Is this what women deal with?

Dr. Tara Swart 51:35 Yeah. To some ex- you know, more consciously or less consciously, depending on-

Lewis Howes 51:40 Yeah

Dr. Tara Swart 51:40 ... the woman.

Lewis Howes 51:41 Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 51:41 Um-

Lewis Howes 51:41 It's interesting, right?

Dr. Tara Swart 51:43 So let me kind of explain the physiology behind it from the research that we know the best.

Lewis Howes 51:48 Yes.

Dr. Tara Swart 51:49 Which is in, um, prairie voles. So there are two types of voles in America. Marsh or mountain voles.

Lewis Howes 51:58 Voles? What's a vole?

Dr. Tara Swart 51:59 Vole. It's a little rat-like creature.

Lewis Howes 52:02 Prairie, prairie dogs?

Dr. Tara Swart 52:04 No.

Lewis Howes 52:05 Not prairie dogs.

Dr. Tara Swart 52:05 It's a vole.

Lewis Howes 52:06 Vole, okay.

Dr. Tara Swart 52:06 It's more like a mouse or a rat.

Lewis Howes 52:07 Okay, cool.

Dr. Tara Swart 52:08 Yeah. The ones that live in the marsh or the mountain, they have plenty of food and plenty of shelter, and they're super promiscuous. The ones that moved to the prairie [laughs] where there's, like, scarce food and shelter, they snuggle in and settle down and become monogamous for life.

Lewis Howes 52:26 The same rat, the same mouse.

Dr. Tara Swart 52:28 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 52:29 But just living in different areas.

Dr. Tara Swart 52:30 Yeah. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 52:31 Come on.

Dr. Tara Swart 52:32 So-

Lewis Howes 52:33 So wait, you're telling me rats are monogamous?

Dr. Tara Swart 52:36 These vo-

Lewis Howes 52:36 In a s-

Dr. Tara Swart 52:36 These voles

Lewis Howes 52:37 Oh, you said-

Dr. Tara Swart 52:37 These voles are mono-

Lewis Howes 52:38 You said a mouse

Dr. Tara Swart 52:38 ... the voles are mono- mo- monogamous. Um-

Lewis Howes 52:42 If they live in the prairie.

Dr. Tara Swart 52:43 If they live in the prairie, but not if they live [laughs] in the marsh.

Lewis Howes 52:45 But if they have a-

Dr. Tara Swart 52:46 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 52:47 But if they have all the food and abundance, they're just-

Dr. Tara Swart 52:50 And lots of f- female voles that they can go and visit.

Lewis Howes 52:53 They're just little polyamorous voles, huh?

Dr. Tara Swart 52:55 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 52:55 They're just-

Dr. Tara Swart 52:55 Because they know that if they get, they get, um, you know, one vole pregnant, and then she's left on her own to look after her young, they're going to survive 'cause they're well-sheltered. And there's plenty of food for her to nip out and bring it back to the babies. Yeah. But in the prairie, if he was promiscuous, then the chances of his offspring dying are quite high, because she can't defend the nest herself, she can't find enough food for herself and them without help. And so let's extrapolate this. How does this help humans, right? Okay.

Lewis Howes 53:28 Well, which, first off, which, which mi- mice are happier, the ones that are more promiscuous-

Dr. Tara Swart 53:33 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 53:33 ... or the ones that are coupled? [laughs]

Dr. Tara Swart 53:35 I think it depends on the, on the vole.

Lewis Howes 53:37 So you think the, the female mice are happy if they just, you know, are pregnant, but then their partner just leaves?

Dr. Tara Swart 53:46 No, no.

Lewis Howes 53:46 They're not happy?

Dr. Tara Swart 53:46 No.

Lewis Howes 53:47 How do we know? Can we test that?

Dr. Tara Swart 53:48 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 53:51 Okay, so how do we apply this to our lives?

Dr. Tara Swart 53:52 Yeah, no, hang on. There is an answer to that.

Lewis Howes 53:54 Okay.

Dr. Tara Swart 53:54 We test it through, um, levels of oxytocin and vasopressin.

Lewis Howes 53:58 Come on. Have we done this?

Dr. Tara Swart 53:59 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 54:00 Have people done this?

Dr. Tara Swart 54:01 Yes.

Lewis Howes 54:01 They've done- no way. With these mice?

Dr. Tara Swart 54:03 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 54:04 Wow, that's crazy.

Dr. Tara Swart 54:05 Um, and actually, just to be serious, the research has done more to help with loneliness, grief, and heartbreak, but obviously it's got implications for dating.

Lewis Howes 54:16 Wow.

Dr. Tara Swart 54:17 Um, so because one of the things that we saw with the receptors in the brain is that, like, if, if I'm in ... no, it's gotta be the other way around. If you're in love with me, you've got more vasopressin receptors in your nucleus accumbens, which is on the reward circuitry. And then every time you see me, you get a reward, and the longer that we've been dating and stay together and become closer, that reward becomes more intense every time you see me. However, if we then had a prolonged separation, time can down-regulate the effect of those receptors. So obviously there are implications for that in a breakup or grief, right?

Lewis Howes 54:58 Right.

Dr. Tara Swart 54:58 Um, and but one of the things I think is like so, so important for dating is that if a woman... if a, if a couple are getting to know each other, and this is all on like heterosexual couples-

Lewis Howes 55:13 Mm-hmm

Dr. Tara Swart 55:13 ... the research. Then as a woman is sexually interested and liking the guy and enjoying the dating, her oxytocin levels is like slowly, slowly starting to go up. When they start actually having sex, she's gonna be releasing higher levels of oxytocin every time she orgasms, and that's gonna make her bond to the guy much more. If you have sex on the first date, the guy's vasopressin levels will plummet straight away and all he'll be interested in his testosterone. If you make him wait, his vasopressin and oxytocin levels go up, and then when you do actually have sex, he's already bonded, so it's more likely to become part of a loving relationship.

Lewis Howes 55:55 Wow. So if a woman sleeps with a man on the first date or two-

Dr. Tara Swart 56:00 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 56:01 ... is a man driven to wanna bond long term with that person? No. Why not?

Dr. Tara Swart 56:11 Because the vasopressin levels drop as soon as he has sex.

Lewis Howes 56:14 What does that mean?

Dr. Tara Swart 56:14 So vasopressin is the one that makes the prairie voles monogamous. The higher the levels of that, and that the receptors appear in the reward circuitry of your brain-

Lewis Howes 56:24 Wow

Dr. Tara Swart 56:24 ... and so basically if you see your partner in distress, it, um, affects your brain, the, the, those neurons, and you want to comfort her through physical touch. Um, so that's oxytocin. But if you haven't had time for those receptors to appear in the correct place to make you bond, then it's just, it's ju- you know, it goes back to lust. So-

Lewis Howes 56:49 Wow

Dr. Tara Swart 56:49 ... what I say about love and relationships is that the genetics and the receptors will load the gun, but sexual activity will pull the trigger.

Lewis Howes 57:01 Mm-hmm. So based on neuroscience, if you sleep with someone quickly-

Dr. Tara Swart 57:08 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 57:09 ... you're less likely to bond long term together. You're more likely to be promiscuous or just not be as interested in that person long term.

Dr. Tara Swart 57:18 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 57:18 Is that right?

Dr. Tara Swart 57:18 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 57:20 That's fascinating.

Dr. Tara Swart 57:21 [laughs] I know.

Lewis Howes 57:22 But you hear a lot of people who just be like, "You know, just sleep with them on the first day. It's fun. Just have fun, you know, it's all good." But I just feel like you're setting yourself up for letdown.

Dr. Tara Swart 57:32 But if that's what you want, that's fine.

Lewis Howes 57:34 Uh-

Dr. Tara Swart 57:34 But I think-

Lewis Howes 57:34 But don't expect the guy to keep liking you after that.

Dr. Tara Swart 57:36 No, no. A- and don't say it's fine and it's fun if you actually want a long-term relationship-

Lewis Howes 57:41 Right

Dr. Tara Swart 57:41 ... and then be disappointed that they didn't want that too.

Lewis Howes 57:43 Yeah. So the brain chemistry within a man changes after th- if they have sex earlier with a woman.

Dr. Tara Swart 57:49 Mm-hmm. And it changes in a different way if they wait, and they actually like create a bond, and then-

Lewis Howes 57:57 First

Dr. Tara Swart 57:57 ... yeah

Lewis Howes 57:58 ... and then have sex.

Dr. Tara Swart 57:59 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 58:00 What changes within a woman when they have sex with a man? Do they become more bonded to the person?

Dr. Tara Swart 58:06 Yeah. So for the woman, it's not so much to do with whether they are already in love with the person or not. If they're having sex and they're re- releasing oxytocin, because they don't, we don't have as much testosterone as you, you've got at least seven to, to eight times

Dr. Tara Swart 58:21 as much testosterone as me, and that buffers the effect of oxytocin, whereas I would get the full effect of oxytocin. Um-

Lewis Howes 58:29 Wow.

Dr. Tara Swart 58:29 Mm.

Lewis Howes 58:30 That's fascinating. So a woman, when they have sex with a man, they're bonding quicker.

Dr. Tara Swart 58:35 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 58:35 But when a man has sex with a woman, he's not necessarily bonding right away. He has to have more time connecting with her-

Dr. Tara Swart 58:41 Yeah

Lewis Howes 58:41 ... until he bonds.

Dr. Tara Swart 58:42 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 58:43 That is interesting.

Dr. Tara Swart 58:45 And then sex will ... Then the oxytocin isn't as buffered by the testosterone. So when you've got the vasopressin and the oxytocin high, then the testosterone has less negating effect on it.

Lewis Howes 58:58 This is fascinating. Okay. Um, what else about neuroscience and relationships should we address since we're on this topic that you think is really interesting?

Dr. Tara Swart 59:08 Um, so I think, you know, the whole like visual and smell thing at start is quite interesting, and then the receptors and hormones to do with bonding and sex is really interesting. I would say that because we live so much longer now, you know, we- we're using these cave analogies, but to be honest, in cave times, you and I would both be dead.

Lewis Howes 59:27 Die at 30.

Dr. Tara Swart 59:28 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 59:28 Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 59:28 Um, so relationships potentially have to last for longer, and I think there's two things to say here. One is that you can use neuroplasticity to keep growing and changing in a way that keeps a relationship fresh if you are holding onto this fantasy that a relationship has to last forever, even if we're now living till we're 100, right? So I think another way to look at it is about being in the present, not necessarily putting this intense pressure on yourself, your partner, and the relationship that it has to last forever.

Lewis Howes 1:00:03 Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:00:03 Um, understanding that even if a relationship breaks down, and that's obviously difficult to handle at the time, that there are potential possibilities for something that's more right for you at a different age than maybe a choice you made in your 20s. Um, so you know, nothing ... You don't have to be a neuroscientist to say those two things. It's kind of like just using your brain to understand that there's a certain amount of time, there are, you know, benefits to being in long-lasting relationships, but there are possible alternatives as well.

Lewis Howes 1:00:41 Absolutely. Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:00:42 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:00:42 That's interesting. Um, I wanna go back to what we were talking about a little bit before in terms of 3D, 5D brain states. Um- I guess my question is, what is the... You know, we're in the three-dimensional world right now, 3D. But from my understanding, 5D allows us to manifest faster. It's like I'm skipping time. It's not, it's not saying you have to push things forward in the physical material world. You're jumping time, in a sense.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:01:21 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:01:22 I don't know if that makes sense. And when we use our brain to think about something-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:01:26 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:01:26 ... we're sending a signal into space, into time, space, our environment, consciousness. We're putting a signal out into the world. And maybe sometimes when we think about someone, we're sending that signal to the other person, right? Potentially. And if we send a signal out consistently, we're signaling to the world, and if we fill our hearts with love and gratitude and harmony and peace and a beautiful state, a flourishing state of abundance, we're signaling something out and we're drawing it back in through the heart.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:01:58 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:02:00 Is that a bunch of baloney or is that something that you can back by science to support our energy, our thoughts, our way of being, and connect it to the actions we take on a daily basis?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:02:14 That's a really beautiful way that you've put it, and, and a great question as well. And so I just want to start that story with a few things, like if you think about what you and I watched as sci-fi when we were kids, so much of that is true now.

Lewis Howes 1:02:28 It's happening.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:02:28 Yeah. And things that we used to think about the brain, like one way that we used to treat mental, um, illnesses was by doing

Dr. Tara Swart 1:02:36 a frontal lobotomy or cutting the corpus callosum that, you know, like bridges the left and right hemispheres, and we thought we were doing a good thing. Um, I have actually given patients electroconvulsive therapy in my career, so not that long ago, and not because I wanted to, but I had a patient that came to me, um, and said, you know, "I've got a long history of depression, and when it gets to the point that I don't want to eat and drink, the only thing that helps me quick enough that I don't have to suffer for weeks is, is ECT." And I said, "Are you sure that you don't want to try... You know, there are some modern antidepressants now that, you know, have an effect in a couple of weeks." And she was like, "No, I'm not eating, I'm not drinking. I'm totally depressed. I just want ECT." So I was like, "Okay." Um, but we don't generally do that so much anymore. Um, so our understanding of psychiatry, psychology, and then with the advent of brain scanning, how, you know, how healthy brains function, has come a long way. Even at this conference at the weekend, the... all the speakers were amazing, but a few of them mentioned right brain, left brain, and I said, "I'm, I'm sorry, but I've got to stand up here and say we, we really can't talk about the brain like that anymore." Um, it's so much more complex and sophisticated with these amazing, um, networks and subsystems, and it's just doing-

Lewis Howes 1:03:57 Yeah

Dr. Tara Swart 1:03:57 ... a big disservice to the brain to talk about it.

Lewis Howes 1:03:59 It's all connecting.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:04:00 Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:04:00 Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:04:01 Um, so in, in that sense, the research that most backs up what you're talking to, uh, speaking to, is we can't prove all of that yet, but how we're getting there is through two main ways. One is looking at what happens in the brain with psychedelics-

Lewis Howes 1:04:19 Mm-hmm

Dr. Tara Swart 1:04:20 ... and, um, how they can induce neuroplasticity. So I keep my eye on the research at Johns Hopkins, 'cause I, you know, it's like, to me, the best, um, lab that's looking into that stuff. And so there are really great benefits from one or two doses spaced one to six months apart of certain psychedelics in mental, um, illnesses like depression and schizophrenia, uh, potentially in grief as well. But what's really interesting to me is that everything that you see that a psychedelic can achieve relatively quickly, you can achieve yourself by sleeping right, eating right, breathing right, and meditating.

Lewis Howes 1:05:10 Let's go.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:05:11 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:05:12 I'm so happy you're saying this because, you know, I have a lot of friends that swear by psychedelics.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:05:20 Mm.

Lewis Howes 1:05:20 They say like, "Oh, this changed my life, and it's opened me up, and it's allowed me to see things differently."

Dr. Tara Swart 1:05:24 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:05:25 But I've been to many meditation intensive retreats-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:05:28 Mm

Lewis Howes 1:05:28 ... that I feel like I'm seeing visions-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:05:30 Uh-huh

Lewis Howes 1:05:30 ... and I'm seeing like geometric shapes and pulsating-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:05:33 Uh-huh

Lewis Howes 1:05:33 ... and, uh, you know, all these different things that we are creating ourselves within ourselves. You know, it's the chemicals, the pharmacy that we have in our brain and body-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:05:44 Yeah, yeah

Lewis Howes 1:05:44 ... that can manifest and create these things are so powerful that I think if trained continually, it's hard work-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:05:54 Mm

Lewis Howes 1:05:54 ... but if trained properly and continually with the right teaching, can have just as powerful effects, if not more powerful, healing benefits than an outside pharmacy. That's just my belief. I may be wrong, but it sounds like from your research that's true.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:06:09 I'm so glad, I'm so glad you said that, 'cause I know it's particularly popular in LA as well, you know, people-

Lewis Howes 1:06:13 Oh, yeah

Dr. Tara Swart 1:06:14 ... yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:06:14 Everyone's talking about microdosing and-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:06:15 I know

Lewis Howes 1:06:16 ... uh, ayahuasca and everything.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:06:18 And my concern is that-

Lewis Howes 1:06:19 And they're swearing by it, and it's helping them, you know, immensely. And I'm like, cool. If it's helping you, cool. Uh, but can you try other things too-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:06:27 Yeah, yeah

Lewis Howes 1:06:27 ... that aren't changing your brain chemistry from the outside in, but rather from the inside out?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:06:34 I, I think there's a couple of other things around that. One is that if it's not un- if it's not at, you know, in a hospital or a lab under, like, proper supervision with qualified people, then, A, how do you know how pure the source of whatever you're taking is? Um, you know, in the '60s there were so many bad, like, LSD trips that happened to people, so what happens if something goes

Dr. Tara Swart 1:06:54 wrong and there's no one trained there that can help you? Neuroplasticity, as I remember we discussed before, is not always good. It can be bad. You know, you obsess over a breakup You're just wiring into your brain

Lewis Howes 1:07:06 You stay in it for years

Dr. Tara Swart 1:07:07 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:07:07 ... this grief. Yeah, yeah

Dr. Tara Swart 1:07:08 Of course. And so can these psychedelics do that as well.

Lewis Howes 1:07:10 They can keep you trapped in a depressive state.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:07:12 They can even, like, ma- yeah, like, they can make things more negative because how do you know where that mushroom or whatever it is that you're taking is gonna induce neuroplasticity in your brain? How are you directing that if you've got no experience of that?

Lewis Howes 1:07:26 Yeah

Dr. Tara Swart 1:07:26 You know? So that is a bit of a concern. When they did the ayahuasca research at Johns Hopkins, they used the pure ayahuasca. When you do it in ceremony, it's mixed with something that makes you purge.

Lewis Howes 1:07:39 Makes you throw up and feel sick and like-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:07:41 Yeah, and, and have diarrhea potentially as well. Yeah. So the purging-

Lewis Howes 1:07:45 I don't want that

Dr. Tara Swart 1:07:46 I know. No, I know.

Lewis Howes 1:07:46 I, who wants to go through that?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:07:47 Completely. I [laughs] it completely puts me off. Some people don't mind it so much, but it's, it's done because it symbolizes a massive release.

Lewis Howes 1:07:55 Yes.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:07:55 And that's part of-

Lewis Howes 1:07:57 And a rebirth, right?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:07:58 Yes, exactly. But you're, you're just taking something that you don't need to take. You could just take the ayahuasca and have the actual mental process without purging.

Lewis Howes 1:08:08 Interesting.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:08:09 So yeah. I mean, I'd volunteer for Johns Hopkins, but not, [laughs] not for the, yeah, the ceremony.

Lewis Howes 1:08:14 So what do you think is the best way to rewire our subconscious mind to benefit us, to feel healthier, happier, and whole as human beings versus taking drugs or some type of psychedelics?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:08:29 So I wanted to put that together with the research on both the Buddhist monks and the US Marines that, um, you know, that Amishi Jha did at the, um, mindfulness, um, based-

Lewis Howes 1:08:39 Amishi, she's great. Yeah, yeah

Dr. Tara Swart 1:08:40 ... she's... Yeah, yeah. Training with. Um, so, so all of that research shows the impact of different types of meditation on the brain. And however, so before we get to the meditation even, this temple needs to be in the best... You know, it needs to be clean. It needs to be, um, polished, and so that means that you're sleeping sufficiently, you're eating a really good nutrient-dense, um, diet with the good fats and enough protein-

Lewis Howes 1:09:09 Fiber. All that, yeah

Dr. Tara Swart 1:09:10 ... all of that. Um, the dark-skinned foods, you know, that I think I've mentioned before. Um, that you are not sedentary. Um, not necessarily that you do lots of high-intensity exercise, but that you, you move, you breathe, you know, you breathe deeply, um, that you're well-hydrated. Then we come onto the meditation part, and meditation is... You know, I remember even the first time I spoke about it at a bank thinking, "Am I gonna get away with this?" You know? But people found it really interesting, and then it really was about sitting cross-legged with your eyes closed and, you know, doing a certain kind of form of meditation, whether it's guided or breath. So the nature piece is that because we've existed in the palette of nature since we were in the cave, it... we do find it b- most people find it beautiful, unless you've got, like, terrible allergies or something. When you walk past trees, particularly certain trees that you have a lot of in LA, I've noticed. So, um, pines, furs-

Lewis Howes 1:10:11 Palms

Dr. Tara Swart 1:10:11 ... cedars, cypresses, palms, they release something called phytoncides that actually interact with your immune system-

Lewis Howes 1:10:19 Wow

Dr. Tara Swart 1:10:19 ... and boost the release of natural killer cells that help you to fight off cancers.

Lewis Howes 1:10:24 Trees. Wow. So being in nature helps you fight off cancers.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:10:29 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:10:30 Wow.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:10:31 Um, but the beauty of it as well, so so that's the chemical thing that's going on, but, um-

Lewis Howes 1:10:35 Not just the actual, uh, chemicals that are being released from those trees, but you actually being in the environment and viewing it.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:10:43 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:10:44 Interesting.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:10:45 Yeah. So, so that's beholding beauty. Making beauty is also important. So things like, um, singing, playing an instrument, dancing, drumming, chanting. 'Cause if you think about it, in the cave, we danced and drummed and chanted, but we didn't have resources to do anything that wasn't essential to our survival. So I still haven't quite worked out why, but those things are obviously essential to our survival.

Lewis Howes 1:11:12 Interesting.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:11:12 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:11:14 Okay. So back to,

Lewis Howes 1:11:17 I guess, reprogramming your subconscious mind. Eating, sleeping. What was the other thing you said? Meditating, breathing.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:11:26 Well, I wanna come to that one last. So the physical foundations are eating, sleeping, drinking, and breathing. Then when we come into the realm of mindfulness, we're taking it now to the next level and saying it's not just necessarily sitting down and doing a meditation, but it's spending time in nature. It's beholding beauty. It's gratitude. It-

Lewis Howes 1:11:49 Art

Dr. Tara Swart 1:11:50 ... it's art, it's music, it's dance. Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:11:53 And so when we're not incorporating a healthy lifestyle of eating, sleeping, drinking enough water, breathing, meditating, if we're not incorporating that, it's just gonna be harder to accomplish what we want. It's gonna be harder to manifest. It's gonna be harder to attract healthy relationships. We're gonna feel in a more stressed out state, is what I'm hearing you say.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:12:13 I mean, it's like buying a Ferrari and then putting the wrong gas into it and never changing the oil or the water and expecting to, like, win Formula 1.

Lewis Howes 1:12:22 Right. It's not gonna happen. How can someone tell if they are in a lower energy state-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:12:30 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:12:31 ... and it just might seem so daunting to take on something new to improve their life? They might be in scarcity. They might be struggling in relationships. They might be feeling emotionally depressed, physically depressed, financially depressed, and they're just getting by minute by minute and day by day. How can someone get out of themselves when they're in a scarcity state or lower energy state, suffering state, and into a more beautiful state of being?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:13:02 Um, I really feel like I'm the wrong person to answer that question 'cause you've been there and you've written the book about it, which I've read, The Greatness Mindset. There's so many, you know, amazing science-backed tips in there about this exact question. But I just wanna give one really easy thing for people-

Lewis Howes 1:13:17 Yes

Dr. Tara Swart 1:13:17 ... that they can start doing today, which is the micro habits that I mentioned. So just, if you're in that place And, you know, you and I have both been in that place. Just start drinking some more water. If that's the only thing you can do today, you will actually feel better if you're hydrated. Try to go to bed half an hour earlier or an hour earlier. Try to, you know, just go and do 100 steps after your meal. Um, really, really small things, but these kinds of things, and you know I always say change 10 things by 1%, not one thing by 10%, they accumulate and they make you feel better.

Lewis Howes 1:13:53 Yes.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:13:53 And, and it's, you know, it's not about sort of having the dream home manifestation straightaway. It's about, it's about building yourself up to that.

Lewis Howes 1:14:05 Why do you think some people manifest quicker than others? If some people feel like, man, he or she, they just like, everything they do is just like turns to gold, and it just seems to be happening so quickly, and they're so much farther ahead than me.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:14:19 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:14:19 Why does it seem like some people do it faster and other people are just like working so hard to create some momentum in their life?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:14:27 I mean, again, I'll bring this back to, 'cause I, with you, I always like to use sports analogies. It's practice.

Lewis Howes 1:14:33 Yes.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:14:33 There's no, there's no other-

Lewis Howes 1:14:34 Reps

Dr. Tara Swart 1:14:34 ... there's no secret answer to that.

Lewis Howes 1:14:36 Takes time.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:14:37 Um, and I also find, even though it's something I practice all the time, that I can have like months in the desert where nothing's happening, and then I have like periods of time where-

Lewis Howes 1:14:47 Everything

Dr. Tara Swart 1:14:48 ... everything is like falling into place. And I started saying to my friends, "When that's happening, ask for everything that you want," because there's, it's like a magnetic time.

Lewis Howes 1:14:55 Wow.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:14:56 So when you see that it's happening anyway, then think, "Okay, what else was I wanting the last few months that I didn't manifest?" and really like put that out there.

Lewis Howes 1:15:05 You mentioned magnetic. How do we become more magnetic to the things we want?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:15:09 So I want to answer that in a relationship way, 'cause I feel like when people

Dr. Tara Swart 1:15:14 are looking for their partner, they've usually got a very good idea or maybe even a list of what they want in that partner.

Lewis Howes 1:15:20 Yes. I'm gonna make a list of all the things I want in this person, and then I'm gonna go find it.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:15:24 And I'm, or I'm gonna wait for it, you know, this to come along. But do you ever make a list of what you have to offer in a relationship? Do you ever check if you can match up to everything that you're asking for on that list?

Lewis Howes 1:15:34 All right. All right.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:15:35 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:15:35 Preach it. I like it.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:15:37 I mean, I think if you do make a list, you need to look at it and, and ask yourself if, if you're bringing that to the table as well. Because if you're not, you're not gonna get that.

Lewis Howes 1:15:46 Yeah. That needs to be the standard you are.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:15:48 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:15:48 The things you want, you have to be that standard.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:15:50 Mm.

Lewis Howes 1:15:51 If you're not, then there's gonna be a disconnect at some time. There's gonna be something that's off. That's good. I like that.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:15:56 Or you're just gonna get continually disappointed, because if this super kind, generous, you know, person that always has your back fi- finds that you don't always have their back, why are they gonna go out with you?

Lewis Howes 1:16:05 Exactly. They're not.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:16:06 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:16:09 Yeah. What do you feel like has been the most magnetic time in your life where everything was just you were a vortex of possibilities and opportunities, just people were coming to you, everything was saying yes, opportunities were flooding in your way? When has been that time?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:16:24 I mean, I've, I would say that I've had several experiences of that, but you know, they're not lasting all year. But because I do a vision board, an action board every year, I've got, you know, several times when it's felt like a lot of those things came true, and then equally probably more times [laughs] that, where it doesn't feel like any of that's happening.

Lewis Howes 1:16:43 Really?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:16:43 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:16:44 When you create an action board or a vision board every year, how much of it usually comes true that year or some year down the line?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:16:53 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:16:53 Is it 20%? Is it 50%, 80%?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:16:56 Oh, because I'm very realistic and specific, I would say that 80% will come true within the year.

Lewis Howes 1:17:02 Wow.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:17:03 And some things might have to like leap over into the next year.

Lewis Howes 1:17:06 Wow.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:17:07 And you know, I'm just gonna be really honest with you, 'cause you're my friend, that some of those things just have never come true.

Lewis Howes 1:17:13 Right.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:17:14 Um, and-

Lewis Howes 1:17:14 Maybe they weren't meant for you.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:17:15 Yeah. That's how, that's how I've had to, like-

Lewis Howes 1:17:18 So 80% of the things you put down on that vision board yearly on average come true within that year.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:17:24 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:17:24 Wow. Do you put a specific date-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:17:27 No

Lewis Howes 1:17:27 ... next to the thing that you want by?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:17:29 No. But I'm, I know I'm doing it for that year.

Lewis Howes 1:17:32 Wow.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:17:32 And I know that some of them are quick wins that I can do a lot to push forward, and that some of them are bigger things that I'm gonna have to wait a bit for the magic of the universe.

Lewis Howes 1:17:40 Interesting.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:17:41 And I also leave quite a lot of space, because what I've begun to realize is, you know, when I'm in that mode of like everything's manifesting, I sometimes say, "Be careful what you wish for." Um, so what, what I also learned was that my brain is limited by what it thinks I can get or I deserve.

Lewis Howes 1:18:02 Mm.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:18:02 And so I do want to be open to the fact that something could come up that I haven't thought of yet. And for that reason, I leave space.

Lewis Howes 1:18:09 On your vision board.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:18:10 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:18:11 So you have like an empty white space that's just like-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:18:13 Well, I'll just have things, you know, they're not crammed together.

Lewis Howes 1:18:16 Oh, it's not all full.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:18:17 So there's space between them. No.

Lewis Howes 1:18:19 Interesting. I'm gonna have to come to your bathroom and check out your vision board one day.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:18:22 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:18:23 See what it looks like. So how many things do you put on there? Is it like 20 things, or is it more like five or six kind of big things? You mentioned kind of smaller wins.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:18:34 That really changes from year to year. So I have had one year I only had one image on my vision board.

Lewis Howes 1:18:39 What was that?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:18:40 It was a beautiful horse kicking up water.

Lewis Howes 1:18:44 Mm.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:18:44 And it was the year that I was incorporating my business, so it was all about like stability and loyalty and trust, and like a team, but then also causing a bit of disruption in the industry.

Lewis Howes 1:18:54 Ooh, I like that.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:18:55 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:18:55 All right. So it wasn't actually like a bunch of people in an office space of like this is the team, how it's gonna look and feel. It was more of

Lewis Howes 1:19:04 a emotional image.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:19:05 Mine are very metaphorical, so actually if you did come to my bathroom and look at my vision board, you, you probably wouldn't know what everything meant, but I know.

Lewis Howes 1:19:12 Oh, interesting.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:19:13 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:19:14 So it's not like, okay, I want the dream home. I'm gonna put up an image, image of a home. But it might be something else that feels like home.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:19:24 So with that one, I di- I did have-

Lewis Howes 1:19:26 You did have the home. Okay

Dr. Tara Swart 1:19:27 ... I had an, well, I had an in- like an interior, so I had like- A bathroom with, you know, particular bath and candles and rugs and kind of, um-

Lewis Howes 1:19:36 Yes

Dr. Tara Swart 1:19:36 ... I don't know if you call them poufs, you know, this little Moroccan leather-

Lewis Howes 1:19:40 Like a chair or something or what's-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:19:41 It's like a little low stool thing.

Lewis Howes 1:19:42 Okay.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:19:43 So that... It was a vibe, which was kind of like a-

Lewis Howes 1:19:45 It's like a mood board

Dr. Tara Swart 1:19:46 ... bit of a hippie-

Lewis Howes 1:19:47 Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah

Dr. Tara Swart 1:19:47 ... vibe, yeah. Um, so that represented home one year. Um, I did have, um... When I wanted outside space, I had a particular picture of sort of, uh, the house was in the distance, but y- you know, the picture was more of the garden.

Lewis Howes 1:20:01 What was the most incredible thing that you manifested that wasn't on your vision board?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:20:05 Oh, that wasn't on it?

Lewis Howes 1:20:06 That was empty space, that ended up coming into your life that you didn't even dream of, but you're like, "Wow, this is even bigger than what I could have imagined."

Dr. Tara Swart 1:20:16 I'm not, I'm not making this up, but being on your podcast and then being on Stephen's podcast are things I never thought were gonna happen to me.

Lewis Howes 1:20:25 Wow.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:20:25 Um, I wouldn't have put them on because I wouldn't have thought that that could come true.

Lewis Howes 1:20:30 Really?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:20:30 Yeah. Well, if you think, we were first in contact in 2019 when my book came out, and you did want me to come on the podcast, but then the pandemic happened, so I couldn't. So it happened, like, much later, and then, like, my career had changed quite a lot by then, and, you know, it had a very big impact on me and my platform and my work. So, but I hadn't, before the book came out, said, "I wanna go on School of Greatness," 'cause I just thought I would do a few small podcasts in London and, you know-

Lewis Howes 1:21:02 And go along with your day.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:21:03 Um, yeah

Lewis Howes 1:21:03 Yeah, yeah. Interesting. What is saying, you know, what is saying yes to something that you didn't even think was possible do for you? You, you can reference the School of Greatness or something else, but just, like, what is saying yes to something that you didn't even think about putting on your vision board, but being open to the universe's possibilities of an opportunity and saying yes to it, what does that do for you? What does it unlock?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:21:28 So I think it comes back to the reason why I started leaving space on my board, because it made me realize I can, you know, things can happen to me that are better than what I thought could happen. So, so it unlocks your sense of self-worth, your self-esteem, your-

Lewis Howes 1:21:44 Oh, interesting

Dr. Tara Swart 1:21:44 ... self-confidence, um, and makes you think, okay, well... And, and, you know, it's very practical 'cause obviously now I can say I've been on this podcast twice, so if I approach, like, a, in another really big podcast-

Lewis Howes 1:21:57 It's easier to get on and stuff.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:21:58 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:21:58 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:21:58 Exactly.

Lewis Howes 1:21:58 Of course, yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:21:59 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:22:00 What about the negative side of vision boards?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:22:04 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:22:05 What if someone puts something so big on there that just seems, like, so unrealistic-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:22:10 Mm

Lewis Howes 1:22:10 ... that this will never happen?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:22:12 Mm.

Lewis Howes 1:22:12 And they put it on there, yes, I want this thing, I want this money or this relationship or this opportunity, but they don't believe they're worthy of deter- or deserving of it. So they say they want it, but really, don't, they don't believe they're worthy of it. W- does that have a negative effect, or does it draw them closer to the worthiness of having the actual thing?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:22:33 I've got an example of this that I'll share with you first, and then maybe we can decide together if it's, like, the answer to that question, which is that I was on an Instagram Live with my friend who's very successful in the fashion industry and who's very humble, and she said at s- one stage when her career was really, you know, getting traction, that it was her dream to have a house in the Hamptons. Now, you can imagine the comments that then started coming up. "Well, I'd like a house in the Hamptons."

Lewis Howes 1:23:01 Right, right. [laughs]

Dr. Tara Swart 1:23:02 Yeah. But she was working incredibly hard

Dr. Tara Swart 1:23:07 in an industry that was lucrative enough that that was realistic for her.

Lewis Howes 1:23:10 It was a possibility.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:23:11 And I've been to that house, and when I went, when I walked into the house, I thought, "I know what it took you to get this, and that, that this was a dream-

Lewis Howes 1:23:19 Yeah

Dr. Tara Swart 1:23:19 ... that you worked so hard for."

Lewis Howes 1:23:20 It's not overnight.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:23:21 No.

Lewis Howes 1:23:21 No.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:23:22 Um, so I think that kind of thing really for people will just lead to disappointment. If... I would say you shouldn't, you know, you should start with, "I'd like to own my own home." It may just be an apartment. It may not be, you know, Beverly Hills Mansion.

Lewis Howes 1:23:35 Right, right.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:23:36 But sort of take it step by step. I mean, if I think back to the amount of money that I put on my first vision board when I had just stopped being a doctor and started up, you know, my coaching practice, it was realistic, and so when it then became true, I could, like, increase it over time. But if I'd put, like, a million dollars on it then, like, I would've failed.

Lewis Howes 1:23:58 Right, right, right. Yeah. I, for some reason, I think you're gonna get along very well with Martha, and I gotta, you gotta go on her show sometime. She's got one of the biggest shows in-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:24:07 Oh, I'd love that

Lewis Howes 1:24:08 ... in, uh, in Latin America, but she does English as well.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:24:11 Okay.

Lewis Howes 1:24:11 But she would talk everything about, like, the spirit realm and, like, near-death experiences and kind of-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:24:17 Oh, wow

Lewis Howes 1:24:18 ... that's, like, her j- that's, all night she's reading books and watching YouTube videos about near-death experiences and what happens to the brain and things like that.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:24:26 Has she watched-

Lewis Howes 1:24:26 So she would love to dive in with you on this.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:24:28 I was actually very impressed that you knew as much as you did.

Lewis Howes 1:24:31 Uh, I'm-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:24:31 I wasn't sure-

Lewis Howes 1:24:32 Well, when you're s- you're sleeping next to someone who's watching these all day long-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:24:34 All day, yeah

Lewis Howes 1:24:35 ... it's like, okay, I've done-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:24:36 Yeah, yeah

Lewis Howes 1:24:36 ... you know, I'm on the... I'm, I'm, I'm able to, like, listen a little bit and be like, "Okay, I don't know about this, but I'll, I'll, I'll take it in."

Dr. Tara Swart 1:24:42 But you're aware of it.

Lewis Howes 1:24:42 Yeah, yeah. I'm open to it.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:24:43 Yeah. I mean, I'm super grateful to you, and therefore, through, through her, that, that you wanted to have this conversation with me.

Lewis Howes 1:24:50 Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:24:50 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:24:50 Yeah, yeah, of course.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:24:51 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:24:51 She would love to have you on, I think, if she knew this about you, so I wanna connect you guys later, but-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:24:55 Thanks

Lewis Howes 1:24:56 ... um-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:24:56 Has she watched Surviving Death on Netflix?

Lewis Howes 1:24:59 She must have. She watches-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:25:00 She must have

Lewis Howes 1:25:00 ... all these YouTube channels on this stuff, but I'll... You know, she's reading all the books. Yeah, she's, like, deep in this world.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:25:06 I'm starting, I'm gonna start a course when I-

Lewis Howes 1:25:09 And she's almost like media mask. You know, she's connecting with-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:25:12 I would love to speak with her

Lewis Howes 1:25:13 ... you know? Yeah, so-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:25:14 Yeah, I'm sh- it sounds like she could maybe really help me to understand that better, 'cause I'm just on that journey. But I'm gonna start this sacred geometry course-

Lewis Howes 1:25:22 Come on

Dr. Tara Swart 1:25:22 ... so maybe I could discuss that with her.

Lewis Howes 1:25:23 Come on. That's cool.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:25:25 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:25:25 When are you starting that?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:25:27 Well, it's on an app that I've already got, but 'cause I'm so busy in LA-

Lewis Howes 1:25:30 Sure, sure

Dr. Tara Swart 1:25:30 ... I thought I would just wait till I get home.

Lewis Howes 1:25:32 That's cool.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:25:32 But I might, might do one on the plane to-

Lewis Howes 1:25:34 No, I'm, I'm gonna connect you guys for sure. Um, gosh, what else do we need to know? What else do you feel like people need to know right now, at this time in the world? For someone listening or watching this right now, what do they need to know about their brain, their mind, and how the universe works to support them? Is there anything else?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:25:58 It's probably gonna be a bit of a, a recap, but I think it's important to do. I- like I said, at the beginning of the pandemic, I realized very, very quickly, like within two weeks, there is gonna be a horrific mental health consequence of this.

Lewis Howes 1:26:12 Mm.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:26:13 And then a couple of months in, I started trying to sort of say, you know, does it have to be a mental health crisis or could it be a spiritual revolution? And I don't even really know where that was coming from. It was just a phrase I was using. I didn't really have much to back it up. Obviously, I've subsequently spent three years kind of, you know, delving into that personally for my own spiritual evolution, and I want to share that with people because what I'd really like to say is, if you are feeling lost and broken, if you've lost relationships, if you have actual- you know, actually lost people, are, and are

Dr. Tara Swart 1:26:51 in grief, the answer actually is in your brain. And that there is so much that you can do to reconnect with yourself, to bring an amazing tribe of, like, angels and supporters around you, and to navigate grief in the most graceful way beyond what you could think possible, and all the things that you speak about, you know, that I speak about, to believe that and, and hypothesis test it 'cause, 'cause you, you will feel better, and there's no harm in trying.

Lewis Howes 1:27:30 Wow. Do you ever feel worried being a neuroscientist and being in the science world talking about spirituality and things that you, I guess, essentially cannot measure?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:27:42 Mm.

Lewis Howes 1:27:42 Do you ever feel worried about, "Oh, are people gonna take me seriously? Or my credibility?" Or, you know, "Are they gonna laugh at me if I'm talking about spirituality?"

Dr. Tara Swart 1:27:49 Yeah. One of the things I've said before, 'cause I- a question that I get is, like, "How do you survive in a man's world?" You know, "How did you do a PhD in neuroscience 30 years ago?" I didn't really realize that as a girl, I wasn't-

Lewis Howes 1:28:01 30 years ago? Come on.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:28:03 [laughs] Stop it. You're not asking me-

Lewis Howes 1:28:04 No way

Dr. Tara Swart 1:28:04 ... about my age again.

Lewis Howes 1:28:05 Come on.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:28:06 Stop it.

Lewis Howes 1:28:07 That was like 70 years ago. Come on.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:28:08 Um, so I [laughs] I didn't, I just never thought like, "Oh, a girl shouldn't do that." I was like, "I'm interested in everything neuro, so I'm gonna do that." And was it a risk when I gave up being a doctor and started a business from nothing? I guess so, but the big- the bigger risk for me would have been s- staying stuck in something, you know, that wasn't stimulating me and, you know, intellectually, and wasn't gonna open up a whole new world for me. And some people made comments when I wrote The Source about-

Lewis Howes 1:28:38 Yeah

Dr. Tara Swart 1:28:38 ... do you think, you know, are you worried about how this is going to affect your career? Um, like, I'm just such a no-regrets person, and, like, now more than ever. I am now talking about things that are properly woo-woo. You know, The Source, I could back up.

Lewis Howes 1:28:52 [laughs]

Dr. Tara Swart 1:28:53 But... And I genuinely believe it's gonna help people, and I'm gonna find something. And I, I feel very guided, and I'm, like, living in trust at the moment.

Lewis Howes 1:29:02 Wow. That's beautiful. I want m- I want people to get your book. It's called The Source, and, um, it's really about the secrets of the universe and the science of the brain, which I think is just such a powerful thing, and I think a confusing thing. The brain, the mind, the universe, spirituality, I think it's, uh, you know, confusing for a lot of people to understand. But you bring modern science, ancient wisdom together in simple terms for us to understand. So I wanna acknowledge you, Tara, for your consistency and being- listening to the call within you.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:29:36 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:29:37 It's what I'm hearing you say. It's like you were called to leave, you know, modern medicine, I guess, and tap into these new, uh, approaches. You've been called to put your voice out there, called to write a book, called to keep tapping into, you know, sacred geometry, and all these d- geometry and all these different things. So I wanna acknowledge you, Tara, for your listening to the call, no matter what people think or say.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:30:00 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:30:00 And I don't think people are criticizing you, but you're, that might be a, a fear or concern that you might have. So I acknowledge you, and I want people to get, uh, The Source. Um, I want them to follow you on Instagram and social media, Dr. Tara Swart, uh, anywhere on social media. Um, you've got a lot of things that you're working on, so they can, they can follow you there and stay in touch with you there. Um, I want people, if they're watching or listening, to leave a comment of their biggest takeaway, but also, uh, on YouTube, leave a comment, but also leave a comment on your Instagram to see what resonated the most-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:30:35 Uh-huh

Lewis Howes 1:30:35 ... with, with them, what spoke to them the most, uh, you know, what they wanna hear more about from you. So make sure to do that on, on our YouTube and on, on Tara's, uh, Instagram as well. Uh, is there anything else we can do to be of service to you today?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:30:48 Oh, Lewis, you're, you're such a kind person. You've done so much for me already. Um, so no, but I think I am gonna need a lot of help with anecdotes for this research

Dr. Tara Swart 1:30:59 that I'm doing. So yeah, that would be the best thing. You've got so many followers. If people have stories to share of experiences like that, I would love to hear them.

Lewis Howes 1:31:07 Wow. Okay. Where should they message you or stay in touch with you?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:31:10 Um-

Lewis Howes 1:31:10 DM, send you a DM, or email-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:31:13 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:31:13 ... or-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:31:13 I think D-

Lewis Howes 1:31:13 ... your website?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:31:14 ... D- DM is probably the best.

Lewis Howes 1:31:16 DM, okay.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:31:16 I'm, I'm most active on Instagram.

Lewis Howes 1:31:18 Okay. Cool.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:31:18 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:31:18 So they should DM you stories about, or anecdotes about what?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:31:21 Or put comments under my, you know, posts as well.

Lewis Howes 1:31:23 Okay, cool. Awesome.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:31:25 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:31:26 Um, I think I asked you this last time, so I'm gonna ask you this about the three truths 'cause you're at a different energetic state this time than you were then, so I'm curious to see what your three truths are now. But I asked you this last time Uh, if it was your last day many years away and you got to create anything you wanted to create, but for whatever reason on this last day you have to take all of your content with you, so no one has access to this conversation, or your books, or anything you ever create.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:31:50 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:31:51 But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world from all the things you've learned, whether it be from science or just personal experiences.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:31:57 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:31:59 What would be those lessons or three truths for you?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:32:03 So I actually, um, as well as doing vision boards, I choose, like, one to four words each year that are, like, words that are gonna guide me for that year. So I think I might as well share those with you.

Lewis Howes 1:32:14 Yes.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:32:14 'Cause they'll... They'll, they'll be the most authentic. So the first one is peace. Um, and I don't give too much meaning to the word. I allow it to show up in my life, but I think it's definitely, like, inner peace, but also peace with the people around you.

Lewis Howes 1:32:32 Yes.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:32:32 Um, and then beauty is a big one for me since I'm researching the neuroesthetic stuff. So just, you know, seeing beautiful things, smelling the flowers. Um, just, like, you know, appreciating the beauty in everyone. And then freedom, and I think this is really related to the last question you asked me, which is that... is not having that fear of criticism or skepticism, and just really trusting myself and going with what I want to.

Lewis Howes 1:33:02 Wow.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:33:02 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:33:03 You know what's interesting? Uh-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:33:04 And I wish that for everyone. That's, you know, that's, those are my words, but that's what I would wish for people.

Lewis Howes 1:33:08 You know what's interesting? Uh, for the last four years I have had, uh, set intentions as well-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:33:15 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:33:15 ... for, for each year, and I've had different words.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:33:18 Oh.

Lewis Howes 1:33:19 And four years ago they were peace, clarity, and freedom.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:33:23 Wow.

Lewis Howes 1:33:24 Peace, clarity, and freedom.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:33:25 Well, I didn't... I actually had four, but you asked for three, so I didn't say my other one, which is truth, but that's like clarity, isn't it?

Lewis Howes 1:33:31 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:33:31 So they're really close. Wow.

Lewis Howes 1:33:32 Yeah, that was where, that was my intentions I guess three and a half years ago.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:33:36 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:33:36 But, um, yeah, peace, clarity, and freedom, 'cause I didn't feel like I had them.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:33:41 Wow.

Lewis Howes 1:33:42 So I was like... And I was searching on the outside to, to have them, as opposed to becoming them.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:33:49 Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:33:49 Becoming clear, becoming free-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:33:51 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:33:52 ... being free, being peace.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:33:55 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:33:56 And, um, you know, I was ser- always searching for things on the outside as opposed to developing them from the inside.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:34:01 Totally the same. I... So not to quite the same extent as you, but it was where I was feeling I was getting close to those things but I couldn't quite... You know, and I was just thinking, I was struggling with something and thinking, "I just so need peace in that area." And then I had this light bulb moment which was like, "I give myself peace. Peace does not come from the outside."

Lewis Howes 1:34:22 Let's go, Tara.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:34:23 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:34:23 Yes. I am peace.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:34:24 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:34:25 That's beautiful. Um, final question, what's your definition of greatness?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:34:30 So something else that's come up in the research recently that's become really important to me is about having a purpose that's greater than yourself. So doing something that doesn't benefit you directly. Um, so, you know, something altruistic, something that's for the benefit of others. And you obviously get a benefit from doing that-

Lewis Howes 1:34:50 Yes

Dr. Tara Swart 1:34:50 ... 'cause it makes you feel good, but it's about kind of... You know, your life is your life,

Dr. Tara Swart 1:34:57 but if you want a life of greatness, I think you've gotta do something bigger than that's, that, it w- something [laughs] that's just about your life, if you know what I mean.

Lewis Howes 1:35:03 Absolutely. Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:35:04 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:35:04 That's beautiful. It's about a life of service. Hm. Tara, thank you so much for being here. You're amazing.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:35:09 Thank you.

Lewis Howes 1:35:10 Appreciate you.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:35:10 You are, too.

Speaker 1:35:11 But there's a whole corner of the internet right now that's like, "Men cheating is fine, women cheating is not."

Lewis Howes 1:35:14 Hm.

Speaker 1:35:15 And it's like we, we've, we've done the research on this, and women who get cheated on are often severely traumatized, right? Like, about half of women who, and in some studies more than half of women who are paired with men who are unfaithful exhibit these symptoms