Here's my full interview with best-selling author, Thomas Moore, where we discuss addiction and the search for spiritual awakening.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Hi, I'm Dr. Patricia Halligan, and this is recovery. The hero's journey. Recovery research shows us that one of the factors helping people achieve and sustain recovery from addiction is a sense of spirituality and finding a sense of meaning and purpose in life. Today, we're going to explore the soul spirituality and how to live more soulfully with greater depth. There's no better expert on the soul and spirituality than Thomas Moore. Thomas Moore is the author of the number one New York times bestseller care of the soul. He has written 25 other books about bringing soul to personal life and culture, deepening spirituality, humanizing medicine, finding meaningful work, imagining sexuality with soul and doing religion in a fresh way in his youth. He was a Catholic monk and studied music composition. He has a PhD in religious studies from Syracuse university and was a university professor for a number of years. Thomas is also a psychotherapist influenced mainly by Carl Young and James Hillman. In recent years, he has returned to his role as a nine aligned theologian publishing his translation of the new Testament, gospels writing in the sand Jesus' spirituality and the soul of gospels and the soul of Christmas. His most recent books are ageless soul and soul therapy. He lectures internationally and consults for organizations and privately Thomas. Welcome to the show.
Thomas Moore:
Thank you Trish, for having me,
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
My pleasure. I've really been looking forward to our conversation today in your book care of the soul, you write that the great mal of the century is loss of soul. What is soul and how do we lose it?
Thomas Moore:
Uh, it's very difficult to say specifically and to define the soul. However, I think we could say a few things that would help us out. One is that the soul is our, our, uh, immeasurable depth as human beings. We are vast. We, uh, we have so much potential. We have deep, profound emotions and thoughts. We have a, uh, hu future that is endless and full of opportunities and, uh, difficulties. And, uh, we, uh, uh, so I think the soul is all that vastness. It's beyond emotion. It's not just about the emotions. That's why I can't, although I often talk this way, I don't, I can't, uh, equate the soul with the heart when we talk about our heart, because it's even more than that. It's, that's why it touches on the spiritual, but it does. So not by going upwards so much like a church steeple that goes down into the crypt.
It's like going down into the basement where you, uh, you find your, your history and your deep, deep, profound feelings. And actually, I think the other thing, the soul is it's the spring, like a water spring of your identity. So you find that you are not really who you make yourself to be like consciously mm-hmm <affirmative> that there's a spring in which our life constantly flows up from. And we, we have so many opportunities and we get inspirations to do things and to, uh, sometimes to be creative sometimes just to expand our lives and change. All of that, I think is the power of the soul coming from deep within.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
I love that definition. So you also said my individuality comes from my soul, not my head. And that made a lot of sense to me. So I'm not my thoughts and I'm not the mask that I wear in society. I'm not the credentials after my name. Sometimes there's no words connected to this depth, correct?
Thomas Moore:
That's right. It's very difficult to find language for it. That's why, uh, I take it as a challenge. And I have from the beginning of my career to find language that ordinary people can identify with and understand, and yet convey these qualities that are quite mysterious.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
And if we lose connection with our soul, does the soul just disappear? Or what happens if we disconnect from our soul, what do you tend to see in your psychotherapy practice from people that have disconnected from their soul? And I wonder how many different ways we disconnect from our soul.
Thomas Moore:
We do certainly disconnect from our soul. There's no question. And one, there are lots of ways. For example, you might get so caught up in your business or your work that you lose sight of those things that are important to your soul, like your family, uh, relationships, friendships, and, and other things, uh, creative activities, that kind of thing. Mm-hmm, <affirmative> nature. All these things are important to the soul. So you can lose touch with it. That doesn't mean that the, that you are forever now going to be apart from your soul, you can recover the connection. It's not so much that the soul disappears as your connection with it goes
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
So it's temporary.
Thomas Moore:
Yes. It's more, it can, it, when hopes it's temporary, right? That you wake up and see that this we need to connect. But if you look at our society, I think generally, although there's a lot of soul in our society, still generally speaking, I think what characterizes us has been a loss of soul for a long time. Mm-hmm <affirmative> we have got caught up in our machinery in our way of looking at things that is very hardware, uh, kind of language and imagery. And, uh, we need to recover our soul, we, and the sign, you know, that we have all these divisions now among people that is one of the common signals of loss of soul that you begin to polarize your whole life. And so I think that we have good signs that today our society, uh, needs to recover its soul. And I think that's more important than to, uh, just try to focus in on literal issues. One at a time.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
I think you're right now, you have been a practicing psychotherapist for 40 years. Yes. And I know that you practiced something called soul psychology, which fascinates me. And I don't know much about because as a psychiatrist and I have a lot of colleagues who are psychologists and psychiatrists, I'm not listening that they're talking to their patients about soul or spirituality or God. No. Right. And I, I just wonder, I know you lecture about soul psychology. You've lectured at NYU at McGill university in, uh, Quebec, uh, you've lectured, uh, at Sloane Kettering centers all over the world. Can you tell me a little bit about what is soul psychology and how does this apply to your patients?
Thomas Moore:
Well, I, uh, what I'm doing essentially is, uh, is including I'm, I'm doing what we usually do as therapists, but I'm also then including what I think Aspen left behind. And that is, uh, a feeling for the mysterious things at, uh, develop at occur in her lives. Uh, looking at, uh, figures in our lives, people who have been in our lives and events, episodes, narratives, uh, those are all part, very important part of the soul because the soul is manifested more poetically than, uh, literally and measurably. So you have to have a poetic sense to know what's going on at that deep level. I also, uh, spend a lot of the time, uh, in therapy, working on dreams. Now, a lot of, uh, uh, psychologies do that. So that's, that's something I do as well, because I, I, my experience is that looking at the dreams, which is almost like the inherent natural poetry of a person's life, you get a sense of what's going on much deeper than you can get from the, the conscious narrative of a person, what they say.
And I, so the dreams are absolutely important to me. I find them to be very, very helpful. So all of that work then thinking poetically going deeper and including the mysterious, I'm not, I really don't do anything from a particular religious point of view. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, I was a Catholic monk, but that's another time in my life. Right. And I've studied the religions of the world very carefully. And I've, uh, studied Carl Young, who, who brought together psyche and spirit in his work. And a lot of mystery. And I worked with James Soman who was quite a rationalist. And yet he, he also was extremely aware of the importance of the poetic. So that put all that together. And that then is specifically then what makes it a soul therapy?
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
It's, it's wonderful what you're saying. So you encourage the person to dive deep, even into the shadow, even into the parts of himself or herself that might not feel politically correct. Right. Let's dive deep into your hate or your jealousy or your envy, your rage right.
Thomas Moore:
Into it right
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Into it. Absolutely. Right. Because it's a part of who we are and let's come up with a narrative. Let's tell me your story. You're a, you believe in storytelling, correct?
Thomas Moore:
Yes. I think storytelling is one. It's not the only, but it's one important way of getting at the soul.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Yes. Right. Because I think sometimes people who just focus on cognitive behavior therapy out of a manual, uh, let's fix the problem. Here's your symptoms. And let's, uh, give you some short term psychotherapy to fix the problem. I think they're missing something, aren't they? Because if, if you sit with me for a while and you tell me, oh, this is what I'm hearing, help me connect the dots. And all of a sudden, I'm the heroin in my own story, I might have this sense of mystical. And I might see myself as some kind of heroic figure on a heroic journey. Uh, there's something poetic about that and meaning deeply meaningful. Isn't it?
Thomas Moore:
Abs absolutely. One thing I do not do very clearly. I, I am not a problem solver. Mm-hmm, <affirmative>, that's not what I'm interested in. And when you, when you do therapy and you set, you say, I'm not problem solving, that really changes your, your point of view. Yes. Now this, this book I just published called soul therapy. Uh, it's based somewhat on toxic. I gave to a psychiatrist and, uh, uh, social workers who came to, uh, Cape co for over 18 summers when I taught them. Oh, cool. Uh, and getting their EU, their, uh, their continuing education credits. And, uh, I love doing that work because I learned a lot where the psychiatrists, especially they're mainly psychiatrists where they were in their training and what their concerns were. And I, I, I tried to see if I could include and introduce them to this more poetic, more mysterious mystery approach to, uh, to the psyche. And yes, I felt that there was a, I still meet people. Who've attended those things. And I feel it a lot was accomplished actually, although I would get frustrated at times, cuz I expected people to just eat it up and they didn't. I had to convince them of the value of it.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
I can see that. Well, I think all, all of us are striving for balance and that's basically what people are looking for is a deep sense of meaning in their life. And they, I mean, people come into my office and they say, I wanna get rid of my sense of shame. Uh, I want to learn how to love wholeheartedly. I want to feel more comfortable in my own skin. I wanna know who I am and I want a deep fulfilling career. Oh well, is that all? Is there anything else? You know, it's so really this is what we're searching for. Why aren't we talking about spirituality and meaning and depth and reflection and diving deep that that's one of the things that I really like about alcoholics anonymous is that they encourage the person to do a fearless and searching moral inventory of themselves and take a look at character defects and make a list of, uh, people that they have harmed and be willing to make amends to them. So at the, at the end of this deep dive into the shadow parts of the self, the person who's in recovery in alcoholics anonymous ends up feeling pretty integrated and pretty whole, and they don't feel like they're an imposter anymore because they're not hiding. They're not lying to themselves. They've been fully honest and transparent about transparent about their, um, their feelings and how they've stumbled. And there's some sense of comfort with embracing our failures. Right?
Thomas Moore:
Absolutely. I learned something from, uh, James Hillman who was, uh, my good friend over the years. And we often had many conversations where I learned a lot about therapy from him. And one of the things he always said was go with or into the symptom, don't go against the symptom.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Yeah. I love that.
Thomas Moore:
Whatever that symptom is, is an expression of deeply who we are, even if it's a dark thing or shadow aspect of ourselves. And so the point is not really to get rid of the symptom so much. I mean, ultimately you want people to be lighter and happier of course. Yeah. And more creative. But the way to that might be more to transform the symptom into a brighter, better version of itself. That's what I see, uh, that of the symptoms. Then they don't go away. They, they shift in their, uh, they become more refined. They're not so compulsive.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
And so that makes sense.
Thomas Moore:
They become, they become woven into the whole of one's life, your thoughts and values. And then they transform into something more valuable.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
That's uh, that makes sense to me. Now you wrote a book called the dark night of the soul, uh, dark Knight of the soul, a guide defining your way through life's ordeals. Uh, as an addiction psychiatrist, I see a lot of people who knock on my door, who are experiencing a dark night of the soul and it's not just a dark night of the soul. It seems to be many dark months of the soul, maybe. Uh, oh, I had a woman on this show a couple of months ago and her beautiful 30 year old son, uh, died of a heroin overdose, uh, or I'll I'll treat, uh, people whose spouse they've just found out the spouse has been cheating on them for years. So the marriage dissolves, uh, people who have had three DWIs and their wife is leaving them and taking the kids and none of the family is speaking to them or they've lost a job. What would you say to someone who's sitting in your office in extreme grief and anguish having a dark night of the soul feeling, maybe victimized, uh, feeling like possibly God's practical joke, feeling like life is just cruel. There's no meaning here and life's just nothing but meaningless suffering. Like what, what would you, how would you approach that?
Thomas Moore:
Well, I think a good part of therapy is education, uh, education and, and dealing, uh, with the psyche, with the soul in a deep way. And so what I do is, is I I've tried to show pretty much with my own attitude toward it. Yeah. And I don't, I don't, I would not join in with that judgment and those attitudes, those, uh, values that the person has. I don't participate. Right. And myself, I have my own approach and my own relationship to the stories and the things she's saying, or he is saying mm-hmm <affirmative>. And uh, that itself is a, is a, I think a, a, a way to move along. I don't just use explanation or something like that. I try to say, well, you know, I try to look at those things from an angle that is not blaming, not blaming of the other person they're blaming themselves.
Right. Blaming is a way of avoiding the situation. Right. So I try to, not to blame. I don't get into that blame of somebody. They may feel it so strongly. Mm-hmm, <affirmative>, they're so angry at somebody like this person who's been cheating under her for years. Yes. I don't. I don't blame. And I don't get into that negative attitude. Mm-hmm <affirmative> I just, I leave it open. I say, well, what an interesting story that is, right. You know, let's go into it and tell me more about it. I sort it out the story let's I get from, from young who used alchemy as his, one of his main metaphors where you sort things out, you put them in solution, the Alchemist would say you and you sort them out. So I let the story break into its branches and it's all as details. And you get a lot from that. The story then is much more complex, much less, easy to make quick judgements about people involved in it. And, and that helps too to, uh, sit there without, uh, with a little more neutrality. It's one of my key words, neutrality. We try to be neutral about these things as much as we can and really get into them and see what's there and deal with it.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Right? So you don't jump in and say, oh, that's the worst thing that could ever happen to you? No, right. Or what, what a narcissistic bum your, your, uh, spouse is, right? You just, you get curious, you, uh, examine the story, you examine all their feelings around it. It's very complicated. And you sit with them through this dark night of the, and I don't know about you, but I think that there's a possibility for enormous growth and depth through dark nights of the soul.
Thomas Moore:
Totally. Well, yes. That's what my whole book is about. About dark nights. Yes. This is an opportunity. This is an initiation really, to go through. I like the term dark nights. The reason I use that as a title of my book was I didn't want to use a word like depression, which is clinical and judgemental and, uh, does it's kind of narrow and it doesn't really help us. Right. Dark Knight is masistic again, it's in the poetic rather than the, the, uh, uh, defined. And so I find that that very helpful and that changes our discussion. When you think of it that way, then we start talking to each other, we're talking about something they're going through. Like it's a process to go through rather than a problem to be solved.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Okay. That's a whole different paradigm shift. It's, it's wonderful. It's, it's very light and hopeful. Yes. Now sometimes I have people who are sitting in my office and they feel like life is just filled with meaningless suffering. There is no God. Uh, and uh, if God is, uh, if God exists, he's sadistic and he's cruel. So you get curious about that. Also tell me more, you would say, right?
Thomas Moore:
Oh
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Yes. Okay. And just try to figure out where this, this stance comes from, how this person came to this belief system and how he feels victimized and you get interested in it and get curious in it, but you don't try to talk him out of it.
Thomas Moore:
Yes. You know, I have to remember my doctorate is in religious studies. It is not in psychology. That's right. Although I did study many, uh, uh, psychologists as part of that program, but primarily my degree is in religion. I have degrees in theology, so I'm very interested. I'm not a, a literalist. I'm a very open-minded person. Yeah. You know, try to try to live that life, that spiritual life as much as I can, but I'm not attached to any belief system really. And I've studied a lot of them, uh, quite thoroughly mm-hmm <affirmative>. So when people bring up spiritual matters, I feel ready to talk to them about them. And this is what I sometimes try to convince, uh, other Cy, uh, other types of psychotherapists that if they could just make a little effort to know something about the spiritual life to educate themselves so that when someone brings up a spiritual matter questions of meaning of, uh, of guilt, of, uh, trying to find their way in life, these are the things that artists and painters and novelists have been playwrights have been exploring for, uh, centuries. So I think it would actually be better for therapists to prepare themselves by reading the, by, by reading novels and by reading poets. And, uh, maybe even some mystical writings to have a much larger sense of what human life is about. You. You're the human being, there is not this machine you're tinkering with. This is a, a vast person that has, but we've been trying to understand human life through the arts for centuries long before psychology appeared on the scene.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Now I've heard you say, you believe that we are born with our spirituality and we don't need to learn it. So I guess, Thomas, what's your definition of spirituality?
Thomas Moore:
Oh, that's really hard. I would say probably it's simply, it's a very broad thing. I would say simply it is an awareness that life is mysterious and that you're gonna take the you're allow mystery. You don't, you need to explain everything. And I find that's difficult for the modern person because they think everything should be and will be explained. I think that the spiritual life acknowledges the mysterious in, in nature and in all of life. And it, you, you shape your life based on that mysteriousness. And I think that makes all the difference. Now you can, you can focus that more if you want you say, well, I can get in touch with that through meditation or through ritual or something of that sort. That's the way the traditional religions have done it. But I think today we are at a crossroads there where traditional religion has shown its limitations. And it's, it's, uh, uh, in many cases, many, many cases, it has, uh, uh, become more of an obstacle than a, than a path to the spiritual life. Not everyone, but a lot of people don't know where to turn because they find the institutions to be lacking for them. Now is the time to get some guidance to how to live a spiritual life without the institutions.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
That's a, a very, very wise, uh, thought. Now, Thomas, you have studied the work and the writings of Carl Young extensively, correct?
Thomas Moore:
Yes, I have.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
And did you know that Carl Young, this famous Swiss psychiatrist influenced bill Wilson and played a critical role in the founding of AA?
Thomas Moore:
Yes. Yes. That's, uh, he, he, uh, uh, he had a big impact on him and you can read, you know, there are the books written about their relationship and what was going on there.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Yeah, apparently he had a, uh, patient by the name of Ruland H uh, he was an investment banker and a Senator from Rhode Island who had a very severe alcohol use disorder. And Carl Young, after many, many, many relapses, uh, he threw up his hands and said, medicine and psychiatry has nothing to offer you Roland. Uh, your craving for alcohol is the equivalent of a thirst for union, with God, a thirst for wholeness, put yourself in a religious environment and cross your fingers and hope to recover. And he found his way into the Oxford group, which I guess was the group before it became alcoholics anonymous. And, uh, basically, uh, bill Wilson, the founder of AA wrote to Carl Young in 1961 and said, thank you so very much, you helped me emphasize this need for a spiritual awakening, uh, among people with an alcohol problem. And I guess this is an interesting thing because Carl Young identified this man's drinking as a yearning to be fulfilled a search for emotional meaning, uh, a search to feel alive, a search, to feel connected. So it was less self-medicating than being a seeker of, uh, something spiritual in the, in this alcoholic man, right?
Thomas Moore:
Yes. Um, I, I, I could mention a, a dream of a client of mine from many years ago that I've written about. Yeah, yeah. Um, so this woman was having trouble with alcohol and, uh, she presented a dream in which she was in a church at the O the front of a church where in some Christian churches, there's a, baptistry where babies get baptized, usually usually babies. And while she was standing there, an angel appeared kind of floated down from the sky and placed a martini on the Baptist tree, on the baptismal fund. Oh, and I thought that was a very key dream for this person that did exactly what you're talking about. It showed that what is, what is, what she is looking for in the alcohol is a spiritual alcohol. Whereas young might also say an alchemical alcohol. That means, uh, not literal a poetic kind of alcohol, but it's not the drink that you have, but that stands for, or poetically represents something spiritual. So even though it would seem really contradictory for an angel to do this, it isn't when you look at it closely, is that this is what alcohol is about. It is a spiritual matter. And if you're going to deal with it, you have to think of it more broadly in that way.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
So the big book of alcoholics anonymous talks about people needing a spiritual awakening, a profound personality change, big enough to recover from alcohol problems, I guess, can you offer some advice as to best steps to take in early sobriety to attain this spiritual awakening? Because I love your dream. She's she's on the baptismal font, wash me clean, give me a rebirth so that I can be whole so that I can be connected to a higher power. What, what do you think? I know you're not an addiction expert, uh, per se, you've, you've self proclaimed that to me, but what do you think this means? Uh, this, my patients come into my office and they say, I go to AA and they say, I have to have a spiritual awakening. What, what do I do?
Thomas Moore:
One thing I think of personally, I tend to think of addiction as a form of love. It's, it's, uh, really being loving something so much. You can't do without it. And you get, uh, you're you're you have to always be with it. It looks to me like what the Greeks called Aero, not sexual, but meaning, meaning a, a drive for a union for connection with something that's, that's an eras. That's what that is. So it's a love of some kind mm-hmm <affirmative>. And then the question is then if this alcohol is an image, it's a little bit of poetry in your life. That's how I would see it's a bit of poet poetry. What is it? What is it saying that you're looking for? Like a poem might about your addiction? What would that say? And I would think you'd want to explore other things that you are yearning for, that you don't have in your life.
And those yearnings ultimately always end up to be end up being spiritual because no limited, no particular earthly object of love is going to satisfy. This is a very ancient teaching, especially among mystics mm-hmm <affirmative> that are particular loves. Like, if you love chocolate, if you love, uh, uh, swimming, whatever you love, and you just have to do it, uh, that represents a deeper, vast love too. And so in your looking at your life, you have to find out, you have to look at those things poetically and see what do they suggest about a much greater love that that I'm yearning for? And with, uh, with alcohol, the tradition there that this is what they call it. Dian, the alcohol, the spirits are Dian, meaning it's particular kind of spirituality, where you just need more life. You need more vitality. You need, like, in other words, doing things that really make you feel alive. So if you are doing a job, let's say that is not, has no life in it for you. And then no love. You are susceptible to something like alcohol to an addiction.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Oh, that makes a lot of sense. I had a patient once who said, I drank to feel alive. I drank to feel connected to other people. Right. And, you know, I said, well, when was the last time you felt alive? And he said, uh, you know, I remember when I was a little boy and you know, I was climbing trees and I was riding a bike and I had a dog. And you know, so in sobriety, he got himself, a dog and he started to ride his bike more. So I like what you're saying, this is your, your, these may be people with alcohol problems may be more sensitive than people without addiction. They may be more of a yer, more of a seeker. Uh, this is not a bad thing, right? There's a void.
Thomas Moore:
No, there's not a bad thing. No. Anyone with a big, with a huge, uh, symptom and yearning that that's, that's, that's their strength. If they can get through the symptomatic presentation of it. Right. So that's why I say we don't wanna get rid of that symptom. Yes. Because that's, that's you wanna keep whatever is behind what is the deep form of that symptom? You wanna, you wanna protect it
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Now, I've heard you say that wonder is more important than a religious doctrine. I love that statement. That's that's amazing. Right? Kids have a sense of wonder about them. When do we lose that?
Thomas Moore:
A religious doctrine is valuable only as a piece of poetry, but people have a very hard time with that. They don't, they wanna be literal about it all. And that's where it all falls down. So if you're caught up in something that is dead, that is it's dead because it has no poetic in it. So poetic can give life to something because that is alive. It's it's, it never ends. You can constantly reflect on your teaching. If you wanna do that. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. But if you don't do that, then, um, you get stuck on it and you lose your sense of wonder, wonder is so important to the spiritual life, because that's what the whole thing's about. You. You look out at night at the, at the, at the starry sky. If you don't feel wonder, you must be half alive or wonder is
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
I agree.
Thomas Moore:
And that wonder then can affect all your, all your religious understanding and teachings. All of that. It can affect it, give it life. If the wonder is taken out of it. And you think, oh, I believe this. And this is what I've been taught. End of story. Then what you've got is dead. It does not have life in it.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Right? I've got patients and they'll say, I haven't gone for a walk in years. I never get outside. And I'm thinking, oh man, you're missing a huge life source, right?
Thomas Moore:
Absolutely. Yes. If someone is having a spiritual difficulty, one of the things I ask them to read, there are several things. But one of the things I asked them to read is Henry David Thoreau, who was a very spiritual man, very, very spiritual man, but he will say he shows very concretely over and over again that his spirituality came to him through nature.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Now was he, the man that had is that Walden pond,
Thomas Moore:
Walden pond. He had to get into his canoe, but he wrote Walden the book Walden, but he also has wonderful, uh, journals that you can read that are very, very enjoyable to read where he presents his beliefs and his theology, but it's a theology of nature. Uh, very, very, uh, good, good place for a person to, to add life and soul to their spirituality.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
And it's soothing. Also all you have to do, if you're having a bad day, go for a bike ride, go for a walk through the woods. Yeah. Sit out on a porch and look at the night sky. Like you're saying. Uh there's yeah. I agree with you there.
Thomas Moore:
And Thoreau has an essay telling you how to walk, which is very good. Uh, how to, how to walk, not just be unconscious about it, but be really close to nature and, and let nature guide you where you should walk and how to walk,
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
You know, um, are you familiar with a group of seven? It's a group of, uh, seven artists in Canada. It's my favorite, uh, painters. So all I have to do, if I'm having a bad day, I've got some paintings by an artist, uh, Tom Thompson and man Frederick, Valey take a look at these Northern Canadian, uh, islands and pine trees and dark Navy blue waters with white caps or, or listen to a piece of music. Uh, when I was in Paris, after my daughter's wedding, uh, three years ago, I was wandering through the streets of Paris. And I fell upon this woman who was singing opera in a square. And it was just the most magnificent, uh, feeling in the world that it changes the sense of boredom or the doldrums or the deadness, and all of a sudden you're alive and it's poetic and it's mystical and it transports you into a whole different dimension. Doesn't it?
Thomas Moore:
That gives new meaning to the phrase art therapy. Cause our therapy is often used to a diagnose and it's, it's it's exploited. But what you're talking about is including experiences of art that really affect you, not any pieces all at all, but those that really affect you and speak to you and making them part of your life as part of your, uh, coming back to life. And so the arts are extremely important in that I'm a musician myself. And so I, I think music is extremely important in that process. Someone, a friend from Canada recently gave me some, uh, gave me a couple books on Thompson,
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Uh oh, really
Thomas Moore:
Work. Yeah. So I, uh, and I know what you're talking about and I have my own favorites of course. And, uh, my wife is a painter, a professional painter,
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Is she?
Thomas Moore:
Yeah. So I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, with art all, every single day, she comes home and shows me the painting. She did that day from her studio. And, uh, it's, it's like, you know, it's, it's, it's life, it's value. I love being in a family where my daughter's a musician and my wife is a, is a painter. And, uh, my, my stepson is an architect and I, we call our home sometimes a, an art center, you know, kind of a <laugh> cause that's what, what feels like, but it's so important to us to be. So to me, the arts are like the other side of spirituality. So you wanna, if you want a spiritual life then right next to it, or is a life in the arts, it's not separate. It's like there are two sides of the same thing
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
That makes a lot of sense to me. After I read your book care of the soul, I started a book and it was things of beauty, things of joy. So anything that resonated with my soul, anything that would feed my soul, whether it was a painting, my favorite songs, whether it was a favorite poem, whether it were favorite people, I cut out pictures of favorite people, famous people that I had never met people, famous people that were dead. People that inspired me, made me feel connected, made me feel, I don't know, just glad to be alive. It it's a wonderful thing to do. So maybe that's something that you're saying might help awaken the spirit and feed the soul of somebody new in recovery. Uh, look to nature, look to the arts, try to develop a sense of wonder and pat yourself on the back that you have an enormous craving and thirst for a greater connection to something, right.
Thomas Moore:
Uh, you should, you know, we should re record that last thing you just said or put it in, in, in print somehow, because it's really a very good summary of what I say, how to deal with addiction.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
I'm just summarizing everything that you've actually already written about. And it's, I also love what you said. You said find sacred in the ordinary. That makes me feel peaceful. When you say that it's like, okay, so go out for a mindful walk or sit on your porch or what, what would be peaceful to me today? I've got my daughter and her husband and there's 70 pound dog visiting me for the past three weeks while they're house flooded. And so find sacred in the ordinary. I'm gonna take this big dog out in the backyard and throw the Frisbee around and watch him destroy my yard. Every time he slides 10 feet, you know, he takes all the sod with him, but, but it's funny. And he delights in this Frisbee. That is some somebody that lives in the moment. And it's fun. Right?
Thomas Moore:
Well, think about a Frisbee, you know, it's, uh, it's such a good toy. <laugh>, it's very spiritual thing, you know, flies through the air and hovers it. Uh, it has its own interesting direction. It doesn't, won't go the direction you want. It necessarily, it will take its own way and go in its own fashion. And, uh, and yet there's a great joy in watching it and catching it and playing it with maybe with a dog or with another person. So, uh, there's everything that's looking at a Frisbee as a sacred object.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
<laugh> that's funny.
Thomas Moore:
Uh, yes. Yeah. And, uh, uh, going back to, uh, Henry David thorough, he said that, uh, taking a bath was his sacrament that he writes that in his, uh, memoirs, he says that when he took a bath, that was his sacrament and it was his holy thing to do. He didn't have to canonize it, make it anything special, just taking a bath was Sacramento to him.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
So these are the simple things that we can do to slow ourselves down and find out what feeds our soul. Absolutely.
Thomas Moore:
This is my idea that, that it's, but rather than solving our problems, life problems, what we need to do is nurture our soul.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Yes.
Thomas Moore:
In other words, if you do these things that will nurture your soul, it will give you some peace and resolve some of these compulsions that get you into trouble. So that's, that's a better place I think, to go than to be solving the problem after you're in trouble, nurture soul with simple, it's very simple things that do that. The tradition in, in history is that friendship is the most important way of taking care of your soul friendship. So being with your friends, mm-hmm, <affirmative> a good start. Eating, eating well, dining. Well, this not whether it's healthy or not is not the issue in this particular case.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Right? Does it taste good pleasure? Yes.
Thomas Moore:
For community yes. Or connection with the people you're eating with and you make an art of eating and an art of cooking. Cooking can be a very therapeutic thing to do.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
It's funny, my son-in-law flew in my daughter and the dog have been here for two and a half weeks. He flew in last night and my daughter said, can you please make him a meal? And I said, well, why don't we grow out for dinner? And she said, Nope, make him feel the love cook for him. He, and that's all, that's his love language. He wanted a home cooked meal. Right, right. And I enjoyed making it too. And all it was was meatloaf. It was my, and the thing that made it special because I'm not a cook is this is my grandmother's recipe. So there's something very meaningful about using my grandmother's meatloaf recipe and cooking for my son-in-law. It was a lovely hour. But talk about ordinary. I mean, this was meatloaf with a bottle of ketchup on the table, but it felt wonderful
Thomas Moore:
The better, you know, if you track too hard, it, it, it kinda lose. You lose something. Also, if you can include memory, uh, if you can include the memory. So deciding what to serve somebody, you might remember, uh, something that they connect with food and, uh, or somebody that they connect, or there's a family tradition, or that you've done this before, or that they once said they like this, or they, whatever it is, make the connection.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
You know, it's funny. My grandmother watched, uh, Lawrence Wilke every Sunday night and I pretty much spent weekends with her. So it's seven o'clock on Sundays. We'd watch Lawrence Wil. So the, not that I like that kind of music, but if I ever hear Lawrence Wil an old show on TV, I'm thinking of my grandmother. And it's, it's a wonderful memory. Right? So use imagination to heal and to become spiritual use poetry, use art, use music, slowed down, enjoy the SI find the sacred in the ordinary. You don't have to read spiritual literature. I didn't know that, um, uh, Emerson had a bunch of writings, you know, like journal articles that I could read. Well, there is own personal journal writings, right?
Thomas Moore:
Well, both Emerson and, and, uh, thoro who was his friend? Oh,
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
That's
Thomas Moore:
Right. Had journals. Both of them. Uh, both of them approached religion in a very or spirituality in a very similar way, but thoro went overboard almost in being in nature. And, uh, his journals are so concrete and beautifully like written like a poet. So both of them members and, and, uh, Thoreau are very important to me. And I would include the third person there, the new England writers where I live. And, uh, the other one is Emily Dickinson, who also shows on her poetry and her life, how to, how to live in a way that is spiritual in your own fashion and your own design. So she wore white at a good, good portion of her life. She, she didn't leave her home. That was her way of expressing her spiritual vision. And it's eccentric, but it's, it's good.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
And very much an advocate of nature in her poems. Wasn't she
Thomas Moore:
Absolutely advocate of nature, which, you know, was around her, in her garden and in the Hills around Amherst, Massachusetts.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Now, what can you tell me about the power of meditation and the soul? And if you have a patient in your office who says, teach me how to meditate, what, uh, what would you say? How would you teach somebody how to meditate? What do you think about meditation and the soul?
Thomas Moore:
So I, I don't, uh, my, my way of meditation it see the soul meditation to me is different from a highly spiritual meditation. Ah, okay. So I wouldn't teach probably, I mean, I've done it. You know, I was a monk. I did all the very, very high spiritual meditations. But today with my interest in soul, I'm interested in more in meditating, uh, contemplating that's part of the world like being in nature, you can meditate by going for a walk in nature. I did that as a monk. We went for, we meditated by walking. That was a big part of our meditating. Another way to meditate for me, for me, my main form of meditation is at the piano. So I play the piano meditatively. I, I have the intention and the quality of playing music, uh, to be my, my meditation. And I do it that way. I like that better than sitting somewhere by myself and trying to get out of my body or out of my environment. I want to be in my environment
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
And connect to your soul.
Thomas Moore:
I want to be connected. I don't wanna be disconnected.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
That makes sense. To me. A lot of people are heaving, a sigh of relief. These are the PE those of us that if we sit and look outside and try to breathe and, you know, just meditate our, uh, stress away, it doesn't work for a lot of people.
Thomas Moore:
You know, I don't wanna say anything at all negative about that. It's a very positive thing. And many people get great benefits from it. So many today. It's not my thing.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
It's not for everybody.
Thomas Moore:
It's some of my life, it's not, I want to be meditating. I want to be contemplative. Definitely. I want to lose myself in the world. I, I live in, especially in its beauty. So in its art and nature and music and so on.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Now you wrote a book called a religion of one's own, and you suggest that people can pick on choose different parts of different religions, uh, and that resonate with them and craft their own religion. It, yes. If you could pick and choose your favorite parts from all the different world, religions, gimme a couple, which, which would you
Thomas Moore:
Choose? Let me say, first of all, that's not what this book is about. Picking little pieces from the world's religions. That's a little suggestion along the way, but, uh, the bigger theme is what we're talking about here is develop a spiritual life in that's suited to you and your world through nature, art and friendship, and that kind of thing. Ethics, there's so many aspects of it. But one of the things that can help you is that the religions of the world are full of beauty and depth of insight. They're all, they all have wonderful parts. You may, you may not like some things that the institution is doing, but I bet if you go deeper into that tradition, you'll find wonderful insights and beautiful art, uh, that will enrich you. So I think what you could do easily is pick up some, uh, Sohi poetry.
A lot of people like to read roomy. That's a good place to start. Oh, get some Sohi poetry from that religion, go to Zen Buddhism and read some of the teachings and stories from Zen Buddhism. They can be very simple and change the way you look at life. I always recommend reading the Dow de J of China. Oh, which is a, a fairly small book you read in that about a half hour, but it's very simple teachings about how not to force things in life and how to go with the flow of life and to be with nature rather than against it. That is a very important teaching. That could be the foundation for a spiritual life. That's what I mean. You can go, you don't have to become a member of any of these religions,
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Right?
Thomas Moore:
Yeah. But you can find out what their basic teachings are and take them to heart.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Oh, I think Wayne Dyer said, uh, a lot about the Dowing.
Thomas Moore:
He did. He was, he was very big on the Dowing and he, he gave some wonderful talks on it.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Yes. Um, do you, are you familiar with, uh, Thomas Merton's third step prayer or the third step prayer of AA?
Thomas Moore:
I am not. No, I'm very familiar with Thomas Merton, but I don't know that.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
No. Can, can I read it to you? Sure. Okay. I've got it on my phone here. And it's one of my very, very favorites for people who are new to recovery when everything is falling down around them. And Thomas Merton, was he a monk?
Thomas Moore:
He was a Catholic monk. Yes. He was this distortion, which is a very demanding, uh, very stark life, uh, amongst life. It's not, not just, it's not an easy life. It's very, very, uh, uh, um, very tough life to live, but he was happy in that life for the most part.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
So he wrote this and he said, my God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me nor do I really know myself. And the fact that I am following your will, does not mean that I am actually doing it. But I believe that the desire to please you does, in fact, please, you, and I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road though. I may know nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust you always though. I may seem to be lost. This. This to me is a prayer of absolute surrender and it really mirrors the third step prayer in alcoholics anonymous, which basically says, um, God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and the do with me as the wilt relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do. They will take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those. I would help of th power that I love and th way of life may I do that? I will always. So these are two lovely surrender prayers.
Thomas Moore:
Yes, they are prayers of, uh, acknowledging that you need to empty yourself in some fashion. It's not a neurotic, it's not a erotic way of, of, uh, being negative about yourself. Mm-hmm, <affirmative>, it's, it's a positive emptying to let life in, to not be so full of all your worries and concerns and all that self talk and, and focus on analyzing yourself and trying to be better, trying to improve, improve yourself all the time, but rather to empty and let, uh, let life itself the force of life, uh, give you the catharsis. You need the cleaning out and also, um, give you new life.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Now, last question for you before we stop. If you have a person in front of you filled with shame, shame goes hand in hand with addiction, and this person says, I am not worthy of happiness. I'm not worthy of self, actualization and fulfillment. I've done a lot of bad things and squandered a lot of years. And I just hate myself. How do you get past shame?
Thomas Moore:
Well, in that particular case, I'd probably what I might say is, uh, boy, if you think you're not worthy, I'm not worthy at all. <laugh>
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
I like that.
Thomas Moore:
I don't have any, uh, no, we not worth anything. What are, what are we human beings? You know, we're stupid. We're dumb. We do. We make mistakes all the time. We're totally imperfect, imperfect as, as you can get. And yet, in spite of that, we, we are dignity is that we keep going in life and we don't blame ourselves for that. It's just a human condition. All of us are in this boat together, all human beings, it's, uh, Christians call it an original sin. It means that it's something that's just there. It's your imperfect from, from the word go. So that's, you have to accept that and then go on from there, with happiness
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
And who deserves anything. I like your stance, right? That, so you, you join him. We're all human. We've all made mistakes. We've all fallen down. You know, we nor no more worse than I am.
Thomas Moore:
That's right.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
And you have an online live six week course on do on soul psychology.
Thomas Moore:
I do.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Uh, who is that for?
Thomas Moore:
It's for anybody who wants to take my work? Like if they've read my books or if they know what I'm talking about, that they like to go further with it. Um, it's um, it's a further study. It's kind of a study, uh, group in a way. Um, I teach, I, I, uh, give a, a lesson once a week and then people talk to each other and with me all the week long. And, um, it, it lasts almost a year. If you do all of it, 36 lessons, but you, I presented in chunks of, uh, six courses. So, um, the people are loving it and they are really attached to it. The other day they said to me, some of them said, can I sign up for 10 years?
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Oh, <laugh>. And
Thomas Moore:
I said, what to think about that one?
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Uh
Thomas Moore:
I'm let's see know I'm 80 now. I'm not sure about that.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
<laugh> are you really? Yeah. I think you age is a state of mind. It
Thomas Moore:
Is <laugh>
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
It sounds like a wonderful course. If you had two or three adjectives to describe your life, what would you choose?
Thomas Moore:
Oh, I don't know about that. I, uh, I, I think I could, I, the only way I can answer is that I'm very, I'm very happy, but the brute of base of my life is my family. And, uh, just, I just love being with my family. And, uh, I like where I live. That's an important thing to do. I love the work I do. I just can't wait to start a new book. I, I started writing one today, in fact, and I just can't, I, I just love to keep at it. So I love the, the, the art of writing. All those things are a great gift to me. And I've got things I have to face and deal with, like everyone else. But these are the things that keep me going
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Well, you're an inspiration and I'm just really enjoying our conversation. And I'm so sad that we're coming to an end, but, uh, Thomas you, uh, me and the world, because I think what you've done is you've taken your talents. You've aligned them with the needs of the world. And what I get from you, the most important thing I get from you is find out what you love, really go after what your soul needs. You said once that the meaning of life is to find out what your soul needs and to take care of your soul. That's really the meaning of life. You enjoy your life. You have a lot of passion. So I think you give the rest of us freedom to do the same and look for a sacred in the ordinary. It's just beautiful and poetry everywhere and beauty everywhere. Uh, I think I was van go, who said, uh, to know God is to love many things.
Thomas Moore:
Oh, I love that.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Isn't that beautiful?
Thomas Moore:
So I never heard that's very good,
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
But I just, I really enjoyed our time together. And I think you've given a lot of people, just a wealth of information here on how to live soulfully and deeply and with imagination, creativity, and poetry. It's lovely.
Thomas Moore:
Well, I've loved talking with you to Trish. I, I, I don't remember a conversation racing I had that I just kept wanting to say so much and get involved because we're really together in this. So it's you do a terrific job.
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Thank you. Well, thank you. I, I really appreciate you being on the show and I, I just can't say enough. I look forward to your next book.
Thomas Moore:
I do too. I hope again, again,
Dr. Patricia Halligan:
Me too. Well, this is recovery, the hero's journey with Thomas Moore on soulful living and spirituality. Thank you for joining us and, uh, enjoy your week byebye.
Thomas Moore Bio:
Thomas Moore is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Care of the Soul. He has written 25 other books about bringing soul to personal life and culture, deepening spirituality, humanizing medicine, finding meaningful work, imagining sexuality with soul and doing religion in a fresh way.
In his youth he was a Catholic monk and studied music composition. He has a PhD in religious studies from Syracuse university and was a university professor for a number of years. Thomas is also a psychotherapist influenced mainly by Carl Jung and James Hilman.
In recent years, he has returned to his role as a non-aligned theologian, publishing his translation of the New Testament gospels, Writing in the Sand, Jesus' Spirituality and the Soul of Gospels and the Soul of Christmas.
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