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Bringing America To Therapy With Phyllis Leavitt
“There was no talk of you know, higher consciousness. There was not even any talk of therapy.”
In this episode, Nick speaks with Phyllis Leavitt about bringing therapy to America and how her work with children and families as a psychotherapist for over 30 years has shed light on how important therapy is for everyone. She’s worked extensively with abuse and dysfunctional family dynamics and has a new book coming out that’s going to be full of wisdom with the goal of opening the doors to therapy for families throughout the country and the globe.
What to listen for:
“I grew up and found myself to be kind of an odd person from a very early age because I had very different experiences than anyone ever talked about in my family.”
“There were just really strong impulses, and there were times when I would sort of ask a question in my mind, and I would get a really clear answer from somewhere.”
“Understanding what happens within the individual and about families today is so conditioned by the people that we grow up”
About Phyllis Leavitt
Phyllis Leavitt graduated from Antioch University with a Masters Degree in Psychology and Counseling in 1989. She co-directed a sexual abuse treatment program called Parents United in Santa Fe, New Mexico, until 1991 and had a small private practice before going into private practice full-time. Phyllis has been a psychotherapist treating children, families, couples, and individual adults for 32 years and has worked extensively with abuse and dysfunctional family dynamics, their aftermath, and some of the most important elements for healing. She has also published two books, “A Light in the Darkness” and “Into the Fire“, and I am presently working with a professional editor on the book I have written about bringing America to therapy. I live in Taos, NM, and I am mostly retired now, focusing on writing.
Resources:
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Click To View The Episode Transcript
00:00
Hey, Phyllis, welcome to the show. How are doing? I’m doing great. Thank you so much for having me here today. Absolutely. I appreciate that you’re on reading through some of the website and having a little bit of a chat before we hit record. know there’s, there’s a lot for us to get into and a lot of stuff that really ties directly into my heart and the mission that we have with the show here. And I know you’ve got a book coming up and that there’s, I’m just going to, you know, put it out here. It’s, it’s about therapy and it’s about things.
00:30
fixing things and trauma and stuff that we’ve been through. But why don’t you give us a little bit of context? Tell us what you do for a living and maybe one thing that most people don’t know about you that’s a little odd or bizarre. Sure. um Well, I have been a psychotherapist for over 32 years and that’s been my main profession and a really great one. I loved being a psychotherapist and I pretty much retired at this point and focusing on writing and
00:59
So the little odd thing about me, which you have told me is not odd. And actually I do hear that. It’s still, you know, I’m a product of, I was born in 1947 and in the world that I grew up in, um there was no talk of spirituality. There was no talk of out of body experiences. There was no talk of, you know, higher consciousness. There was not even any talk of therapy actually as I grew up. And so,
01:29
I just found myself to be kind of an odd person from a very early age because I had uh very different experiences than anyone ever talked about in my family. And, um, and added to that was a layer of trauma that, um, from some abuse in childhood that I really didn’t uncover until I was a lot older. But the odd thing, I guess I would say is that at a certain point in my journey of my own recovery and healing, I started
01:58
to get very distinct messages from a higher consciousness about what I’m doing here in my personal experiences and in the kind of challenges that I was having at the time and what all of us are doing here. Like what the human race is about kind of from a soul perspective. So that’s my odd thing. Yeah. I know I said to you before, that’s not as odd as it may be for other audiences.
02:26
My audience is just kind of used to hearing stuff like that because that’s sort of stuff that we look at, but it can still be a little odd to certain people where they’re like, what do you mean? Because they don’t fully get that. And I do want to touch on how it, how it worked for you as a kid and being in the spot now where you see that there’s a bit of an awakening. People are starting to have these conversations. I look at my generation right now, 38. So I was born in 84 and I,
02:54
I remember in the eighties and nineties, it basically felt like, well, you can’t really have emotions and shut the hell up. Just put dirt on it and get your ass back in the game. And I remember being a little emotional kid. Like, what do you mean? I don’t understand that. I feel these things. Why should I just put dirt on this and send it back in? But for you to say that that was not how it worked. I think this is where we get to break the cycles of that and change the way that the systems are because the systems are just broke.
03:22
They’re just straight up broken. So let’s take a little bit of a step back because as you started to go through and thinking about where you’re at now and what that looked like as a child kind of coming up, were there some major lessons that you really look at and you say, you know, there was a couple key things when I was younger that really stand out to me that should shift and should change for future generations? Yeah, I mean, definitely. I think what I relate to what you’re saying, even in terms of mindset is which I didn’t have that word when I was growing up.
03:52
But there were certain impulses that I had that were really strong that just came from inside me. And one of them was to write. And I had that really strong, really young. um so I think, you know, as I look back on my life, I really noticed that there actually was guidance, but I didn’t want to know the word guidance either. You know, there were just really strong impulses and there were
04:19
there were times when I would sort of ask a question in my mind and I would get a really clear answer from somewhere, you know? And so I think the mindset that now is more conscious for me is really listening to your own truth. and I know I listened to a little bit of your last podcast and the gentleman was talking about
04:44
how he was trained to like look at life and pursue life in a certain way, but it really wasn’t him. And he finally made a departure from that. And that was true for me, you know? And I think for a lot of people of my generation that we were conditioned to, you know, get married, have kids, have a profession, um, live in a certain kind of house, you know, look a certain way. And I never fit that bill. I never fit it. Um,
05:11
And looking back, you know, I think that there was guidance taking me. I went into spiritual groups really young, and then I became a psychotherapist. you know, um and now it’s a more conscious effort on my part to listen and follow, even when it’s hard.
05:31
There’s a lot to that. You know, I think people at times will hear things and, and not understand where it’s coming from. They don’t understand it. Just the mind, like the monkey mind, the monkey brain, and it’s not just like throwing stuff at you or if it’s something internally, there are different times where I ask people like, do you know, can you tap into your intuition? And they’re like, tap into my what? Do what? What are you talking about?
05:56
Okay. Do you hear something? Do you have something that pulls at your rib cage? They’re like, oh yeah, there are different times. And it’s kind of that awareness of that, of understanding that there is that thing that’s there. So when you were younger, did you know and then become aware or did somebody help you become aware that, there’s something else there.
06:17
I can’t say that it was conscious, but there are distinct memories that then I could understand later when I had the awareness. Like I had, I had odd experiences. had deja vus of a prior life. I, know, but nobody’s had, know what the word deja vu was, you know, things like that. Um, so
06:42
Yeah, there was no language. If there’s no language for your experience, it’s really hard to conceive of what it is. But I will say that looking back, those moments stand out brilliantly. They’re like crystal clear. So something in my consciousness was registering those things. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, especially. that’s the sort of awareness at that point. I’m sure there’s even times where you can look back and go, oh,
07:08
this thing happened and then this thing and then this thing. Oh, and then I finally got the idea. It’s like, it’s like the universal, uh, consciousness is just trying to slap you in the back of the head, like get the point. I don’t get it. Right. So the beauty of what you’re doing and the beauty, think of what you’re saying today with people having more of an awakening experiences, we do have the language for a lot of this. And so people of your age and younger now, you know, don’t have to wait.
07:38
40 years to figure it out because because it’s being talked about and that’s really exciting. I agree with you that it’s exciting. I’m still sad a bit because they’re still broken systems and there are people that are still producing children that don’t have any right to produce children because they don’t know what the hell they’re doing. They have no idea what’s going on. They’re bringing kids into the world and they’re like, well, I’m kind of fucked up. So good luck. Have that a child and
08:07
And thinking about that from my perspective now and from where you’re at with the generations that you’ve gone through and the people that you’ve been around, thinking about what we can do today really brings us to what you’re doing with your books. So what led you from where you were at as a psychotherapist into what you’re doing today and why the purpose is really there?
08:30
In terms of the book that I’m writing now, America in Therapy, is that what you’re asking? This sort of the shift, because you went from psychotherapist into like, there’s something deeper here that I really need to be able to get out. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there are so many threads I could follow with that, but I think the one that ties both what I call my spiritual experience and my psychological experience together is um
08:59
It is sort of one thing, even though there’s probably a hundred, but the one that I want to talk about is, um, you know, from my training as, as a therapist and in family therapy in particular, and in understanding what happens within the individual. this speaks to what you’re talking about about families today is so conditioned by, by the people that we grow up with, the people that have power over us, the people that influence us, our parents and our immediate
09:29
peer groups and communities. And we learn what our relationship is as one part to the whole. We learn that from the people around us. And I think a lot of people don’t learn a healthy model of what the relationship is of themselves to others. And that’s where a lot of the dysfunction in our families comes from and in our communities and in our government.
09:57
that there’s not even talked about. the relationship that is mostly modeled is domination and submission. know, dominating somebody to get what you want and justifying doing that in some way, you know, on some continuum from benign to really destructive. And I think one of the things that I’ve gotten out of the
10:26
the spiritual downloads that I’ve gotten is that the relationship of the part to the whole of us finding the right relationship of the part to the whole of ourselves as individuals, to all of humanity, to the earth and beyond is really where consciousness wants to take us because that’s actually how we’re going to survive.
10:51
Yeah. Yeah. There, there has to be, I don’t want to just keep saying an awakening. There has to be a breakthrough. There has to be change to things. And it’s interesting with the timing now, because people, age, people younger, know, generation Z people, et cetera. There’s a lot of information. Like we have information at our fingertips where even 20 years ago, that wasn’t the case. We have so much information now and we’re so inundated with so much information.
11:21
that I feel like it’s easier for those systems to really screw with the people and to be able to screw them into place to where they want. That’s absolutely right. one of the, so the main thrust of the book that I’m writing is about that in a way you could say. So I’m looking at what’s going on in our country and it’s really going on in the world, but I focus on America because this is where I live and this is what I’m familiar with. But I think this is a global phenomenon that um it seems
11:50
to be accelerating that the mental health of the people who are in charge and have authority and power is diminishing. And they’re operating on the same dynamics that I see operating in abusive families with the effect that the population of this country is actually being abused and may not know it and may not know the outcome of that for even if you’re living a relatively good life.
12:20
And you’re not, you know, you’re not in a marginalized community and you’re not in poverty. Um, and you’re not, you know, identified as some other and your life is going well. We’re still all really affected by what’s going on. And a lot of people feel very powerless, um, to, make it to help. And, and, and that is, that’s a mental health issue to have a backdrop of powerlessness while you’re watching people be.
12:50
you know, mass murders and police brutality and targeting of LGBTQ and all of that, um, is affects all of us. And one of the things I’ve shared over and over again, as a psychotherapist is that it wasn’t until 2016 and the campaign and the election of 2016 that I ever had clients coming and talking about feeling traumatized about what was going on in our country. And it’s been nonstop ever since.
13:20
uh And so, you know, and I think that is a really good indicator of the ripple effect of abuse and I call it from the bottom up and the top down. And the whole thrust of my book, just to put it in a nutshell, is that in the world of psychology, we do really know a lot about healing abuse and breaking the cycle. And I want to see that applied.
13:49
on a national level, because I really think that’s what’s going to save us if we can be saved. Yeah, I’m right there with you. It’s, uh, I’m in a similar battle, let’s say of how do we change those systems? How do we actually make change happen? That’s legacy change. That’s not something where we do it and like, um, you know, 40, 50 people are going rah rah rah. They’re actually doing things and making change. also makes me think of how.
14:18
how the systems that are in place keep us in such a way to not do that. And there are certain people that they’ll pop up and say, Hey, let’s do this. Like I, I, I, I just think of the president now and all the presidents that I’ve seen along the way and how, the most part, it’s like somebody’s behind them, just puppeteering them and just going along, going along because they’re also part of that system. There are things I’m sure that they know that we don’t know. And that’s fine.
14:47
But when I think about that change that needs to happen, it’s not like a big push that we can have as a handful of people. It’s we as an entire community of a race that needs to make that push happen. And that really starts with us and the families that can do these things. But let’s think about those families where, like you were saying, environmentally wise.
15:10
If they’re raised in such a way, like religious families in a sense where they’re like, all right, well, you’re just Christian or you’re Hindu or you’re this, because this is how we are. And for the most part, the kids are going to say, okay, mom and dad, this is what you tell me. This is what I’m learning. And there are a lot of bad things that they learned from that because of the people they learned from and the people they learned from and the traumas that they’ve just completely compounded upon. So how do you, how do you, you know, really suggest that we actually stop that?
15:38
put a stop because there needs to be a breaker to it and then moving forward. Well, one of the things that brings people to therapy and of course not everybody comes to therapy as you know, and not all people have access to it even if they wanted to come. But one of the things that brings people to therapy is pain. know, something really isn’t working just like you would go to a doctor, right? Yeah. And so pain is a…
16:06
None of us want to experience it, but it’s a great motivator. It really is. It’s the motivation for healing. And I think, um, I think we need to feel that as a country and as a global citizenry, need to the pain of what we’re doing. Um, and so some of that is education. You know, some of it is like, you know, there’s a Greta out there talking about the pain of climate change and what that may bring down on the human race and
16:35
The, my focus is the pain that we’re inflicting on each other. And we really do need to feel it, not in any kind of sadistic way, but feel it enough to feel motivated to make some drastic changes. And the big drastic change, there’s several, but one of them, one of the big drastic changes is, and I’ll take this right out of family therapy or any good therapy is we bring people together to repair human relationships.
17:05
We don’t bring people together to make one person right or dominate another one or shame someone or blame them or ostracize them or any. We, we bring people together to heal the system and that’s what’s missing in our government. It’s either as an acceleration of the same divisiveness you see in an abusive family, somebody dominates and shames and blames silences, truth tellers.
17:33
Blames people for the symptoms they have of abuse. These are all the things that are going on in our country and they’re accelerating. so education is number one. And I know as a psychotherapist, I’ve done a lot of psycho education as well as processing with people because sometimes people don’t even know they’re being abused. Most part they don’t. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s what I was going to say with the therapy. Like, yeah, it’s great when people go to therapy.
18:02
the road to get there for a lot of people. By the time they’re in such pain that people go to therapy, it’s either I’m going to therapy or I’m putting this gun in my mouth or I’m jumping off this bridge or whatever. My God, that needs to stop. We need to disrupt it because people need to make change well before that. But Phyllis, how do you suggest we do that? How do we get to them before they say, I’m either fucking dying or I’m going to talk to somebody?
18:30
Well, I’m starting with my book, you know, my the thrust of my book is absolutely the title that I originally had which I’m not going to use But it was out of my office and into the world What I want to do is take everything that I’ve learned as a therapist and bring it to the man on the street Yeah, because the first thing you know like like when you go to a doctor the doctor has to assess what’s wrong Somebody has to tell you you’re eating poison food
18:58
And that’s what’s making your stomach upset, right? If you don’t know it’s poison food and you like the way it tastes, you’re going to keep on eating it. And that’s what we’re doing as a society. We’re eating poison, emotional food. And so someone has to say, this is what’s causing your pain. This is what causes mass shootings. This is what causes um the level of poverty, the discrepancy between poverty and the 1%.
19:25
And the big discrepancy that I really um emphasize in my book, and which I feel very strongly about is there’s this massive discrepancy between what we want in our own lives, love, belonging, fulfillment, being provided for, and what we allow and condone on a national level. It’s exactly the opposite. How did that happen? This is a mental health issue. It’s not a political issue. It’s not an ideological issue.
19:56
Um, there’s an incredible woman, um, who’s a forensic psychiatrist named bandy Lee. Um, and I heard her, have you heard of her? I’ve heard the name. Yeah. Yeah. She’s the one who came out and she wrote a book called the dangerous case of Donald Trump. And she talked about the mental health issues posed by his presidency to our country. But the thing that was so powerful that she said, I heard on a radio show was she said,
20:23
Fascism is not a political movement. It’s not an ideology. It’s a mental illness. And that’s, that’s what the lens I think we need to look at our behavior through. So I forget what your question was, but that’s where I I appreciate that. It’s interesting as we talk about mental illness, just like any illness. And as you said about poison, like if people are like, my stomach hurts, I don’t understand what’s going on. The doctor’s like, well, you’re poisoning yourself.
20:51
It took that person to go, something’s wrong. I need to take an action, which a lot of people don’t do. But if they’re going to take that step and go talk to the doctor and doctor goes, Oh, well, this stuff is just poison. Knock that off and eat something different. They can heal themselves from that point. But the mental illness isn’t just something that just pops up. It’s not a random thing that just goes, Oh, by the way, you just have mental illness. Now there’s something that stemmed from.
21:18
I believe the actual systems that we’re in and that we’re locked within aren’t able to be themselves. And if they’re not able to be themselves and they conform to what it is, everything else hurts and everything sucks and they go, Oh, now my stomach hurts because they’re themselves the poison. So in that sense, being able to feed yourself either good or positive or negative, how do we then get to those people?
21:43
early enough for them to be able to understand where you might have to get past the parents that are idiots and have no idea what the hell’s going on because they’ve been traumatized and abused for 40 years and they just hate everything and they’re not going to be the proper ones to be able to help those, let’s say kids at that point. So how do we get to it early enough? But how do we break the system of it to not continue to feed us the poison? Yeah. Well, I think we have to identify it as an illness of
22:12
family relations, whether we’re talking about the individual level or the national level or anywhere in between. So I think that’s the beginning. But I also think that people need to feel, because so many people, I don’t know if you have this conversation, but people today are saying, many people have said to me, I just don’t think the human race is going to make it. It’s sort of almost already given up. Yeah. You know, I’ve heard that.
22:37
And so here’s a, here’s a really small, great example. And, and I take this out of, um, things that I learned from therapy and definitely out of my own life and relationships that I’m in. that is that one person can change the dance. Yeah. know, uh, Rosa Parks changed the dance. didn’t, it’s not the dance is not healed, but she changed her one action changed the dance. She changed the awareness and she changed.
23:05
policy, even though, like I said, we have a long way to go. So I think we all need to know that in our own lives, one person can change the dance. And I’m going to give you a really small example because it’s one that’s much more accessible to most of us. So I went to dinner with my husband and my daughter and we, the waitress was just not friendly. She was really grumpy and kind of, you know, impersonal and it wasn’t pleasant. And
23:35
Um, my daughter looked at her and she said, are you having a bad day? And she melted. oh She just, you know, she didn’t go into the details, but she, she kind of said yes. And then she was just lovely. Like somebody reached out to her. Somebody saw her. all it took. Yeah. Right. And who knows what she brought home then to her husband and her kids that she might not have brought home. We can all do that. Yeah.
24:05
It’s a great live example. I was actually having a conversation last week with a client about those little magical moments that most people just bypass. Like if you think of somebody walking past you on the street or walking into a store and they just give you a little smile because there’s another human, that can change the way that you look at things. Just like if that person gives you a gnarled, just looks at you.
24:30
like they’re angry, then you might be like, oh, what the hell did I do? And that can stem you on a different path. And the amount of times that that happens throughout the day that most of us are just unaware of, it happens in our offices, it happens in our relationships. And a lot of people just have a hard time being able to understand like, look, you’ve got your stuff to deal with. I’ve got my stuff to deal with. Let’s talk about it and let’s start to get that out.
24:55
So that’s where therapy comes into play. And I know this is a big thing. You and I could sit on this soapbox and say, everybody just go talk to somebody for the love of God, please talk to anybody. But give me some tactical things and steps that people can actually do. Like what can those people do that are listening right now and go, I don’t want to talk to anybody. I got shit I got to deal with, but I’m just not ready to talk to anybody. How do you suggest that they start to work on that on themselves?
25:21
Well, I think, you know, I don’t know what the answer is if someone really isn’t open to that and they don’t want to talk. But I think, you know, somebody like you, somebody like me writing a book and the thousands of people like us out there are making it okay to talk. Yeah. And I think, you know, just stumbling upon somebody, you know, when I was going through the worst of, of, you know, my own healing,
25:49
I read book after book after book about child abuse. And you know what? Those books were a gift. Yeah. They were a gift because I didn’t feel alone. And I, and you know, I don’t want to read those books now because, because they’re hard to read. But am I grateful that somebody wrote those books and shared their story? So I think it’s, I think it’s being out there and like you said, being your authentic self, sharing your trials, sharing your tribulations and sharing.
26:18
What made a difference that if you stumble on that, if somebody stumbles on that and the more people that are speaking that language, the more possibility people are going to stumble on that. And that becomes mainstream conversation rather than I don’t want to tell anybody. What a tough thing for a lot of people to be able to handle. I think of my own.
26:43
crazy experiences at times, and how those experiences took a while to shape me. And there have been suicidal times where I’ve been like, I’m gonna jump off this building, or I’m going to wait a minute, I’m gonna what or what, and being able to pull back from that and say, all right, I need to talk to somebody. But we need to be aware of the stuff that’s happening around us. And to realize that the stuff that’s happening around us isn’t us. It’s the stuff that’s happening around us. It’s how we
27:11
how we relate to those things and how we interpret those things. So even with that person that’s like, I’m just not ready to talk to anybody yet because sometimes they just don’t have it together of like, what the hell do I even say? What would you suggest for them to do some therapy with themselves?
27:28
You mean without talking to somebody else? Correct. And just being able to kind of work through that stuff on their own, like how you started to pick up books and different things. Are there anything that really stands out you? Yeah. Go where you’re drawn. Whatever it is. You know, if it’s playing music, if it’s being in nature, if it’s petting your cat. But go to something, anything that nourishes you. know, journal writing is a great thing for many people because you may not be talking to somebody else.
27:58
but you’re talking to yourself and it’s a different conversation than the chatter that just swirls around in your head. It really is. But yeah, I would go back to the beginning thing like what calls you? What do you love? And do it because that’s a doorway to self. That’s a great point. I know there are a lot of people that just get into the routine of life where they’re like, you know, I’ve got the wife, I get
28:26
We got these things and we have to do all these things this weekend. I got this big project at work and blah blah blah And it’s like yeah, what what point are you actually minding your own self? And at what point are you leaning into the yeah, it makes sense Right off the bat you say go play music go outside and I think of my girlfriend and I I play music she goes outside that’s how this works and Those are things where we have to do it. Like I have to play music I have to play or listen to music every single day
28:55
or I don’t feel like me. She has to get outside and do something outside or she doesn’t feel like her. And that’s the thing that it took us a long time to be able to figure that out. But those people, and I think for the audience that’s listening that struggles with that, that goes, yeah, I get it. But you know, it’s hard to do those things. Take two minutes, two minutes to do something. Even if it is music for them, you can put on a song that’s two, three minutes long and just jam to that song and feel it and sit in that.
29:24
You know, I talk about meditation and I have guests that are on the show. We talk about meditation and there are still some people in the audience that are like, I don’t get how you just sit there for five minutes or 15 minutes. Like, how do you just sit there? It’s like, well, we’re not just sitting there. There’s a lot of stuff that’s going on and we all have those answers that are inside, but it’s for us to be able to shut up and allow the answers that come up. on that note, what sort of
29:51
piece of advice would you give to somebody that’s on their path towards self-mastery? Yeah, well, I love what you’re saying because one of the things is drawing back. If you just take one thing that you love and do it, like you said, like the music or being in nature, em it’s a connection to self. And that is, you know, when I grew up, there was no language for that. That language did begin, I think, in the 70s.
30:20
maybe the late 60s that began in late 60s and in the 70s it was big. And so what we need is to make that mainstream conversation though. It’s still not really mainstream conversation. That’s what you do on the side after you’ve performed and succeeded and made the money and look good on the outside or have the great body or whatever it is. You know, we so promote in our culture that’s on the surface. And I think people are
30:48
hurting so badly because they really don’t want to live on this. It’s painful to keep up an appearance. I don’t know if I answered your question, but I would go back to that thing of like, all, this is, really believe this, that we all have our unique contribution and we can find it in what calls to us from our heart and soul. And it doesn’t have to be like anybody else’s. And that’s what
31:18
one of the things that we need to promote in our culture and teach our children, know, oh, you love to garden, you like seeing plants grow, go do it. You don’t have to be a mathematician. You don’t have to be a CEO. Go do what you love because we need you. Yeah. And we need the person who’s the mathematician. Great point. It’s that, yeah, it’s that, I love this term. It’s called sovereign unity. you ever heard of that term?
31:48
It’s, it’s, um, I don’t remember where I heard it, but it’s like, I am my individual self and I hold that integrity and I manifest that within the context of what’s good for the whole. So I’m valued and everybody is within the context of the whole. That’s a paradigm shift for our entire country and our entire world. And these are the kinds of paradigm shifts I’m trying to talk about, you know, cause I see them.
32:17
Yeah. And you’re doing it. You know, it goes back to the systems even like the system, the educational system tells us that we are supposed to be factory workers. That’s what makes us to be. I grew up as a creative and I was basically an art and music kid and in high school they were like, you’re not going to do anything else. So go live in the art room. Like, yeah, great. You should have just sent me to an art high school or a music high school to be able to do those things. But that’s not it where they’re like, everybody just needs to be a factory worker. You need to get out.
32:46
You need to go to college. need to get a piece of paper that tells you you spent a bunch of money and drank a lot. And then you need to be able to go into a job where you live there for the rest of your life and you pump out these tchotchkes because you’re a factory worker. And I do think people are starting to understand like that’s not the way it should be, but it’s partially because of the generations before us that hate themselves because they’re like, I went through this and this all sucks. But being in that spot where, and I agree with you.
33:14
people have a hard time with the surfacey side and on themselves. I think that’s where some of the mental illness that we beat upon ourselves, because we’re like, I’m in this position. I have no idea how the hell I got here. What do I do and how do I do it? And I don’t even know. And all I want to do is just frigging sleep and close the blinds. Yeah. So what do they do from there? know? Yeah. Yeah. And you go like one of the things that I think really good therapy does is
33:43
I don’t know if you’re familiar with a process called EMDR or like, you know, some hypnosis processes or inner child work will take you back to a connection to a younger self before all the layers got put on. sometimes it’s in that connection to the younger self that we find, Oh, I loved that, you know? um Or there’s just, even if it’s not a specific thing, there’s a connection to that part of yourself that
34:13
that had an interest in life or had something to say before somebody told you, you drew your picture the wrong way because you colored outside the lines. You know? So there’s a, and I’ll just jump to this really, really quickly if it’s okay. So, you know, that’s a lot of therapy is going back and finding that inner child and, and healing some of the wounds and some of, you know, lifting off some of the negative beliefs that caused us to either, you know,
34:43
feel unworthy or unlovable or develop negative kinds of coping mechanisms. Um, and, there’s real freedom possible through that kind of inner work. And it’s not always easy. And I feel really strongly that our country needs to do that. We need to look at our past. We need to own it. And I say this in two directions. We need to own the pain that we’ve inflicted and we need to own the pain that we’ve endured and we need to own our gifts.
35:13
If that’s what good therapy does and the more we can own the pain that we’ve infected, which is key in our country, I think, um and the pain that people, mean, you know, our country is made up of immigrants who came from suffering, many of them, many of them, that was never processed and then played out. And so all of that needs to be reprocessed on a national level and we can do it because people, individuals do it.
35:42
We just have to know to do it and be committed to do it. Yeah, you’re right. And the good point with the um childhood traumas and the things that have happened when we were younger, that’s brought up on this show every so often. I suggest to people client wise, even friends and family at times, when I get into conversations with them, go back, sit in that moment with the younger you, watch the movie, don’t be a part of it, but watch the movie and heal with that kid.
36:11
and work through that and understand from that perspective. It’s almost like there are times where I’ll walk people through future casting where they’ll look at themselves of who they are and who they know they’re going to be and reverse engineer from that. But you got to go backwards and be able to figure out what was it like when you were seven or eight and you’re right. Somebody said, Oh, you drew that weird, that’s stupid. And you go, Oh, well, I don’t want to do that anymore. And you shut things down. And how do you resurrect that at that point takes you to be able to go through therapy. Hmm. Phyllis, this has been great.
36:41
Absolutely great. Thank you. I appreciate you being on I appreciate doing the work that you’re doing and what you’ve done You know going through and writing this book. This is going to be huge But the work that you’ve done for years and years and years I know is absolutely help people so it where people find you and where can they connect with you? Yeah, thank you. And I just want to say the same for you I think what you’re doing is magnificent and I Really value the level of consciousness and your own work that you bring to this show
37:11
So that is invaluable all by itself. So thank you so much for having me here with you. And it’s been incredible to talk with you. Yeah, so I have a website and it’s www.philislevet.com and um sort of the announcement about my new book is on there. And once it’s published and available, that’ll be on there. And my other two books that I’ve written about the more spiritual part of my journey. um
37:37
A light in the darkness and into the fire are on there. They’re on Amazon. And on my website, can, you know, you can fill in a little thing if you want to contact me or just be on my mailing list. And that would be great. I’m on Facebook and LinkedIn and uh Instagram and Twitter and all the things. YouTube, Yeah. So I’m all over the place like everybody else. Absolutely. And all of that is going to be in the show notes. again,
38:06
Phyllis, thank you so much for being on the show today. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you. Yeah, you too. Thank you.
https://youtu.be/UVtqNZGn5Qw
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By Nick McGowan“There was no talk of you know, higher consciousness. There was not even any talk of therapy.”
In this episode, Nick speaks with Phyllis Leavitt about bringing therapy to America and how her work with children and families as a psychotherapist for over 30 years has shed light on how important therapy is for everyone. She’s worked extensively with abuse and dysfunctional family dynamics and has a new book coming out that’s going to be full of wisdom with the goal of opening the doors to therapy for families throughout the country and the globe.
What to listen for:
“I grew up and found myself to be kind of an odd person from a very early age because I had very different experiences than anyone ever talked about in my family.”
“There were just really strong impulses, and there were times when I would sort of ask a question in my mind, and I would get a really clear answer from somewhere.”
“Understanding what happens within the individual and about families today is so conditioned by the people that we grow up”
About Phyllis Leavitt
Phyllis Leavitt graduated from Antioch University with a Masters Degree in Psychology and Counseling in 1989. She co-directed a sexual abuse treatment program called Parents United in Santa Fe, New Mexico, until 1991 and had a small private practice before going into private practice full-time. Phyllis has been a psychotherapist treating children, families, couples, and individual adults for 32 years and has worked extensively with abuse and dysfunctional family dynamics, their aftermath, and some of the most important elements for healing. She has also published two books, “A Light in the Darkness” and “Into the Fire“, and I am presently working with a professional editor on the book I have written about bringing America to therapy. I live in Taos, NM, and I am mostly retired now, focusing on writing.
Resources:
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Click To View The Episode Transcript
00:00
Hey, Phyllis, welcome to the show. How are doing? I’m doing great. Thank you so much for having me here today. Absolutely. I appreciate that you’re on reading through some of the website and having a little bit of a chat before we hit record. know there’s, there’s a lot for us to get into and a lot of stuff that really ties directly into my heart and the mission that we have with the show here. And I know you’ve got a book coming up and that there’s, I’m just going to, you know, put it out here. It’s, it’s about therapy and it’s about things.
00:30
fixing things and trauma and stuff that we’ve been through. But why don’t you give us a little bit of context? Tell us what you do for a living and maybe one thing that most people don’t know about you that’s a little odd or bizarre. Sure. um Well, I have been a psychotherapist for over 32 years and that’s been my main profession and a really great one. I loved being a psychotherapist and I pretty much retired at this point and focusing on writing and
00:59
So the little odd thing about me, which you have told me is not odd. And actually I do hear that. It’s still, you know, I’m a product of, I was born in 1947 and in the world that I grew up in, um there was no talk of spirituality. There was no talk of out of body experiences. There was no talk of, you know, higher consciousness. There was not even any talk of therapy actually as I grew up. And so,
01:29
I just found myself to be kind of an odd person from a very early age because I had uh very different experiences than anyone ever talked about in my family. And, um, and added to that was a layer of trauma that, um, from some abuse in childhood that I really didn’t uncover until I was a lot older. But the odd thing, I guess I would say is that at a certain point in my journey of my own recovery and healing, I started
01:58
to get very distinct messages from a higher consciousness about what I’m doing here in my personal experiences and in the kind of challenges that I was having at the time and what all of us are doing here. Like what the human race is about kind of from a soul perspective. So that’s my odd thing. Yeah. I know I said to you before, that’s not as odd as it may be for other audiences.
02:26
My audience is just kind of used to hearing stuff like that because that’s sort of stuff that we look at, but it can still be a little odd to certain people where they’re like, what do you mean? Because they don’t fully get that. And I do want to touch on how it, how it worked for you as a kid and being in the spot now where you see that there’s a bit of an awakening. People are starting to have these conversations. I look at my generation right now, 38. So I was born in 84 and I,
02:54
I remember in the eighties and nineties, it basically felt like, well, you can’t really have emotions and shut the hell up. Just put dirt on it and get your ass back in the game. And I remember being a little emotional kid. Like, what do you mean? I don’t understand that. I feel these things. Why should I just put dirt on this and send it back in? But for you to say that that was not how it worked. I think this is where we get to break the cycles of that and change the way that the systems are because the systems are just broke.
03:22
They’re just straight up broken. So let’s take a little bit of a step back because as you started to go through and thinking about where you’re at now and what that looked like as a child kind of coming up, were there some major lessons that you really look at and you say, you know, there was a couple key things when I was younger that really stand out to me that should shift and should change for future generations? Yeah, I mean, definitely. I think what I relate to what you’re saying, even in terms of mindset is which I didn’t have that word when I was growing up.
03:52
But there were certain impulses that I had that were really strong that just came from inside me. And one of them was to write. And I had that really strong, really young. um so I think, you know, as I look back on my life, I really noticed that there actually was guidance, but I didn’t want to know the word guidance either. You know, there were just really strong impulses and there were
04:19
there were times when I would sort of ask a question in my mind and I would get a really clear answer from somewhere, you know? And so I think the mindset that now is more conscious for me is really listening to your own truth. and I know I listened to a little bit of your last podcast and the gentleman was talking about
04:44
how he was trained to like look at life and pursue life in a certain way, but it really wasn’t him. And he finally made a departure from that. And that was true for me, you know? And I think for a lot of people of my generation that we were conditioned to, you know, get married, have kids, have a profession, um, live in a certain kind of house, you know, look a certain way. And I never fit that bill. I never fit it. Um,
05:11
And looking back, you know, I think that there was guidance taking me. I went into spiritual groups really young, and then I became a psychotherapist. you know, um and now it’s a more conscious effort on my part to listen and follow, even when it’s hard.
05:31
There’s a lot to that. You know, I think people at times will hear things and, and not understand where it’s coming from. They don’t understand it. Just the mind, like the monkey mind, the monkey brain, and it’s not just like throwing stuff at you or if it’s something internally, there are different times where I ask people like, do you know, can you tap into your intuition? And they’re like, tap into my what? Do what? What are you talking about?
05:56
Okay. Do you hear something? Do you have something that pulls at your rib cage? They’re like, oh yeah, there are different times. And it’s kind of that awareness of that, of understanding that there is that thing that’s there. So when you were younger, did you know and then become aware or did somebody help you become aware that, there’s something else there.
06:17
I can’t say that it was conscious, but there are distinct memories that then I could understand later when I had the awareness. Like I had, I had odd experiences. had deja vus of a prior life. I, know, but nobody’s had, know what the word deja vu was, you know, things like that. Um, so
06:42
Yeah, there was no language. If there’s no language for your experience, it’s really hard to conceive of what it is. But I will say that looking back, those moments stand out brilliantly. They’re like crystal clear. So something in my consciousness was registering those things. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, especially. that’s the sort of awareness at that point. I’m sure there’s even times where you can look back and go, oh,
07:08
this thing happened and then this thing and then this thing. Oh, and then I finally got the idea. It’s like, it’s like the universal, uh, consciousness is just trying to slap you in the back of the head, like get the point. I don’t get it. Right. So the beauty of what you’re doing and the beauty, think of what you’re saying today with people having more of an awakening experiences, we do have the language for a lot of this. And so people of your age and younger now, you know, don’t have to wait.
07:38
40 years to figure it out because because it’s being talked about and that’s really exciting. I agree with you that it’s exciting. I’m still sad a bit because they’re still broken systems and there are people that are still producing children that don’t have any right to produce children because they don’t know what the hell they’re doing. They have no idea what’s going on. They’re bringing kids into the world and they’re like, well, I’m kind of fucked up. So good luck. Have that a child and
08:07
And thinking about that from my perspective now and from where you’re at with the generations that you’ve gone through and the people that you’ve been around, thinking about what we can do today really brings us to what you’re doing with your books. So what led you from where you were at as a psychotherapist into what you’re doing today and why the purpose is really there?
08:30
In terms of the book that I’m writing now, America in Therapy, is that what you’re asking? This sort of the shift, because you went from psychotherapist into like, there’s something deeper here that I really need to be able to get out. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there are so many threads I could follow with that, but I think the one that ties both what I call my spiritual experience and my psychological experience together is um
08:59
It is sort of one thing, even though there’s probably a hundred, but the one that I want to talk about is, um, you know, from my training as, as a therapist and in family therapy in particular, and in understanding what happens within the individual. this speaks to what you’re talking about about families today is so conditioned by, by the people that we grow up with, the people that have power over us, the people that influence us, our parents and our immediate
09:29
peer groups and communities. And we learn what our relationship is as one part to the whole. We learn that from the people around us. And I think a lot of people don’t learn a healthy model of what the relationship is of themselves to others. And that’s where a lot of the dysfunction in our families comes from and in our communities and in our government.
09:57
that there’s not even talked about. the relationship that is mostly modeled is domination and submission. know, dominating somebody to get what you want and justifying doing that in some way, you know, on some continuum from benign to really destructive. And I think one of the things that I’ve gotten out of the
10:26
the spiritual downloads that I’ve gotten is that the relationship of the part to the whole of us finding the right relationship of the part to the whole of ourselves as individuals, to all of humanity, to the earth and beyond is really where consciousness wants to take us because that’s actually how we’re going to survive.
10:51
Yeah. Yeah. There, there has to be, I don’t want to just keep saying an awakening. There has to be a breakthrough. There has to be change to things. And it’s interesting with the timing now, because people, age, people younger, know, generation Z people, et cetera. There’s a lot of information. Like we have information at our fingertips where even 20 years ago, that wasn’t the case. We have so much information now and we’re so inundated with so much information.
11:21
that I feel like it’s easier for those systems to really screw with the people and to be able to screw them into place to where they want. That’s absolutely right. one of the, so the main thrust of the book that I’m writing is about that in a way you could say. So I’m looking at what’s going on in our country and it’s really going on in the world, but I focus on America because this is where I live and this is what I’m familiar with. But I think this is a global phenomenon that um it seems
11:50
to be accelerating that the mental health of the people who are in charge and have authority and power is diminishing. And they’re operating on the same dynamics that I see operating in abusive families with the effect that the population of this country is actually being abused and may not know it and may not know the outcome of that for even if you’re living a relatively good life.
12:20
And you’re not, you know, you’re not in a marginalized community and you’re not in poverty. Um, and you’re not, you know, identified as some other and your life is going well. We’re still all really affected by what’s going on. And a lot of people feel very powerless, um, to, make it to help. And, and, and that is, that’s a mental health issue to have a backdrop of powerlessness while you’re watching people be.
12:50
you know, mass murders and police brutality and targeting of LGBTQ and all of that, um, is affects all of us. And one of the things I’ve shared over and over again, as a psychotherapist is that it wasn’t until 2016 and the campaign and the election of 2016 that I ever had clients coming and talking about feeling traumatized about what was going on in our country. And it’s been nonstop ever since.
13:20
uh And so, you know, and I think that is a really good indicator of the ripple effect of abuse and I call it from the bottom up and the top down. And the whole thrust of my book, just to put it in a nutshell, is that in the world of psychology, we do really know a lot about healing abuse and breaking the cycle. And I want to see that applied.
13:49
on a national level, because I really think that’s what’s going to save us if we can be saved. Yeah, I’m right there with you. It’s, uh, I’m in a similar battle, let’s say of how do we change those systems? How do we actually make change happen? That’s legacy change. That’s not something where we do it and like, um, you know, 40, 50 people are going rah rah rah. They’re actually doing things and making change. also makes me think of how.
14:18
how the systems that are in place keep us in such a way to not do that. And there are certain people that they’ll pop up and say, Hey, let’s do this. Like I, I, I, I just think of the president now and all the presidents that I’ve seen along the way and how, the most part, it’s like somebody’s behind them, just puppeteering them and just going along, going along because they’re also part of that system. There are things I’m sure that they know that we don’t know. And that’s fine.
14:47
But when I think about that change that needs to happen, it’s not like a big push that we can have as a handful of people. It’s we as an entire community of a race that needs to make that push happen. And that really starts with us and the families that can do these things. But let’s think about those families where, like you were saying, environmentally wise.
15:10
If they’re raised in such a way, like religious families in a sense where they’re like, all right, well, you’re just Christian or you’re Hindu or you’re this, because this is how we are. And for the most part, the kids are going to say, okay, mom and dad, this is what you tell me. This is what I’m learning. And there are a lot of bad things that they learned from that because of the people they learned from and the people they learned from and the traumas that they’ve just completely compounded upon. So how do you, how do you, you know, really suggest that we actually stop that?
15:38
put a stop because there needs to be a breaker to it and then moving forward. Well, one of the things that brings people to therapy and of course not everybody comes to therapy as you know, and not all people have access to it even if they wanted to come. But one of the things that brings people to therapy is pain. know, something really isn’t working just like you would go to a doctor, right? Yeah. And so pain is a…
16:06
None of us want to experience it, but it’s a great motivator. It really is. It’s the motivation for healing. And I think, um, I think we need to feel that as a country and as a global citizenry, need to the pain of what we’re doing. Um, and so some of that is education. You know, some of it is like, you know, there’s a Greta out there talking about the pain of climate change and what that may bring down on the human race and
16:35
The, my focus is the pain that we’re inflicting on each other. And we really do need to feel it, not in any kind of sadistic way, but feel it enough to feel motivated to make some drastic changes. And the big drastic change, there’s several, but one of them, one of the big drastic changes is, and I’ll take this right out of family therapy or any good therapy is we bring people together to repair human relationships.
17:05
We don’t bring people together to make one person right or dominate another one or shame someone or blame them or ostracize them or any. We, we bring people together to heal the system and that’s what’s missing in our government. It’s either as an acceleration of the same divisiveness you see in an abusive family, somebody dominates and shames and blames silences, truth tellers.
17:33
Blames people for the symptoms they have of abuse. These are all the things that are going on in our country and they’re accelerating. so education is number one. And I know as a psychotherapist, I’ve done a lot of psycho education as well as processing with people because sometimes people don’t even know they’re being abused. Most part they don’t. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s what I was going to say with the therapy. Like, yeah, it’s great when people go to therapy.
18:02
the road to get there for a lot of people. By the time they’re in such pain that people go to therapy, it’s either I’m going to therapy or I’m putting this gun in my mouth or I’m jumping off this bridge or whatever. My God, that needs to stop. We need to disrupt it because people need to make change well before that. But Phyllis, how do you suggest we do that? How do we get to them before they say, I’m either fucking dying or I’m going to talk to somebody?
18:30
Well, I’m starting with my book, you know, my the thrust of my book is absolutely the title that I originally had which I’m not going to use But it was out of my office and into the world What I want to do is take everything that I’ve learned as a therapist and bring it to the man on the street Yeah, because the first thing you know like like when you go to a doctor the doctor has to assess what’s wrong Somebody has to tell you you’re eating poison food
18:58
And that’s what’s making your stomach upset, right? If you don’t know it’s poison food and you like the way it tastes, you’re going to keep on eating it. And that’s what we’re doing as a society. We’re eating poison, emotional food. And so someone has to say, this is what’s causing your pain. This is what causes mass shootings. This is what causes um the level of poverty, the discrepancy between poverty and the 1%.
19:25
And the big discrepancy that I really um emphasize in my book, and which I feel very strongly about is there’s this massive discrepancy between what we want in our own lives, love, belonging, fulfillment, being provided for, and what we allow and condone on a national level. It’s exactly the opposite. How did that happen? This is a mental health issue. It’s not a political issue. It’s not an ideological issue.
19:56
Um, there’s an incredible woman, um, who’s a forensic psychiatrist named bandy Lee. Um, and I heard her, have you heard of her? I’ve heard the name. Yeah. Yeah. She’s the one who came out and she wrote a book called the dangerous case of Donald Trump. And she talked about the mental health issues posed by his presidency to our country. But the thing that was so powerful that she said, I heard on a radio show was she said,
20:23
Fascism is not a political movement. It’s not an ideology. It’s a mental illness. And that’s, that’s what the lens I think we need to look at our behavior through. So I forget what your question was, but that’s where I I appreciate that. It’s interesting as we talk about mental illness, just like any illness. And as you said about poison, like if people are like, my stomach hurts, I don’t understand what’s going on. The doctor’s like, well, you’re poisoning yourself.
20:51
It took that person to go, something’s wrong. I need to take an action, which a lot of people don’t do. But if they’re going to take that step and go talk to the doctor and doctor goes, Oh, well, this stuff is just poison. Knock that off and eat something different. They can heal themselves from that point. But the mental illness isn’t just something that just pops up. It’s not a random thing that just goes, Oh, by the way, you just have mental illness. Now there’s something that stemmed from.
21:18
I believe the actual systems that we’re in and that we’re locked within aren’t able to be themselves. And if they’re not able to be themselves and they conform to what it is, everything else hurts and everything sucks and they go, Oh, now my stomach hurts because they’re themselves the poison. So in that sense, being able to feed yourself either good or positive or negative, how do we then get to those people?
21:43
early enough for them to be able to understand where you might have to get past the parents that are idiots and have no idea what the hell’s going on because they’ve been traumatized and abused for 40 years and they just hate everything and they’re not going to be the proper ones to be able to help those, let’s say kids at that point. So how do we get to it early enough? But how do we break the system of it to not continue to feed us the poison? Yeah. Well, I think we have to identify it as an illness of
22:12
family relations, whether we’re talking about the individual level or the national level or anywhere in between. So I think that’s the beginning. But I also think that people need to feel, because so many people, I don’t know if you have this conversation, but people today are saying, many people have said to me, I just don’t think the human race is going to make it. It’s sort of almost already given up. Yeah. You know, I’ve heard that.
22:37
And so here’s a, here’s a really small, great example. And, and I take this out of, um, things that I learned from therapy and definitely out of my own life and relationships that I’m in. that is that one person can change the dance. Yeah. know, uh, Rosa Parks changed the dance. didn’t, it’s not the dance is not healed, but she changed her one action changed the dance. She changed the awareness and she changed.
23:05
policy, even though, like I said, we have a long way to go. So I think we all need to know that in our own lives, one person can change the dance. And I’m going to give you a really small example because it’s one that’s much more accessible to most of us. So I went to dinner with my husband and my daughter and we, the waitress was just not friendly. She was really grumpy and kind of, you know, impersonal and it wasn’t pleasant. And
23:35
Um, my daughter looked at her and she said, are you having a bad day? And she melted. oh She just, you know, she didn’t go into the details, but she, she kind of said yes. And then she was just lovely. Like somebody reached out to her. Somebody saw her. all it took. Yeah. Right. And who knows what she brought home then to her husband and her kids that she might not have brought home. We can all do that. Yeah.
24:05
It’s a great live example. I was actually having a conversation last week with a client about those little magical moments that most people just bypass. Like if you think of somebody walking past you on the street or walking into a store and they just give you a little smile because there’s another human, that can change the way that you look at things. Just like if that person gives you a gnarled, just looks at you.
24:30
like they’re angry, then you might be like, oh, what the hell did I do? And that can stem you on a different path. And the amount of times that that happens throughout the day that most of us are just unaware of, it happens in our offices, it happens in our relationships. And a lot of people just have a hard time being able to understand like, look, you’ve got your stuff to deal with. I’ve got my stuff to deal with. Let’s talk about it and let’s start to get that out.
24:55
So that’s where therapy comes into play. And I know this is a big thing. You and I could sit on this soapbox and say, everybody just go talk to somebody for the love of God, please talk to anybody. But give me some tactical things and steps that people can actually do. Like what can those people do that are listening right now and go, I don’t want to talk to anybody. I got shit I got to deal with, but I’m just not ready to talk to anybody. How do you suggest that they start to work on that on themselves?
25:21
Well, I think, you know, I don’t know what the answer is if someone really isn’t open to that and they don’t want to talk. But I think, you know, somebody like you, somebody like me writing a book and the thousands of people like us out there are making it okay to talk. Yeah. And I think, you know, just stumbling upon somebody, you know, when I was going through the worst of, of, you know, my own healing,
25:49
I read book after book after book about child abuse. And you know what? Those books were a gift. Yeah. They were a gift because I didn’t feel alone. And I, and you know, I don’t want to read those books now because, because they’re hard to read. But am I grateful that somebody wrote those books and shared their story? So I think it’s, I think it’s being out there and like you said, being your authentic self, sharing your trials, sharing your tribulations and sharing.
26:18
What made a difference that if you stumble on that, if somebody stumbles on that and the more people that are speaking that language, the more possibility people are going to stumble on that. And that becomes mainstream conversation rather than I don’t want to tell anybody. What a tough thing for a lot of people to be able to handle. I think of my own.
26:43
crazy experiences at times, and how those experiences took a while to shape me. And there have been suicidal times where I’ve been like, I’m gonna jump off this building, or I’m going to wait a minute, I’m gonna what or what, and being able to pull back from that and say, all right, I need to talk to somebody. But we need to be aware of the stuff that’s happening around us. And to realize that the stuff that’s happening around us isn’t us. It’s the stuff that’s happening around us. It’s how we
27:11
how we relate to those things and how we interpret those things. So even with that person that’s like, I’m just not ready to talk to anybody yet because sometimes they just don’t have it together of like, what the hell do I even say? What would you suggest for them to do some therapy with themselves?
27:28
You mean without talking to somebody else? Correct. And just being able to kind of work through that stuff on their own, like how you started to pick up books and different things. Are there anything that really stands out you? Yeah. Go where you’re drawn. Whatever it is. You know, if it’s playing music, if it’s being in nature, if it’s petting your cat. But go to something, anything that nourishes you. know, journal writing is a great thing for many people because you may not be talking to somebody else.
27:58
but you’re talking to yourself and it’s a different conversation than the chatter that just swirls around in your head. It really is. But yeah, I would go back to the beginning thing like what calls you? What do you love? And do it because that’s a doorway to self. That’s a great point. I know there are a lot of people that just get into the routine of life where they’re like, you know, I’ve got the wife, I get
28:26
We got these things and we have to do all these things this weekend. I got this big project at work and blah blah blah And it’s like yeah, what what point are you actually minding your own self? And at what point are you leaning into the yeah, it makes sense Right off the bat you say go play music go outside and I think of my girlfriend and I I play music she goes outside that’s how this works and Those are things where we have to do it. Like I have to play music I have to play or listen to music every single day
28:55
or I don’t feel like me. She has to get outside and do something outside or she doesn’t feel like her. And that’s the thing that it took us a long time to be able to figure that out. But those people, and I think for the audience that’s listening that struggles with that, that goes, yeah, I get it. But you know, it’s hard to do those things. Take two minutes, two minutes to do something. Even if it is music for them, you can put on a song that’s two, three minutes long and just jam to that song and feel it and sit in that.
29:24
You know, I talk about meditation and I have guests that are on the show. We talk about meditation and there are still some people in the audience that are like, I don’t get how you just sit there for five minutes or 15 minutes. Like, how do you just sit there? It’s like, well, we’re not just sitting there. There’s a lot of stuff that’s going on and we all have those answers that are inside, but it’s for us to be able to shut up and allow the answers that come up. on that note, what sort of
29:51
piece of advice would you give to somebody that’s on their path towards self-mastery? Yeah, well, I love what you’re saying because one of the things is drawing back. If you just take one thing that you love and do it, like you said, like the music or being in nature, em it’s a connection to self. And that is, you know, when I grew up, there was no language for that. That language did begin, I think, in the 70s.
30:20
maybe the late 60s that began in late 60s and in the 70s it was big. And so what we need is to make that mainstream conversation though. It’s still not really mainstream conversation. That’s what you do on the side after you’ve performed and succeeded and made the money and look good on the outside or have the great body or whatever it is. You know, we so promote in our culture that’s on the surface. And I think people are
30:48
hurting so badly because they really don’t want to live on this. It’s painful to keep up an appearance. I don’t know if I answered your question, but I would go back to that thing of like, all, this is, really believe this, that we all have our unique contribution and we can find it in what calls to us from our heart and soul. And it doesn’t have to be like anybody else’s. And that’s what
31:18
one of the things that we need to promote in our culture and teach our children, know, oh, you love to garden, you like seeing plants grow, go do it. You don’t have to be a mathematician. You don’t have to be a CEO. Go do what you love because we need you. Yeah. And we need the person who’s the mathematician. Great point. It’s that, yeah, it’s that, I love this term. It’s called sovereign unity. you ever heard of that term?
31:48
It’s, it’s, um, I don’t remember where I heard it, but it’s like, I am my individual self and I hold that integrity and I manifest that within the context of what’s good for the whole. So I’m valued and everybody is within the context of the whole. That’s a paradigm shift for our entire country and our entire world. And these are the kinds of paradigm shifts I’m trying to talk about, you know, cause I see them.
32:17
Yeah. And you’re doing it. You know, it goes back to the systems even like the system, the educational system tells us that we are supposed to be factory workers. That’s what makes us to be. I grew up as a creative and I was basically an art and music kid and in high school they were like, you’re not going to do anything else. So go live in the art room. Like, yeah, great. You should have just sent me to an art high school or a music high school to be able to do those things. But that’s not it where they’re like, everybody just needs to be a factory worker. You need to get out.
32:46
You need to go to college. need to get a piece of paper that tells you you spent a bunch of money and drank a lot. And then you need to be able to go into a job where you live there for the rest of your life and you pump out these tchotchkes because you’re a factory worker. And I do think people are starting to understand like that’s not the way it should be, but it’s partially because of the generations before us that hate themselves because they’re like, I went through this and this all sucks. But being in that spot where, and I agree with you.
33:14
people have a hard time with the surfacey side and on themselves. I think that’s where some of the mental illness that we beat upon ourselves, because we’re like, I’m in this position. I have no idea how the hell I got here. What do I do and how do I do it? And I don’t even know. And all I want to do is just frigging sleep and close the blinds. Yeah. So what do they do from there? know? Yeah. Yeah. And you go like one of the things that I think really good therapy does is
33:43
I don’t know if you’re familiar with a process called EMDR or like, you know, some hypnosis processes or inner child work will take you back to a connection to a younger self before all the layers got put on. sometimes it’s in that connection to the younger self that we find, Oh, I loved that, you know? um Or there’s just, even if it’s not a specific thing, there’s a connection to that part of yourself that
34:13
that had an interest in life or had something to say before somebody told you, you drew your picture the wrong way because you colored outside the lines. You know? So there’s a, and I’ll just jump to this really, really quickly if it’s okay. So, you know, that’s a lot of therapy is going back and finding that inner child and, and healing some of the wounds and some of, you know, lifting off some of the negative beliefs that caused us to either, you know,
34:43
feel unworthy or unlovable or develop negative kinds of coping mechanisms. Um, and, there’s real freedom possible through that kind of inner work. And it’s not always easy. And I feel really strongly that our country needs to do that. We need to look at our past. We need to own it. And I say this in two directions. We need to own the pain that we’ve inflicted and we need to own the pain that we’ve endured and we need to own our gifts.
35:13
If that’s what good therapy does and the more we can own the pain that we’ve infected, which is key in our country, I think, um and the pain that people, mean, you know, our country is made up of immigrants who came from suffering, many of them, many of them, that was never processed and then played out. And so all of that needs to be reprocessed on a national level and we can do it because people, individuals do it.
35:42
We just have to know to do it and be committed to do it. Yeah, you’re right. And the good point with the um childhood traumas and the things that have happened when we were younger, that’s brought up on this show every so often. I suggest to people client wise, even friends and family at times, when I get into conversations with them, go back, sit in that moment with the younger you, watch the movie, don’t be a part of it, but watch the movie and heal with that kid.
36:11
and work through that and understand from that perspective. It’s almost like there are times where I’ll walk people through future casting where they’ll look at themselves of who they are and who they know they’re going to be and reverse engineer from that. But you got to go backwards and be able to figure out what was it like when you were seven or eight and you’re right. Somebody said, Oh, you drew that weird, that’s stupid. And you go, Oh, well, I don’t want to do that anymore. And you shut things down. And how do you resurrect that at that point takes you to be able to go through therapy. Hmm. Phyllis, this has been great.
36:41
Absolutely great. Thank you. I appreciate you being on I appreciate doing the work that you’re doing and what you’ve done You know going through and writing this book. This is going to be huge But the work that you’ve done for years and years and years I know is absolutely help people so it where people find you and where can they connect with you? Yeah, thank you. And I just want to say the same for you I think what you’re doing is magnificent and I Really value the level of consciousness and your own work that you bring to this show
37:11
So that is invaluable all by itself. So thank you so much for having me here with you. And it’s been incredible to talk with you. Yeah, so I have a website and it’s www.philislevet.com and um sort of the announcement about my new book is on there. And once it’s published and available, that’ll be on there. And my other two books that I’ve written about the more spiritual part of my journey. um
37:37
A light in the darkness and into the fire are on there. They’re on Amazon. And on my website, can, you know, you can fill in a little thing if you want to contact me or just be on my mailing list. And that would be great. I’m on Facebook and LinkedIn and uh Instagram and Twitter and all the things. YouTube, Yeah. So I’m all over the place like everybody else. Absolutely. And all of that is going to be in the show notes. again,
38:06
Phyllis, thank you so much for being on the show today. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you. Yeah, you too. Thank you.
https://youtu.be/UVtqNZGn5Qw