Wise Elders Podcast is a search for the secret sauce of wisdom with your host, Matt Ditty. Matt is a DBT therapist, trainer, teacher, and consultant who specializes in building lives worth living with those experiencing suicidality, self harm, and PTSD. Today’s guest features Kell Julliard, an experienced mindfulness practitioner who is a retired professor and a current instructor with Tergar (www.tergar.org). Matt and Kell discuss wisdom, summarizing many of the themes from the entire Wise Elders Podcast series so far (14:41). They then compare notes on their understanding of mindfulness of emotion from two different lenses – DBT and Tergar (46:57).

Today’s guest is Doogie Horner, a comedian, author, and graphic designer. Matt and Doogie have been lifelong friends, and they sit down to discuss the elements of wisdom identified by the Self Assessed Wisdom Scale (SAWS), exploring the relationship between humor and wisdom. Please know that the purpose of this episode is not to be funny, but to discuss how humor can be used wisely. If you’re looking for laughs, search for Doogie Horner and listen to his comedy album "A Delicate Man" on the same platforms you listen to this Podcast.

Today’s episode features a colleague of mine who practices with me on the same DBT consultation team, and someone who happens to also be my business partner, John Bickel. I talk with John about how this podcast does and does not overlap with DBT. John has already identified some themes from his clinical work on how to be wise, the exact thing I’m trying to do on the wise Elders podcast.

On today's episode, Matt travels to Costa Rica to see the guy he wanted to be when he grew up, Max Perez. And in doing so, he meets a life worth living goal: to play with monkeys in their natural habitat. In typical Max style, many others joined us on the journey, particularly Fabian Jimenez. The three of them sit down to discuss Matt's life worth living goal (5:10), share stories of their trip, and explore Webster's five elements of wisdom suggested by the SAWS (29:25).

Matt continues exploring how to have hard conversations with Kiki, a professor, yoga instructor, Vipassana practitioner, and family member. They’re joined by Kyle, a meditation practioner, massage therapist, practitioner of Tibetan medicine, and family member of Kiki and Matt. This episode is a follow up to Episode 18, when they explored hard conversations by having a hard conversation in the moments when the mass shooting in Uvalde, Tx was still fresh. This time, they focus less on guns and mass shootings, and more on how to actually have a hard conversation (ie. heavy meta). They begin by defining a hard conversation (9:54). Then they explore the connection between hard conversations and wisdom (23:35). Then they explore how to have a hard conversation (40:00) and end by tying up loose ends on their previous hard conversation about guns (57:24).

*Sidenote: we touch on validation in today’s episode. You’ll hear Kiki and I briefly mention an article she wrote (and in more depth if you somehow got our entire, unedited released-by-mistake and then quickly deleted episode). I had heard she wrote about abortion online. Turns out, I wasn’t correct and I did the very invalidation she speaks about. Whisper-down-the-ally is a great way to invalidate! But the article she wrote is super powerful and a great example of the importance validation. If you want more of Kiki’s thoughts on validation and invalidation, here’s an article she wrote after three pregnancy losses: https://medium.com/@kellyeah/strike-three-or-i-had-2-miscarriages-and-an-ectopic-pregnancy-within-6-months-and-it-sucked-a634724b3855

!!This episode is being re-released because Matt accidentally released the wrong file for Spotify Users. So extra listen for some of you and a fixing of an error for the rest! Sorry if it was an extra something but ultimately a yada yada yawn yawn for those Spotify Users who tried!!

Matt sits down with Kiki, a professor, yoga instructor, Vipassana practitioner, and family member.  We seek to explore the intersection of wisdom, relationships, and hard conversations about sensitive topics. We begin by framing the conversation by discussing some skills useful to such conversations – Walking the Middle Path, Validation, and Mindfulness of Emotion. Then we actually have a radically genuine, hard conversation as we rdiscuss the horrors of Uvalde, Texas just 24 hours after the shooting took place (15:37). We end the episode by discussing wisdom using the Self Assessed Wisdom Scale (SAWS; 61:36). Please take care while listening.

Matt continues exploring how to make friends and expands on the theme from Episode 16 with his longest tenured friend, Oreste Jimenez (OJ). The two speak candidly about how two “ordinary” kids sustained their friendship for over 30 years, in the hopes that their story can illuminate the process for any and all people interested in building relationships of their own. Then, OJ and Matt explore wisdom more broadly using the Self Assessed Wisdom Scale (SAWS) in search of a new recipe for wisdom (24:40).

Matt is a clinical social worker with 20 years of experience practicing, teaching, training, and consulting. He is currently a Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) practitioner, Aikido student, and a dabbling musician. Subscribe to this Podcast to follow his search for wisdom as he consults with wise people.

Welcome to the Wise Elders Podcast, the place where I seek the secret sauce of wisdom. I’m your host, Matt Ditty, a clinical social worker with 20 years of experience building lives worth living with high risk, difficult to treat mental health issues. I’m joined today by Nat Jungbluth, a psychologist specializing in the treatment of anxiety, PTSD, and other issues facing children and families. We use our own friendship to explore how to make friends (1:30) and then explore wisdom using the Self Assessed Wisdom Scale (SAWS; 16:30). Enjoy!

Welcome to the Wise Elders podcast, the place where I seek the secret sauce of wisdom. Today’s guest is Ryan Fisher, who Matt knows through Aikido. Ryan is a great Aikido practitioner and teacher. He also manages the dojo, is a professional masseuse, and has developed Kokyudo, which is system for training the breath. For the first half of the episode, Matt and Ryan discuss the importance of breathing in the pursuit of wisdom. Then they discuss wisdom using the Self-Assessed Wisdom Scale (SAWS) to frame a discussion on wisdom more broadly (25:15).