Chris is joined by Ira Israel for a discussion about the tools we can use to overcome and heal from the traumas, bad habits and wrong perspectives we have developed from childhood.
Ira Israel is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and Mindful Relationship Coach. Ira has taught mindfulness to thousands of physicians, psychologists, attorneys, engineers and creative professionals across America. He is the author of the book “How To Survive Your Childhood Now That You’re an Adult: A Path to Authenticity and Awakening” and creator of the best-selling “Beginner’s Guide to Happiness,” “Beginner’s Guide to Mindfulness Meditation,” “Mindfulness for Anxiety,” and “Mindfulness for Depression” videos and DVDs. For more information visit IraIsrael.com.
Show Notes
How to Survive Your Childhood, Now That You are an Adult (Opening) – Ira shares his story, what compelled him to teach and led to his writing How to Survive Your Childhood Now That You’re an Adult: A Path to Authenticity and Awakening which offers a comprehensive path to recognizing the ways of being that we created as children and transcending them with compassion and acceptance.
“I went to graduate school for psychology and wanted to find out what was afflicting all these people in our culture. Instead of looking for some rogue gene that causes Americans to suffer from depression and anxiety I just started looking at our culture. Looking at the systems we think are normal like capitalism, science and religions that we consider to be normal and see if there are unintended ramifications that results in what we are pathologizing today as depression and anxiety.” – Ira Israel
Seeking Authenticity (15:15) –Chris and Ira discuss how the language of what we learn as children shape the way learn to interact with the world. They talk about the importance of authenticity and the way to correlates to our happiness and quality of relationships.
“There comes a point in life when you look at who you are becoming, in terms of all your influences from when we’re young, and you can decide that you don’t to be that person anymore and can shed that.” – Ira Israel
Meditative Healing (26:35) – Ira talks about the important role that meditation plays in working with our childhood wounds and finding our most authentic self.
“Meditation allows us to disidentify with our thoughts and get insight into them. You are not your thoughts, thoughts are just tools we use to communicate and yet consciousness has become so detrimental. So many people are self-harming and living destructively because of this.” – Ira Israel
Sharon Salzberg speaks with Dr. Mark Epstein about early childhood development and how mindfulness and meditation practice can heal trauma on Ep. 56 of the Metta Hour Podcast.
The Parent Trap (32:30) – A discussion about the importance of recognizing the dynamics that we have, or have had, with our parents growing up and how they affect our lives today.
Owning Your Life (43:00) – Ira talks about the importance of taking ownership in our lives and how to overcome the destructive tendencies of resentment.
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