This podcast episode featured Dr. Mitchell Abrams (Mitch), a Canadian radiologist and founder of NextGen Health, discussing his journey from traditional medicine to embracing compassion and heart coherence practices. Dr. Abrams explained how his own heart condition and experience in India led him to discover ancient wisdom about energy and consciousness that was missing from Western medical approaches. 

He detailed the five elements of compassion (awareness, embodiment, common humanity, action, and relief) and described heart coherence as a measurable state where the heart and brain synchronize, creating optimal brain function and allowing prefrontal cortex control over the limbic system. 

The conversation covered practical applications of these concepts, including how heart coherence can be cultivated through specific breathing techniques and the "laser protocol" (lock on, synchronize, and radiate), with measurable tools like the HeartMath Global Coherence app available for tracking progress. 

Dr. Abrams shared his vision for creating global heart coherence networks and expressed optimism about a potential future renaissance driven by music, art, science, and technology that could transform human understanding and connection. 

 Takeaways

• Dr. Abrams' shift from traditional radiology to integrative medicine was sparked by his own experience with heart disease and exposure to ancient Indian medical wisdom.
• A staff wellness program using art and mandalas to reduce stress organically spread across hospital departments, eventually leading to TED Talks and wider organisational engagement.
• Compassion is learnable and comprises five elements: awareness, embodying suffering, recognising common humanity, taking action, and cultivating heart coherence.
• Heart coherence — a harmonious balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems — allows the prefrontal cortex to better regulate the limbic system, helping people stay calm and in control.
• Coherent inner states can synchronise nervous systems between people, meaning a practitioner's regulated presence can directly influence a client's or patient's physiology.
• Compassion-based approaches in healthcare have been shown to reduce post-operative opioid use by up to 50% and significantly decrease hospital length of stay.
• A practical "laser protocol" — lock-on, synchronise, radiate and receive — offers a simple way to activate the heart centre even in challenging moments.
• Dr. Abrams' new platform, Global Heart Sync, gamifies collective heart coherence using the HeartMath app, with the vision of creating a global shift in human connection and peace.

Please note: this transcript is unedited. 

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Anyway.

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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of The Fourth Wave in Therapy. I'm absolutely, quietly excited to have this conversation today, and my very special guest is Dr. Mitchell Abrams. I'm gonna call him Mitch.

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Bench is a Canadian radiologist, a TEDx and keynote speaker, teacher and founder of NextGen Health and NextGen Health Foundation. As a certified educator of applied compassion through the Stanford School of Medicine center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. That is an acronym, it's below.

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Dr. Abrams has created a sustainable fundraising initiative in support of mental health and resilience training for youth education, communities in need.

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and to support clinical research. The model creates a framework for NextGen's health social impact, leveraging art, music, and technology as tools to educate, heal, and inspire. And there are more details below, including how to connect with Dr. Abrams, but Mitch, welcome to the podcast.

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Thank you so much, great to be here with you.

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I'm so excited to have this conversation. We were just talking off-air just about a little bit of your work, but do you mind me asking, what drew you to medicine in the first place?

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Well, I mean, I was fascinated with science as a young child. In fact, my grandfather on my mom's side was a scientist, and even though I've never met him, he passed before I was born.

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There was this, you know, such a curiosity around him, and through that curiosity, my love for science.

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And eventually, just the love of people. So I naturally grav… gravitated towards medical science.

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That's amazing. And I… our youngest daughter is actually pursuing the medical path herself at the moment at university, so I certainly am privy to…

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the traditionalism, and certainly still at some level, the biomedical kind of framework. So, where was it for you that maybe the pivot happened? Because obviously what you're embracing now, and I know we'll start to talk about the compassion impact and what that's doing clinically and a research level, but

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Why was it… how did it happen that you somewhere were going down this very traditional medical path, and then

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I guess took a U-turn.

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Yeah, big U-turn. So I would say, it was in my very first year of medical practice. So I finished a residency in radiology and diagnostic imaging, and did a fellowship after that. And as I was settling into my practice.

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I found out I required open-heart surgery. So, I was diagnosed with a condition called hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy, essentially a big heart, and,

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doctor became patient, and very quickly, I began to appreciate that the way that we study and define health and wellness was extremely limited in scope.

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There's something fundamentally missing, and…

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once I returned to work, I was then appointed the chief of our department. So from a, you know, from a systemic, you know, perspective, I also quickly realized that our entire system was just so outdated. And this, you know, between the, you know.

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The realization of just how narrow in scope and how outdated the model was just really catapulted me in a very different direction.

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And I got very curious to see how other cultures approached health and wellness, and I found myself in India, and it was in India I realized that an entire discipline of science was just… is not exposed to us in the Western world, and…

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it amazed me, not only through my own personal practice and my own experience, but when I began to really dive in to see, well, what are this… what are the ancient scriptures

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You know, what are they saying? What are they… and they're actually discussing energy. The same energy that comprises you and I and the world that we're experiencing.

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And yet, that's the energy that I work with in radiology.

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You know, so… so this was, for me, this, like, culmination of realization that

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the fact that an MRI machine can slice the brain like a loaf of bread without a scalpel blade is because we're all beings of light. And here's this ancient wisdom talking about energy, talking about consciousness, and what was even more impressive was that there's specific techniques and practices, and it's a true science.

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And so this really changed my life in ways I just could not have imagined, and here we are.

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Well, it's so fantastic. And, such a good explanation, too, I think, of the whole energy with the radiology, the MRI,

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the intersect there that is already happening, but perhaps not kind of expanded like what you're talking about, you know, as far as our ancient traditions and cultures and techniques. But was it at this time you're off exploring, obviously for your own health and wellness, but at the same time.

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leading, obviously, the unit in the… so, were you able to bring this back? Was it fully embraced? Was it a very slow process? How did it happen?

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Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, it was definitely an evolution. You know, there was a moment in time through my own journey and, you know, self-exploration that,

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There was a need for a staff wellness program in the hospital.

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I was in the department lead at the time, and I recognized that morale was just terrible. There's a just high degree of stress and burnout. So, I did a very, you know, I did a lunch and learn program, where I used art

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And a symbol that I really, you know, focused on to help people understand that intersection between science and spirituality.

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And it was a very simple program, and I feel like it really resonated with our staff. And what I did was I left coloring supplies with all of these, you know, geometry, these mandalas in the department.

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And just to see what was… what were gonna happen. And now that they understood this geometry and this new context of energy,

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I was amazed to see that people started coloring these… these designs. They got off their phones, people started to reconnect, it calmed them, you know, and it just… it just changed the energy of the department. And within 2 weeks.

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they started taking their designs, their colored mandalas, and started pasting them on the walls in our department. And from there, it spread organically. It just spread to other departments in the hospital. The next thing I knew, I was being asked to give talks to other departments.

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And…

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that was really the seed, because from that point, I was then started, you know, I was asked to go to schools, and then to the university, and it just kept growing and growing, you know, and you know, here we are now, you know.

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you know, two TED Talks later, and, you know, more organizations, and I feel like

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This information, because it's so core to our true nature, is very infectious, and people really do…

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you know, when they hear it, they say, you know, this is something I always knew in my heart. But using this, you know, this perspective, using geometry, we can, you know, people are now finding the language to help them experience, you know, to express what their embodied

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And what they truly understand, because this science really does reframe our understanding of ourselves and our connection to each other.

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That's fantastic. I love that, one, it started with the staff wellness, morale. It's often the area, isn't it, in health departments medically as well, but…

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yeah, often that's… they're the ones treating the patients, but at the same time need that care themselves. But two, I love that it was art, because we bring an art therapist into our master's program, we do this art masterclass, and it's a traditional Russian technique that they learn.

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I swear they get better evaluation ratings than, you know, the rest of the lecture series, just this two-hour masterclass. Because it is, it's that expression of…

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Maybe what's internal becoming external, obviously choice of colours, that kind of thing as well.

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Tell us a little bit more about what you learnt from your time in India, but you mentioned techniques, but traditional ways of knowing and being. What is it that you learnt there that you thought was missing in the traditional medical approach?

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Well… There is… so, what I've come to appreciate… is that… Our body has… is… information. I mean, our…

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our physical form, our physiology, in a sense, you know, when we get a cut, our body knows how to heal. We don't have to tell it how to heal. And it's interesting to note that

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in Eastern philosophy, especially, you know, Buddha, for instance, and Vipassana meditation, they say, look, if you learn how to settle your mind into the body.

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Just learn how to listen.

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To the ex… the inner experience.

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That expands your awareness. That process can help not just let go of old emotional energy that may be stagnant in the body, to find greater degree of acceptance and build resilience, but

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as Buddha, you know, put it, it was pannya. It was this… you receive knowledge of the world through your inner experience.

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And this is, for me, it's fascinating, and certainly, you don't have to listen to me or listen to anybody. I mean, this is something that's accessible to every single individual.

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To practice and, you know, with…

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and even in a short amount of time, you'll begin to recognize there is something deep within each and every one of us. And just to say that.

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You know, recent research. There was an interesting study that was published. It was in a collaboration between a neurosurgeon and an astrophysicist.

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And they literally looked at the energy and matter distribution at the cosmic level, so looking at superclusters of galaxies and galaxies and whatnot, and compared it with a biopsy of the cerebellum of the human brain.

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And they looked at the neurovascular bundles and the distribution of mass and energy of the brain, and they realized that at scale, the relative distribution is practically identical.

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So when you begin to think of the terms of energy and information, like, there's a certain dance that's flowing through the cosmos, a distribution of energy that's dancing to a rhythm, and when you look at our human anatomy.

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We are that information. We are an expression of the whole.

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And so, you know, it… again, that information of the whole is within each and every one of us. You know, as Rumi, you know, said all those years ago, we're not just a single drop in the ocean, we are the entire ocean within a single drop.

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And what I found fascinating is that we can access that information. There's greatness within each and every one of us, and it's just a matter of learning how to tap into that energy, that potential.

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I feel like…

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the more conversations I have, the more I read, and I do, I read for pleasure in these kind of areas.

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talk to thought leaders like yourself, I feel like we've come a long way, but there's so much further to go. Like, there's so much we don't know. Like, you just talk about that study with the cerebellum and what it's reflecting, and it's like.

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that's existed for however long we've been here, and yet we've only just discovered that, and I kind of… yeah, I kind of, like, how much do we not yet know? Yeah. And you just mentioned, I know anyone listening is probably…

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going, I want… I want to know what can we do? And we will get there, I promise, but I want to park that for a minute, because I know we… I do want to talk about, okay, what can people do? But I want to talk about compassion. I know it's been a focus of your work, I know that you run weekly, kind of, sessions, helping people. Can you…

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Tell us first, how do you define compassion?

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So, compassion… I mean, I like the Stanford Center for Compassion Altruism Research and Education.

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approach. And basically, they say that compassion is made up of 5 buckets, or 5 elements.

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The first element is awareness. To become aware of suffering, either suffering within self or suffering of another, we have to become aware of that. And interestingly, sometimes it can be difficult to recognize even internal suffering.

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So, once we're aware of it, then they say we have to embody that suffering. We have to experience it.

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And this is something that's super important. I think this is where the science of heart and heart coherence and these practices come into play, because it helps us embody the suffering, or to experience, perhaps, emotions that are very difficult.

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But we can do it in a way that we're stabilized, where we are coherent, where we can experience it and not react to it.

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So it allows our mind and our body to process that information so that it can be released, as opposed to getting stuck.

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Then the third bucket is recognizing common humanity.

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In the sense that, you know, my suffering, I'm not the only one suffering, and to know that there are other people in the world, their stories might be different, but, you know, we're not alone in that suffering is also very powerful.

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And as well, at the same time, to recognize that

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We are, in many ways, connected

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In a much deeper level, so it creates this compassionate latitude for others.

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And the other aspect is we need to do something to relieve that suffering. So we need an action. And if we don't do something, then that energy can get stuck in the body, and that's where, you know, we talk a lot about empathy versus compassion.

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Well, empathy can be hazardous to some people.

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If we're just taking on all of this negative, you know, this trauma, or the suffering, and it just builds up within us like a sponge, we're gonna get heavy with this energy. So we have to do something, either some sort of practice of self-care, and again.

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I believe in that heart coherence to help relieve the self.

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But, as well, you know, there are ways to do actions that will help the suffering and relieve the suffering of others.

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So, that's kind of where I… and I think what I think is so powerful in the science of compassion is the fact that

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Our bioenergy.

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Meaning our heart rate variability, you know, even the electric conductance of the skin, it actually synchronizes with people when you cultivate a deep sense of compassion.

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for people, and this creates now a whole new chapter, I believe, where the science of compassion really is foundational and needs to play a bigger role within our medical model.

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I totally agree, and I know the science and the research, they're building a couple of different things. You said there that I want to go in so many directions.

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I guess one…

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I wonder, you've talked about these four buckets, and quite practical steps, and I know they'll be in the show notes, and the, anyone's wondering or driving at the moment listening, they'll absolutely be in the transcript, but…

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One, because it sounds so step-by-step, awareness and… Right through to taking action.

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Can it be learnt? And I guess that's a question. If someone's like, do you need to be born with the capacity to… and so you're shaking your head. If no one's watching the video, you're shaking your head. So the answer is no, it can be learnt, so that's my first question. But to…

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what's the relationship to the heart coherence? Maybe unpack that a little bit for us. What do you mean by heart coherence, and…

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Is that something that is measurable? Because you talked about skin conductance, there are a couple of different things about where

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we're literally synchronizing, and I'm guessing anyone working with clients, and a lot of our listeners are therapists at some level. Like, what is happening there? So I guess I've got two parts there. One, can you learn the compassion steps? And two, what's the science bit they're saying around all of this? Yeah.

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No, those are great, great questions, and absolutely, I mean, compassion is something that can be learned, and it can be practiced. In fact, so CCARE, that's the mnemonic for the Stanford program, the research is clear that by practicing compassion, you get stronger at it.

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And not only…

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do you become better at becoming compassionate to yourself and for others, but it's infectious? So, if somebody sees you being compassionate, or the fact that somebody, you know, your listeners are now listening to

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a conversation around compassion, the research shows that they are more likely now to become more compassionate in their lives and for others. So, compassion is definitely something… it can be learned, it can be harnessed, that energy, it's like a muscle, as they call it.

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And the relationship to the heart coherence… now, we have to unpack coherence and the heart a little bit for that, you know, and…

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You know, for those, if this is new, the idea of coherence, it's a scientific term, just meaning that different parts within a system, when they function in the most, you know, harmonious way, most energetically efficient way, they're considered to be coherent.

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So, when an individual cultivates heart coherence, what that means is that if you were to trace the heart rate over time.

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You would see a very specific signature of the heart rate, where it's like a sinusoidal rhythm, where the heart will increase in rate for a while, and then it will decrease, and then eventually it will start increasing again until it begins to decrease again.

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And that is a reflection of the autonomic nervous system.

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The beautiful balance between the autonomic… sorry, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic arms. And so this is called coherence.

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And the reason why this is so powerful, and just to say, that coherent state is cultivated when we sustain a deep

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Sense, an emotion of gratitude, or compassion, love, kindness.

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you know, and HeartMath has done amazing work around this, and they call it these, you know, energy-renewing emotions. And indeed, it does increase your energy. I mean, you can feel it if you're practicing this, but we can measure this heart tracing, and

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what happens is that this heart, this nice, beautiful rhythm, helps the brain get into sync with the heart. So now, your brain waves and your heart rate variability, they're synchronized, and so it's called heart-brain entrainment. They get phase-locked.

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And then they can feed into each other, and they can grow, you know, grow in strength and in amplitude. And eventually, if you think about your body and all the organs in your body as different musicians in a symphony of life, they all tune in to the conductor, the heart.

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Because it's in this nice, beautiful rhythm. So, in that state of coherence.

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The way that your brain functions, it's optimized.

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You know, so, you know, not to get too deep into the science, but what happens is when you're… when you provide this coherent information from the heart to the brain, it allows the brain to function on a more globally coherent

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fashion with all of its different parts, and it allows the prefrontal cortex to stay in charge of the limbic

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reptilian brain, so now the reptilian brain can't just hijack your brain when you get stressed out. Your prefrontal cortex is constantly now surveying the information that's coming in, either externally or internally.

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And can better modulate what is a threat and what's not a threat.

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So all of this now helps people to stay more regulated, more in control, more aware.

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you know, because once you're stressed out, something happens. People, I'm sure, recognize those moments where they just… they forget things, or they get clumsy, or things just don't seem to go their way, as opposed to just being in the flow of life, where you're just like, you know, you're just in love with what you're doing, and you're in that

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Sense of, you know, you're doing it in service of others, and… So, that…

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Difference between incoherence versus coherence has a drastic impact on the way that we feel.

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and also our entire body. Now, where this comes into play with compassion is that, again, the research shows that if you

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cultivate that inner state of self-compassion and kindness, and you cultivate coherence, and then you direct that intention to somebody else. That other individual will also begin to get into a coherent state.

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And their nervous systems, they synchronize. So it's as if their nervous system…

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I'm gonna jump in there, Mitch, because anyone listening going, Hang on a minute.

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if I go into a coherent state, and I know we're going to talk about how we can recognise we're in that, and I direct that to someone else.

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they will mirror me, am I correct in…

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They can marry you. They can. They can.

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Now, obviously, it will depend on the situation, you know, how stressed out that person is, how attuned they are, but I think people would recognize that

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People would have experiences where you're at a party or in a boardroom, and you can feel somebody as they walk in.

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So, what are you experiencing? You're experiencing someone's energy, and you have to appreciate that the…

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the heart has electricity running through it, you know, electrocardiogram. So, anything with electricity running through it also radiates monetic fields.

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So, the… the patterns of the heart rate

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That's going up to someone's brain, literally resonating through the body, is also being distributed out into the environment, radiating through the monetic field.

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And other people's hearts.

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are listening.

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they are impacted. So the studies have shown that if you're, you know, let's say you're doing rounds, or you're working with students, and you begin to practice, you know, you start your class with 5 minutes of heart coherence, if somebody walks into your class, even if they don't have a clue about heart coherence.

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The studies have shown that they can get pulled in because you're… everyone's hearts are creating a coherent, local field network environment. And somebody's heart, you know, being immersed in that field.

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will be pulled into Coherence.

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Now, dating back to the 60s, I believe it was the Journal of American Medical Association, they showed that a 30-minute

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Visit before a surgery.

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Just to engage in compassion, not even to discuss anything, you know, about the procedure, but just to have that compassionate connection.

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resulted in up to 50% less opioid use post-op, and a statistically significant decrease in length of stay. Wow. And so, I mean, and there's many studies showing, you know, these things that show that, wow, compassion is

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so powerful. It is absolutely and energetically founded that… and it amazes me that, you know.

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More… there should be so much more work around bringing our healthcare systems up to speed around this science to adjust the burnout, the compassion fatigue, and improve patient care.

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So many things coming to mind, this is fantastic. And I had an image as you were talking about

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you know, the classroom, practicing a 10 minute, someone walks in and gets pulled into that. And I'm thinking, we've got so much research, too, in the attachment field of.

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You know, if mum's regulated holding a baby, we've got decades of research showing that the coherence there between mum and baby, or parent, caregiver, and holding baby, and baby being distressed, but then

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being pulled in, that if mum's regulated, whoever's holding baby's regulated. We have research outside of this field that shows the exact same… to me, the principle that's at play here.

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It begs the question, Mitch, and I really want to get into it, because anyone listening is going, yep, okay, yep, I'm on board.

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Right, what do we do?

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Come on, let's unpack a little bit. What can you give us? Anyone's listening going, okay, I'm on board.

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I want to learn, I want to apply this to myself, maybe those buckets.

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Tell us what you teach, maybe, people that are new to this. How can we become aware that we're practicing a compassion exercise, or even…

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maybe incoherence. How do we know the brain and heart, in that… you use the word flow, I love that… that word, because I think of the Navy SEALs that practice this and things like… how do we know we're there?

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You know, that's a great question.

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There's a certain level of… self-awareness that we can develop. Everybody can develop, and…

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And not to say that it's a final destination, I don't think it's like a 0 and a one, and we turn it on. I think this is where that growth factor, and we can cultivate, just like compassion, we can continue to cultivate high levels of compassion. I don't think there's any end to it.

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And so, to your point, I think the inner experience of practice Opens the door to people's…

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inner experience. And as you become accustomed to that inner experience, then you have a higher level of awareness, and

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You know, I do a lot of teaching and curriculum around the heart.

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And one of the key…

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first steps is just understanding how the heart works, and understanding that your heart really is like a technology. It's so much more than a pump. It's a high technology that we can learn to activate. And I think the moment we become aware that we have a tool in a toolbox.

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That's half the battle.

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The other half, then, is can we practice enough, even if it's on a daily routine, where when we find ourselves in a challenging moment during our day, that we know that, oh, I have a heart, and I can activate it?

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And because this is, you know, one of the things that we teach is a very specific protocol, we call it the laser protocol. So, lock on, synchronize, and then radiate and receive.

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When you practice it, You can then

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And you're acquainted with the technique, just like any muscle, you can actually, within a single breath.

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activate your heart in the heat of the moment. I mean, I could be doing it right now. Let's say you asked me a really difficult question, I'm like, well, where am I gonna say all that? You know, you can literally just find yourself dropping into the heart, and then, from your heart space, engage. And…

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it might sound, you know, for some people, this might sound really intuitive, for some people, it may sound very foreign, but again, the magic is in the practice. The moment you practice this heart-centered technique, within a very short amount of time, you begin to recognize that something is there.

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And, of course, it's a process. It opens up a journey. And, you know, I recognize it within my own experience.

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things, I would say, really magical, begin to unfold, because you begin to experience passion and purpose in life, and it opens something within you. But just to say that

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It's always available to people, particularly in challenging times, and it's through the practice that we can get acquainted with it, you know, with our hearts.

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And certainly.

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for all of everyone here listening on the show, you know, everyone's welcome at 6 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday to Friday. We are delivering Heart Coherence, so there's communities coming together.

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Committed to self-care, but we're also recognizing our shared humanity.

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And…

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part of this, you know, I… you know, part of the education, just to really simplify it, I've created this toolkit, and one of the first tools is this lens, where

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In this lens is the geometry, and when you see the world through this lens, it… everything aligns so that you begin to recognize yourself as energy, you begin to see how your energy is connected to others and to the world, and perhaps even to something much greater than yourself.

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And then, through that lens of connection, we provide you with this laser protocol so that you can then activate and tap into that energy and activate your heart.

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That's fantastic, and we'll have all those details below in case anyone does want to jump on afterwards, just in case you're out walking or, driving, whatever it might be.

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When you were talking about

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the brain connecting into the heart, everything synchronizing these practices, and you used an analogy of, like, an orchestra. Every other system in the body starts to listen in, and, you know, I'm thinking immune system, digestive system, everything then, and obviously, perhaps, you know.

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better health is an outcome, or a calmer regulation in those moments where stressful life still happens, that kind of thing, because everything's synchronized.

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I've had moments in my life where I've felt that happen. I've had a

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if I, think back, I was in a musical orchestra as part of the church. I was quite young, I was probably only 13 or 14, but I was part of a… and it's just one of those moments that you think back, and…

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we were just playing really well that day, so I'm on the keyboard, I've got the guitarist, I've got the singer, and everything, I'm not joking, was

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seamless. No one made a mistake. We were in flow at some level. I had no idea what we were doing, but…

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the joy that I walked away from that particular, you know, musical experience…

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for the rest of the day, it was… I look back now with the knowledge that I have and what I've done with my own, kind of, education and gone, wow, that really was a moment there where there was something else at play.

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Is that kind of what you're talking about, Mitch? That… I can't say I've had those many times that I've tried to replicate it. Maybe it was like a meditative state, maybe it was just…

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an absolute synchrony. Music was part of it. We were all just on… on our game that day.

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Like, is that what you're talking about with…

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The synchrony that happens, or the symphony within us.

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Yes, absolutely. So… so the research shows that musicians playing together, their energies synchronize. And in fact.

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the performers and the audience members cultivate this energetic connection. So, to your point.

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You know, as a musician, you feel that deep sense of connection.

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You go to a music concert, there's something special, you just feel this energy, you're part of something, you know, and you're immersed in this energetic field, and there is heart rate synchrony that takes place. And just so, you know, just to kind of…

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take it one step further. In the workplace, the research shows that when heart rate synchrony occurs between team members.

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that is the highest predictive value that that team is going to come to the right answer when dealing with, you know, problems. Wow. So… so…

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the collective intelligence emerges when we're in that state. That creative state, you know, is part of that heart rate synchrony, and music

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does transfer… it's a mode to be able to transfer energy and connect, create that energetic bridge between members and audience members. Yeah.

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It's powerful. It's one that I've kind of pondered over my life and kind of thought, oh, wow, I was quite young, but…

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yeah, something happened that day, and just the joy that I felt afterwards, I'm like, wow, that was really interesting. So now it makes a lot more sense with the knowledge that we do have about all these functions in the body. And I know, too, we have technology that

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allows us to even… I'm a really big fan of biofeedback, even in the client space, showing a client, when you do these practices.

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Here's what's happening, maybe that's at a breathing rate, maybe heart rate variability is being measured.

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Are there tools that are easily accessible if someone wanted to start to recognise that they were reaching these states, even through a simple breathing practice?

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Absolutely. So, in the toolkit, so just so people are, you know, totally transparent, I am a HeartMath certified trainer. I don't have any affiliation or, you know, financial ties.

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But in our toolkit, we… one of the tools is the HeartMath Global Coherence app.

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That's available for free, and it actually turns your phone into a real-time biofeedback tool, where you put your finger on the back of the, you know, where the camera is, and it will

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read your heart in real time, and you'll be able to watch your heart rate variability change from moment to moment, and you can, you know, practice and track your progress over time. Now, what's unique about this tool is that

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It also measures the collective coherence.

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So, as part of the work that we're doing.

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And in the toolkit, there's something called the Global Heart Sync.

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And it's in the, you know, the beginning stages right now, but essentially, it's a hub for people and for communities and community leaders to come together, where they'll be supported with the tools to provide coherence for their communities.

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And as you practice, yes, you can maximize your self-care practice, because you're tracking, you know, you're tracking your data, but now you're also earning points.

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And your points are being pulled together. So as a collective, we can now reach milestones that will unlock sponsorships. So we get rewards. So now it's a gamified approach to the science of the heart, and that's… these sponsorships and rewards

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will help us deliver more mental health and resilience programs for communities in need and in schools. So now, we're drawing a link

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Between self-care and community impact, and social impact.

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We gamify the process, and it's a program where now people can begin to witness this emergence of, like, a global heartbeat, or a global heart stream.

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And I believe this begins to reframe that conversation where it's a you versus me, to say, no, no, wait a second, just like the trillions of cells in our, you know, in your body, in everyone's body, you know.

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Working together as a global ecosystem, creating you, well, you, me, and everybody listening on this, you know, to this podcast, everyone in the world, we are all part of a global ecosystem. And now we can now measure a global heartbeat.

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And I think with music and art, now you can begin to celebrate the heartbeat. We can celebrate this new era of awareness, a new era of consciousness, perhaps.

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And I think this is how we need to move forward.

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in this moment of such social discord, we need platforms to be able to help us recognize the power of our own hearts and our relationships to each other. Yeah.

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Oh, Mitch, I just feel so happy talking to you. Like, just… I don't know if anyone's listening in, just picking up on, you know, even…

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online via, you know, our worldwide internet connection. There's something about this space, and I don't know, it just brings me happiness, which probably leads me to, you know, wrapping up our last question.

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What brings you the most hope? Like, you've been in the middle of the traditional medical setting, you've embraced these

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ancient, long-known tools in, you know, parallel with technology that's emerged and been developed, certainly now in the world of AI.

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And NextGen Health, I think, is doing such a wonderful job, like you say, at a worldwide ecosystem level, but what brings you the most hope? What are you witnessing in your space?

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So, I'll answer it in two parts.

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The first part is…

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you know, the energy that I feel when people begin to see, the moment they receive these lenses, and they begin to see how they

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Their potential. I can… it's so…

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It's so palpable how they are embracing and are inspired by it.

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And from a medical perspective, you know, working with patients, like, this… it really matters, and I think anytime that knowledge is being provided.

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in order for it to be truly practical, it has to land with people, and I can see how, you know.

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how it affects people at a deep level. So that's…

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one aspect that I feel is very inspiring.

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The other level is…

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there are, you know, I mean, I've been at this for a little bit of a while now, and I am now being introduced into conversations at a very high level, where

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you know, and unfortunately, I'm just not… I'm not, at liberty to say specifically at this moment, but…

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If you could just imagine, imagine if…

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millions of people could tune in to this conversation all at the same time. Wow. Where, you know, and begin to recognize, see patterns in Mother Nature, and see patterns in themselves, recognize there's a global heartbeat, and

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And these people are deep into the music.

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Scene. And now, you know, in festivals.

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You can begin to see, wait a second, this is how a world can pivot.

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Because, you know, from the ground up, because ultimately, I just have a belief that 99% of the global population does not want war.

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I don't believe people want to fight and kill. I think people are sick and tired of billions of dollars being spent to train people to kill as opposed to heal. And I think there's gonna come a moment where this consciousness is going to land

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In people's hearts.

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millions of people at a time, and it's gonna happen in a very short amount of time, and I think that can spark the heart of humanity.

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And you create a renaissance approach where you're leveraging the power of music, art, science, and technology to redefine understanding of self.

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Each other and the world.

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Wow, I can't wait till you announce that. Whatever that might be. And I was listening to something… a friend sent it to me, you know, on one of the social media platforms, just a woman talking about, kind of, you know, the whole concept of

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what already exists out there. You might call it manifestation or otherwise, but the whole concept being

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If you've already thought about it, it already exists. And I'm like, that's what we need to keep remembering. You've already thought about it, the conversation's already happened, it already exists.

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So, on that note, because anyone listening in might be like, I want to join the Heart Coherence session, so those details are below, everybody. If you do want to join, if you do want to be part of, obviously, learning this toolkit, all of Mitch's details are below as well, and the TEDx talks are there too, well worth those 18 minutes of your time, just to kind of, you know, learn a little bit more about this.

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Mitch, this has been such a wonderful conversation, and you've come to me through a very dear colleague of mine, Dr. Lauren Brown, who, of course, is here on our podcast as well, and just people like yourself doing this amazing… I don't feel like that's the right word, but

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Groundbreaking, phenomenal. I need a thesaurus.

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The work that you're doing We want to spread that message, that people do realize and come to

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Be aware of those buckets, like you say. But the science that intersects with

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the body systems and what we've learned all of these decades later, but what we already knew. And that comes right back to where you started, which is we already know.

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We do know, we just have to access it again. I just want to say thank you, just from, you know… Thank you.

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Thank you so much. It was a great, great conversation. And, you know, just to say, since you brought up manifestation and Lauren Brown, one of the last… so I was on Lauren's

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podcast, and we had a whole conversation around manifestation, and we were sharing each other's examples, so just thought I would share that with you.

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He's fabulous. And I've chatted to him many, many times myself about the same concepts, because, yeah, we all share a common kind of, you know, interest in these topics.

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This has been amazing. I really can't wait to see what NextGen Health does in the future, and we'll certainly keep everyone updated. All those details are below. We hope you've enjoyed this conversation, everybody, and Mitch, thank you so much for being my guest today.

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My pleasure, thank you.

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We'll look forward to seeing you again, everyone, on another episode of The Fourth Wave in Therapy.

Websites

• https://nexgenhealth.solutions/dr-mitchabrams/ 
• https://ccare.stanford.edu/act-person/dr-mitchell-abrams/

Free Resources

A Free 18-Day LaSeRR Challenge - https://nexgenhealth.solutions/laserr-challenge/ 

Free live heart coherence sessions (weekly) https://mitchell-abrams.mykajabi.com/Links-to-live-group-heart-coherence-sessions 

TEDx Talks

TEDx - Sparking the Heart of Humanity - https://youtu.be/2QvnejQaN1A?si=vNMSwsxtkopRFqhQ

TEDx - The Medicine of Frequencies. What did Einstein mean? - https://youtu.be/JGxWT4EUVbs?si=B9ZSgPM3SSpIL_oC 

Socials 

Instagram:  @Dr.Mitch.Abrams

Facebook:  @NexGenHealth.solutions

Facebook Group: https://bit.ly/NexGenHealth-FB-Community 

LinkedIn URL: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/drmitchellabrams

Youtube Channel: bit.ly/YouTubeNexGenHealth

Twitter:  @DrMitchAbrams1