welcome and thank you for joining us. You're listening to the Beyond 50 radio program. I'm Daniel Davis. As we approach midlife, many of us begin to doubt the possibility that we can actually co-create our lives into a magnificent, wonderful journey, bringing us all the wonder that it brings. You know, we've made a lot of mistakes, and the thing is, sometimes we live in the past, and then we use that past to basically create our future, and we're not happy about that either. So what is it we need to do? Well, there are many books out there that tell us to try to be in the present moment the best way that we can, and that we have a multitude of choices when we can bring ourselves to that point. Joining us here on the Beyond 50 radio program today is a marvelous guest who is an internationally respected leader in the field of conscious living and inner transformation. He also likes to work with dream work, and that is a magnificent thing if people can learn how to utilize this underutilized tool.

the book is Inside-Out Healing: Transforming Your Life Through the Power of Presence, and our guest today is Dr. Richard Moss. Richard, thank you for joining us here on the Beyond 50 Radio Program. Well, I'm very happy to be with you, and I am beyond 50. Now, tell our listening audience how you got started in this work. Well, I'm going to just speak right from my own life. I've been a very active man. I've been a mountaineer. I've been over on my own feet over 22,000 feet. I've been a bicyclist, um, skier, surfer, and I, you know, I don't surf very much anymore. I bicycle plenty. I don't rock climb anymore, still mountaineer for about four months to go. Um, after heavy heavy bags, I got trapped on the Paris Metro with my companion and Elisa. No elevators, no escalators. I hauled these heavy bags up, did in my back, went for a bike ride about a week later.

and I haven't been able to walk more than 100 yards stand longer than three minutes since then over four months. And the point I want to make is it's uh, I have had all my schedule. I've been busy. I've seen doctors. I know what I probably have to do. I've been trying to heal this on my own, but what an incredible opportunity to ride through airports in wheelchairs and have these people assisting me and and to discover that I'm not in the slightest bit dependent for happiness or well-being on being able to get out on the golf course or be able to get out on the skis to be able to go hiking in the mountains. That even though I haven't been outdoors in nature other than a backyard or a friend's garden in these oh four and a half months now because I haven't set a think. I believed a single thought about who I used to be and and that maybe I'll never be able to live that way again because I haven't considered

outside in nature better than being in an airport or being on a train, or being in a car, or being in a friend's house, or my house, because each moment is what it is. I find I'm even more relaxed, spacious, happy than I was when I had complete physical flexibility and freedom. And so I had this experience in the past where I was severely injured in an accident and immobilized for a couple of weeks, and all I could do was love. So that's what I did. It just takes a gesture, it takes a word, it takes just moving my hand and laying it on the hand of a friend near me. I found that even though my body was suffering and profoundly limited in certain times because I don't believe if thought my mind tells me about who I was or what the future will be because I don't make a single judgment. This is after, you know, you know, I, this is my practice, this is what I teach, this is what I practice because I don't judge me and say I'm not, I'm not alive like I used to be.

or um or or when my when my partner Annalisa goes out for one of her hikes that she did today up a gorgeous trail in the in the Rocky Mountains near right right just up the road from where we live i'm just happy for her and so my message when you say how do you get started it started by realizing that the present moment is all you've ever had and all you'll ever have and that there are only four ways you leave the present moment and that's when the mind takes you into thoughts about the past thoughts about the future and they're basically not thoughts their interpretations and judgments thoughts about yourself and thoughts about everyone and everything else including the nursing home or the neighbor or the Republicans or the Democrats or the Muslims or the any anything you want to name if you judge it you you are judged not by some court in the cosmic ethers you're judged because the moment you say you don't care about me or you're you're a stupid

bastard, you know your brain and your endocrine system is secreting neurotransmitters, neuropeptides that are shutting down your blood vessels, raising your blood pressure, increasing your heart rate, smothering your breathing, putting stress hormones through you. It happens with every single thought. So, the majority of people have no idea how healthy they'd be if they would just live in the present moment. Most people have a taste of it in athletics, but they don't know how to do it in a family process. They don't know how to do it with their children. They don't know how to do it when there's a difference of opinion about how things should be with a spouse. They don't know how to do it in work. They don't know how to do it when they read the newspaper. We're filled with these constant thoughts, we believe them, and they mess with us. We're the victims of our minds instead of really gifted at using our minds. You talk in your book about when we are

used by our thinking, and that is so true. And it's interesting how you can say something to someone, and they respond through a filter, a preconceived idea about what you mean, and you're not in the present moment when that happens. No, not at all. And first of all, who, who are we listening to, right? You think that person over there is your husband, your wife, your sister, your brother, your son, your daughter, or your co-worker. That person over there is a total, absolute other. And if you look at them through the filter of your psychology, how your parents raised you, your mother's um way of being, her personality, her character, your father's personality and character, all the things that imprint us early on, then you don't see another human being out there that's other, you see a projection of your own psychology. And so one of the simplest practices of all is to imagine that your ears are in your heart, and your heart is bigger than the room you're in. And if someone is really upset and angry at you, then you got to

let your heart be maybe as big as the neighborhood. Maybe as big as the city. You have to visualize, you know, what last time you were up on a mountain and you had a big grand view. Or you looked out across the ocean. So you just, you have to literally visualize you have a great big heart. Your ears are in your heart and you are listening to someone who is totally other. And as soon as you can allow another human being to be other, you stop reacting to what they say. And you stop projecting on them, which comes out of your own internal dynamics that are unconscious. And you start hearing and seeing people unique and different and who they are. And then you can see the commonality in all the things we're all afraid of. Like it's not a question of getting old. It's a question of the stories you tell yourself about getting old. Had a woman the other day say to me, Oh, one of her most scary stories is because I ask people, you know, what do you tell yourself that ruins your life?

and they don't realize they're doing that. She thought about it for a while. Um, in my retreats, this is part of the work we do all the time, she said. Well, I'm afraid I won't have enough money for a dignified old age. And I looked at it, yeah, and I said to her, okay. And the moment you have that thought, what happens to you? Her eyes went up, which means she was thinking. I said, no, no, don't think about it. Go into your body. When you say to yourself, I'm not going to have enough money to have a dignified old age, what does your body do? She says, oh, my heart's beating faster. My chest feels like there's a weight on it. My stomach is churning. I feel anxious. I feel scared. And I said, well, that's your thought doing that to you right now in this absolutely perfect present moment. And I know, I know people, and myself included due to choices I purposely and consciously made, I've accepted a much, much simpler life financially, and I'm so

happy to have done so. I came through a divorce years ago where my wife got most of everything. So that I wasn't going to be responsible to support her forever. So I walked away with nothing or almost nothing. And with what I could that I had and what I could make. I ended up in a home a fifth the size of the one we had together. And I've been totally happy. Because if you say this isn't this house isn't grand enough, you're miserable. If you say I used to have, you know, marble countertops and now I just have four mike accounts, you're unhappy. Why even bother with any of those thoughts? Why would you ever want to poison this moment? And we all live in a temple given to us by whatever you want to believe. God, creation, mystery, miracle. Why would you want to poison your temple? His body is precious. You know, we live in such a fascinating society when you're allowed. When you allow yourself to step outside of what's happening within the context, especially

in the united states, you know, and I always suggest to people, if you can do anything to really change your thinking, stop watching so much television, especially the news. Stop reading newspapers, and certainly, you get bombarded quite a bit at the checkout line at the grocery store with magazines that showcase the Kardashians, for instance. You know, and try to show you that, well, you know, this is their life and it's better than the one you have, and you can barely afford the groceries that you may have at the checkout line. And you say to yourself, you know, they're probably right. Now, I myself, I've done a lot of studying into this over the last three to four years, and it became fascinating as the truth emerged about what really happens. And that is that we live in a society that keeps us in a perpetual state of aggravation, and it's through that aggravation that these clever advertisers find ways to sell their stuff to us. And once I became aware of that, it started getting, you know, easier for me to

be more and more in this present moment because i finally caught what was going on, and there was a marvelous guy out of Washington who actually talked a lot about subliminal suggestion, and he says it is very, very real. This is what's really going on, and you'd be amazed just how often in pictures and in words and in broadcasting and television and the like, how often that's happening. But once you become aware of it, it has no effect on you anymore, and he was so right about that. Now, you talk about the ego in your book, you know, and how it tries to protect itself by making you feel that what you say is so real. Now, what are some of the steps people can take starting today, listening to this program, to begin to move into the power of now? You know, seems like a vast question. It is a vast question. It's actually a very simple process. So, he said to you, Hood and menuen. So, what would you say to people who want to be able to play the violin?

like you do. And you know what he'd say, you pick up a violin and practice, practice, practice. Well, Yehudi Menuhin practices an average of four hours a day, some days as much as seven, six or seven days a week, and has done so since childhood. Um, I know that for a fact, and I know. So what I would say to people is don't even bother listening for another minute if you want a quick fix. There ain't no such thing. You are more. Every person listening to us is already a master at the level of Yehudi Menuhin, or the level of Michael Jordan, or the level of any great athlete. They've put in tens of thousands of hours to practice a specific thing. Every other human being on the planet has put in tens of thousands of hours since about the age of five or six years old when the ego is fully constellated, believing your thoughts, believing every thought through your head. She doesn't care about me, I'm not as smart, I'm smarter, she's prettier, I'm more loyal. I mean, thought

after thought, after thought, we are masters of believing our thoughts. And if you're in thought, you're not in your body, and you're not in the now. And if you're in thought, what you experience in your body is the arousal of sensation. The sensations we give labels to like anger, guilt, envy, jealousy, you call that aggravation. But you know, that aggravation comes from you saying, I want the world to be different than it is. Aggravation doesn't come from subliminal advertising. Subliminal advertising tells you, Here, have a Cadillac, and then you'll be happier, or Eat this, and you'll be happier, or Buy this dress, and you'll be happier. But that's not true. None of those things make you happy, or if they do, only for seconds. So if a person wants to get started right now and they're serious, well, for me, this is my life work. I'm 6, almost 7 years old. I've been practicing this every day of my life for more than 40 years.

so they can go read my book inside out healing transforming your life to the power of presence. They can go to my website, which is richardmoss.com, and get the free e-course. And they can go and look at centering and meditation videos, short ones that I have on my YouTube channel. And I'm just one teacher. I've taught in 17 different countries. I've taught all over the world. But they're listening to me now. They're listening to you and me now. So they have, you know, you have to decide. You're going to start. You're going to have, you have to decide, I want to wake up when I'm making a judgment of myself. Stop it right now and take this breath and take four or five or six more breaths and let your mind get quiet. Become aware of every sound, every sensation instead of focusing on a problem and getting narrow. Let your mind stay expansive. And if you stay expansive when you focus on a problem, you're going to get wonderful insights and new ideas about

how to address that problem. If you narrow around the problem, you're going to get scared and anxious and hurried, and there won't be enough time, and you'll get even desperate. So the practice is come back to the present moment, come back to your body, come back to this breath, come back to these perceptions. You ask yourself the question, what is actually happening now, and then you listen because you have sensation, you're breathing, your heart's beating, maybe there's a breeze that you can feel on your skin. I'm looking out at my backyard, and there's lots of green plants. I can hear the work on the house that is being built just across the other side of my property. There's clouds in the sky. So that's how you do it. You come back, you take a piece of paper, and you write these words, Who I really am begins right now, and you put that on your kitchen counter or kitchen, you know, cupboard. You put that on your refrigerator. You put it on your bathroom mirror. You put it on your bedside table.

you put it everywhere so you go who I am begins right now. I am not who I think I am, not the stories I tell myself about the future. I am not the story about who I was as a child, as a young woman, as a young man. I'm not who I believe I was because of how my parents lived. All of that's imagination. We now know that memory operates at a part of the brain. It's constantly in an imaginative mode, so our ability to actually remember, let's say a fight in the kitchen when you were 14 between your mom and dad, you've reimagined it a thousand times. Now if you're 50 or 60 years old, maybe you've imagined it 10,000 times. But each time you reimagine it, you reimagine it similar but slightly different. And if you're happy, you won't reimagine it. If you're unhappy, you'll reimagine it if it supports you staying unhappy. So we choose, the brain selects the

memories that support the mood of the moment and and dismisses all evidence that would contradict the mood of the moment. Like the times when your parents were happy with each other and the times where they held each other and the times they came back radiant from a vacation. No, it's the depressive part of us that wants to remember when they fought and and we reimagined that it's actually. We don't know for sure that that's actually what happened. Everybody believes their memories, but you shouldn't because they they are reimagined and they're not accurate. And there's a lot of research that proves this. What I'm talking about that we we are unable to one year later describe a very powerful situation that we we filled in a questionnaire about at the same time. Specifically when the Challenger exploded, some 300 students filled out a questionnaire within an hour to asking you know where were you, how did you hear about it, how did you feel, who are you with, how did you.

know how you know what happened between you and the others as you learned about this and so on and then a year later those same students filled out the exact same questionnaire. The only relationship between what they had filled out a year before and a year later was that there was no correlation. They remembered it completely different. And here's what's so amazing. When they were asked, when they were put in front of them, here's what you wrote a year ago hours after the Challenger exploded. Here's what you wrote now a year later. Which one's more true? And they said, the one I just wrote. The one I just wrote is more true. They have the ability to fill in more of the story itself. Not they, everybody, you, me, everybody. The story you tell yourself about your mom and dad today is the one you think is true. It probably has almost no resemblance to what actually happened 40, 50, 60 years ago between your parents, you know, or what you remember. All it does is build the way you feel right now. It gets it arouses the emotion.

that's in you right now. If you want to be a victim, you look for the memories that support you being a victim. If you want to be free, you don't even bother with those memories. You know, I was talking with Dr. Joe Dispenza about his newest book, and it was interesting because that's so true. Your reality outside of you is a direct reflection of what's going on inside of yourself, and you will look for evidence outside of yourself to support how you're feeling on the inside. And there was an interesting guest on a radio program I was listening to just a few weeks ago who more or less said the same thing. He says, Well, you know, people don't watch the news because they want to get information. What they watch the news for is to support the beliefs they believe in the moment. You know, that's an interesting point of view. It's actually very accurate. Until you learn to center yourself in the present moment in your body, in your body independent of arousal caused by external stimuli or, and specifically, um, let's say the noise.

of the heads that are talking on TV. Until you know that to live in your body in the now is what the kingdom of heaven really means, then all you're going to do is look for confirmation of your own sense of uh. The world screwed or the Republicans. They're going to save us or the Democrats. Their big government's going to kill us or big government's what we need or the liberal point of view. It doesn't make any difference. You just find the evidence to support your point of view. And that's actually been documented. Also, studies have shown that when people are shown information and then shown facts that contradict the information. And these are educated people. These are college graduates. Not stupid people or undeveloped people. There's a lot of other people that didn't go to college that are pretty pretty smart. So, I don't mean. I just at least intellectually intellect-wise developed people. If they hear some information on television that doesn't support their political persuasion and their beliefs about the medical establishment or their beliefs.

about islam or their beliefs about jews or their beliefs about the church. They will, no matter how you show them that it's factual, they will say it's not factual. So we even are incapable of using facts to change these kinds of orientations inside of us, which is why true transformation and turning yourself into an unconditionally loving person is very hard work and requires the kind of practice I was talking about. You have to practice being aware of every single thought that goes through your head, feeling in your body what it does to you, and putting it away because those thoughts, you don't need those thoughts to make money in business. Those are the thoughts that actually make you less intuitive. You don't need those thoughts for love to flower in your family. Those kinds of thoughts are what cut or diminish the relational field between people and make intimacy more difficult and connection and linkage more difficult. So you have to practice, and you know, Europeans have a little bit more of a

sense that things are worth, you know, practicing. America, we've been, we've been marketing, for example, anti-depression drugs. There hasn't been a single breakthrough. I'm speaking now as an informed physician because I study this. There hasn't been a single major breakthrough in 40 to 50 years in anti-depressive drugs. The side effects of the drugs are often worse than the disease. They do help some people occasionally, but the vast majority of people, it's not much above placebo effect. And yet we're marketing our drugs all over the world. Japan used to have a tradition for at around the age of 45 to 55, people went into what we call a midlife crisis. Here, they went into a natural depressive cycle. The unlived parts of themselves would come forward and ask for some space, at least to be felt. Because, you know, when you raise a family and you have a career and you work hard, so much you have of you is unlived. You sacrifice it for the needs of

the family or the needs of keeping a roof over your head. Sooner or later, every healthy person needs to feel depression. Every healthy person needs depression. I agree with that 100 percent. And they act like it's something where we're supposed to be perpetually happy all the time. And my feeling is, if you don't feel sad, if you don't feel depressed, if you don't feel anger and fear every once in a while, how are you gonna know how good it feels to really be happy? So everything comes as pairs of opposites, heaven and hell, the heavenly and the blissful and the ecstatic with the awful and the dark and the threatening and the abysmal. You can't separate one from the other. There's no such thing as. And you're only as enlightened as the fear you can make a home for in yourself. I remember a wonderful guest I had, Marlice Carlin, said in her book, when you talk about all these different things, whether it's anger, fear, depression, happiness, sadness.

any of those things when you can get to a place where all of that is good. Then you're at the right place. And I thought you know it's really interesting that bad or good, it's all good because there's always something to be gained from it. Well, you're alive, that's right. Pain is your friend, it lets you know you are still alive. Well, I started this conversation with you saying four and a half months ago I lost the ability to be mobile after having had a very, very active life and loving physicality. Four and a half months ago I could do 130 push-ups in two minutes. I could have passed much of the Navy SEALs test at the age of 65. Not the running, not anymore, that not the heavy lifting but the climbing, the push-ups, the sit-ups, the pull-ups, all of that. And I haven't been able to do a single one of those things. Pull-ups I can do but nothing else since then because of my back and hip. So what I did those things you know there were

years ago there were years when i meditated four hours a day. and you get into extraordinary states of consciousness. so what this you know this present moment. the awareness of this present moment is the deeper truth. and you have to find a relationship with fear. a creative relationship or with loneliness. you have to you have to find a way that it doesn't close your heart. you have to find a way that it doesn't make yourself involved. self-inv fear plus self-involvement is probably the worst disease on the planet. cancer doesn't come close. fear plus self-involvement leads to greed. leads to corruption. leads to selfishness. it leads to cruelty. it leads to brutality. you know if you decide that you want to be a human being who's not going to be turned into a self-involved person because you're anxious or because you're lonely or because your body doesn't work the way it used to work then you're on a good path. you know i was just thinking about that.

particular uh piece about that. It's all good because it was a part of your book that really stood out for me, and I thought, you know, as you said, This is the kingdom of heaven, uh just a few moments ago, that I thought, This is exactly what this short little paragraph is from your book 'Inside Out Healing' - to taste a moment of pure awareness and know yourself as neither the happy nor unhappy person, as neither the weak nor strong person. This is freedom. It is the birthplace of wisdom, a place where you can be surprised by love and life's beauty. It is a place of awakening where any psychological wound can heal. And I thought, That is exactly what the gift is there. Oh, thank you for reading that. And I have the privilege of having started out as a practicing medical doctor and seeing that I was more called to the suffering, the emotional suffering, the kind of error that we make with our misuse of our minds. And I went down that path, and now

years later, I've worked with every kind of unhappiness, and people can change. People can grow profoundly, and that's really, really important. And people want to. There's something inside of us that's just hungering for deeper intimacy with life, you know, greater closeness with others. So, I get to spend my life helping people, helping their relationships. I see people privately, I see couples over Skype, I do retreats all over the world, and the people keep coming. Not that I'm, you know, attracting massive amounts of people, but the people keep coming just because they've read my books, for word of mouth, because there's something inside of them that says, I know I can be more. And for me, this is my practice. I have no idea how open-hearted, you know, I can be as I go through whatever life is going to bring. I just will keep seeing what's possible. I know that I don't want to let a single thought close my heart, and I know that no matter what I'm feeling.

that passes like weather and not to believe a single thing my mind tells me when there's a dark. When there's a storm inside it passes like weather and it always does just when you think of you're at your worst and you think it's going to go on forever. The fact is just around the corner. You do see the sunshine and there was an interesting piece of advice that I had heard from someone uh just recently actually and they were talking about how we have these storms and they said that's a time when you should reflect. That's when that's the time when you should look back on your past and remember those times that you were having a rough time turmoil or a storm and ask yourself how did you get out of those things and that's the only time you should be reflecting and so that way you can realize that it's very possible and definite that you're going to get out of this one and that's pretty encouraging I would think. Yeah I think that kind of

self-reflection is really important. and i wouldn't say how did i get out of it. i would say how do i want to dance with it this time. you know did last time you know. so many people get out of it by being workaholics. so many people get out of it by having a double martini. so you know. so many people get out of it by just dosing themselves with something that stops them from having to really feel. but the real. the real question is what kind of human being do you want to be before you die. i mean. who. who do you really truly admire. if you want to know what your soul considers sacred. look. ask yourself what makes you cry. not tears of helplessness or tears of self-misery. what makes you cry tears of what i call recognition. tears of joy. inspiration when you see someone being courageous. when love triumphs in the end over over selfishness. when. when a. when a person who's in a wheelchair learns learns to teach other people how to ski.

after she's learned to ski on a on a single ski. I know um it's what kind of human being do you want to be. What brings tears to your eyes pay attention because that's the kind of human being you want to be. Who do you really admire. Is it Steve Jobs or is it Nelson Mandela. Is it Martin Luther King. Is it Abraham Lincoln. Is it is it Madame Curie. Is it Mother Teresa. Who do you really really admire um and and when you see who you admire truly um then you know whether your soul is just kind of in service to fear and what you want is more more things more more more more house more car more money more savings you know or is it is your life about about consciousness because if you have consciousness you need almost nothing. I mean this moment this breath this life this is incredibly delicious and you don't need a thing other than the capacity to be present for it. I have no idea what happens in when the mind starts to go.

mine hasn't yet happily, but if it does, then something else, something else comes forward. Had a friend that watched an old man who had always been an incredibly generous, caring man goes through Alzheimer's and never once did that man express uh ugliness, and yet some people as they lose their minds, they become, they not only disappear, but they, when they do come back, they're often angry, irritable, or just difficult. I think in the end, even when we lose our minds, we're going to find out that who we are is what we lived. I don't know that, I suppose if we do know it, we're never going to get to tell anyone, um, but right now that disease is escalating tremendously. Nobody knows quite why, but I think we don't have any idea how healthy we can truly be if we start to live in the present moment. I couldn't agree with you more of the book is inside out healing our guest today Dr. Richard Moss. If you could again give our listeners out your website.

where they can find out more. Yes, it's my name richardmossmoss.com. Um, if you put that in, I'm the first person that comes up. There is a free web course that's literally about how to learn the practice of living in the present moment. I mean, it's always nice to talk about it, but without an actual methodology and practice, um, it's hard to really learn and sustain. I have a Facebook. They can - you can find me on Facebook, and I put out interesting postings. I think they're interesting. Some of them very so much so every day or almost every day with the help of my companion, Annalisa. And we have - I have a a YouTube channel under my name Richard Moss MLS that has a lot of short instructional videos that you can watch for free. Very good. Dr. Richard Moss, I want to thank you for taking the time to be on our program today. It was a real pleasure. Yes. And let's hope that everybody takes a little more time to

to decide to transform their lives. I agree with you, that's what our program is all about. Yep, obviously that's what you're all about. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. We want to thank you, the listeners. You can find out more again by visiting beyond50radio.com as well. We'll have a live link for you to find out more about Dr. Richard Moss's work, Healing Inside Out. I'm Daniel Davis. Thank you for joining us. This is the Beyond 50 Radio Program. And remember, live your day past halfway.

Richard Moss: The Maestro of Deep Work

Richard Moss: The Maestro of Deep Work