Often on the show, we bring on incredibly accomplished meditation practitioners or influential researchers who have deep things to teach us, based on their personal experience or professional pursuits. And while many of these people talk openly about their personal deficiencies, they are nonetheless speaking to us from the mountaintop, as it were. Today we are doing something entirely different. Over the years, we’ve had many requests to bring on “normal people.” That’s what you’re getting today. Normal people who survived something extreme, with the help of meditation and other modalities, and are here to talk about it in extraordinarily raw and honest terms.
Miguel Sancho is the author of a new book called More Than You Can Handle: A Rare Disease, A Family in Crisis, and the Cutting Edge Medicine That Cured the Incurable. We’ve all heard stories about parents of children with serious, and possibly fatal, illness. Often in those stories, the parents come off as saintly. Miguel takes a very different route. His book is both vulnerable and hilarious. His son’s illness forces him to wrestle with his personal demons, his marital difficulties, and his volcanic temper. He even tells us about getting evicted from the Ronald McDonald House. In the end, he lands on what he calls “the gospel of adequacy.”
Full disclosure: Miguel is an old friend of mine. We worked together for many years at ABC News, where he was a senior producer at 20/20. Together, we covered stories about Scientology, self-help gurus, and fundamentalist Mormons. Also joining us for this interview is Miguel‘s wife, Felicia Morton, who is the president of her own full-service public relations firm. We start with Miguel solo and talk for quite a while, then take a quick break and come back with both Miguel and Felicia. We talk about: the benefits — and limits —of meditation, what they learned about creating a healthy marriage, finding meaning in suffering, and letting go of ego and control.
TPH Mental Health Awareness: We want to deeply thank and recognize mental health professionals for your support. For a year's FREE access to the app and hundreds of meditations and resources visit: tenpercent.com/mentalhealth
Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/miguel-sancho-felicia-morton-346
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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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Conditions apply from abc. This is the ten percent happier podcast dan harris,
Hello, often on this show, we we bring on, as you know, incredibly accomplished, meditation practitioners or influential researchers who have deep things to teach us based on their personal experience or professional pursuits, and while many of these people
talk openly about their personal deficiencies. They are nonetheless speaking to us from the mountain top as it were,
today, though we're to do something entirely different. Over the years we ve had many requests from all of you to bring on court unquote normal people daddy's what you're gonna get to date. Normal people who survived something extreme
with the help of meditation and other modalities and are here to talk about it in extraordinarily raw and honest terms. Miguel sancho is the author of an
book called more than you can handle a rare disease,
he's a family in crisis and the cutting edge medicine that cured the incurable. We ve all heard stories about parents of children with serious and possible fatal illness. Often in these stories the parents come office. Saintly miguel takes a very different route, his
book is both vulnerable and hilarious. His sons, illness forces him to wrestle with his personal demons, his marital difficulties and his volcanic temper. He even tells us about getting evicted from the ronald mcdonald house,
in the end he lands on what he calls the gospel of adequacy, full disclosure. Here miguel is an old friend,
We worked together for many years and abc news where he was a senior producer at twenty twenty together we covered story
but I entirely g self help gurus and fundamentalist mormons also joining us for the back. Half of this interview is miguel, wife, Felicia Morton, who is the president of her own full service public relations firm? Although she's not here in her role as appear,
as you will hear, we start with miguel solo and then, when we talk for quite a while and then we take a quick break and come back with both miguel and felicia. In this conversation, we talk about the benefits and limits of meditation. What
miguel and felicia learned about creating a healthy marriage.
finding meaning in suffering and
Bingo of ego and control would ivan on that in the second first, one quick
item of business, as you may know, may is mental health awareness month over the past year. Mental health professionals have not only had to cope with the us
acts of the pandemic in their own lives, but also help their clients navigate a world that has been turned upside down several times over. We want to really
thank and recognize all the mental health professionals out there for everything you're doing so, if you want to get a year's free access to the app and hundreds of meditations and resources go to ten percent dot com, slash mental health, ten percent dot com, slash mental health. This is again
way of thanking you for all the incredible work, you're doing at a time when we really needed art. Having said that, lets
diving now with miguel sancho and felicia Morton? Ok, miguel, great assume. Congratulations on the book,
great to be here Dan and thank you for all your help, all along the way in our journey, including the book part. It's a pleasure to pleasure. It's really fun to see it actually out in the world and having
engaged in a little bit of happy talk. I'm now going to take you back to the worst thing that ever happened to you. So I apologize in advance, I'm used to it and I am sure you are I'm sure you are, but still.
The scene that I think it might be worth opening on is the one did you opened up
gone with you on an airplane with Sebastian.
The boy in your arms- or it might have been a fallacious arms. I can't remember, but europe
airplane and things can go haywire? Can you just take us back to that moment?
absolutely was march eighteenth, two thousand. Sixteen. We were on route from new york to durham north carolina on a double,
light, and everybody has been on a flight knows that is inherently a helpless feeling. You're strapped in u dont control anything, and that was going to our baseline
violent and then what was going on experiential was that our son, who had been born with a serious illness and was at that time, dealing with a significant fever, ended and what we believe to be an infection, and we were seriously concerned
for his survival at that moment had intermittently, because we were trying to treat him had somewhat stabilized before we got on the plain enough that we feel comfortable getting on the plane, but some are roughly over the chesapeake bay. He started vomiting copiously, he started crying. He started having shivered
shakes his fever. Spiked was something that ITALY's resembled too
lame his eyes, a seizure of some sort, and it was
exactly the kind of medical emergency that you'd like to have anywhere, except a plain that was beginning its descent into north carolina and all you gotta do is try to comfort him and offer the best. All we could do was comfort him press the button for the flight attended and ask if there's anything that she could do, and the answer was basically no other than golfer an ambulance to meet us at the gate of. We need one and hope for the best and pray and meditate and try to
horse back the continuous, an intense onslaughts of stimulus and stressors that so many people have to deal with in various circumstances throughout their lives. How was the fashion at this time he
he was three and about ten months he was able to talk. He was able to express himself in terms of how he was feeling, which is it.
huge difference maker and game changer when it comes to treating patients who have any kind of medical situation
but he was still very much a little boy, a little boy.
wanted to live a little boy who knew enough to know that he was sick, that his life was in danger and it was,
one of those things dan. You know you can read every
engine book in the world, but nobody can tell you how to watch your child suffer, and thus we had to do. The add me from just guarded variety: parenting miss her
as you know, an emergency room run here of her feelings, their etc, etc. That is incredibly painful. Just for me so to extrapolate from my, as I said, guarded right experiences to what I would describe as hell, especially given that I know both of you and by both of you, I mean you and your wife is horrifying.
So did they call an ambulance? What happened? What happened? Is he stayed?
I've had enough that we were able to kind of race through the airport, get into a rented
emerald isle dogtown again
free and speed to the duke children's hospital, where he was supposed to just have a meeting greed for what was potentially going to be a stem cells
I plan to give menu immune system- and it ends up being not a maiden greet, not an overwhelming
stay, but it ends up being basically a eight month stay in
north carolina in various phases of hospitalization and impatient and outpatient treatment. Just to provide some factual foundation here, what was said, ashes diagnosis
and then why does he need it? A new immune system? And how do you even begin to give somebody a new immune system? My son was born with a mono genetic mutation on his x chromosome, the result of which was his body was unable to fight off certain bacterial and fungal infections like the rest of our bodies, when they're functioning quote unquote. Normally do we had to deal with that whole diagnostic odyssey and the impact of that news when he was between two and five months old,
Four years after that, we struggled to keep him healthy and alive. There are ways to do that. With this disease, the disease called
see g d, and
he had to have him on medicines every day he had to be hospitalized intermittently for various infections that needed to be treated in a hospital,
and ultimately, after years of trying to juggle our lives and trying to manage his condition, which many people do like, I said, no other dad's, other people are the patients. Can analyse a bit better than we did
but we determined that the only way to move forward for him and for us as a family was to take the chance on this very impressive, but at the same time, very risky, very arduous, very long
complicated medical procedure, which is commonly known as a bone? Marrow transplant is more technically known, as he met a poetic stem cell transplant
basically should be called an immune system transplant. What you do is annihilates
but he's existing immune system with in this case
intense doses of chemotherapy, infuse their blood system with new donor cells. If you're lucky enough to find a compatible match,
and then grow anew immune system from scratch, with a child that can't
fight of any kind of infection at that point, and just very meticulously very carefully, very cautiously,
build up a new immune system like your growing, a garden, and it sounds I just couldn't summarised in thirty seconds-
like in making those on you just following a recipe, but in fact it is extraordinarily complicated, there's hundreds of things that can go wrong along the way and often do
and we saw that happen with to a certain degree arson. He had his own set of complications, but they were minimal compared to many of the intense setbacks and challenges that other families and other children suffered. While we were there, duke, as I understand it, the choice you guys were facing as parents was, if we do this, there's no guarantee that our son will survive,
if there is a guarantee that he will suffer during the course of the treatment, so you knew you were going to be putting yourselves in him through an arduous path, and you didn't know how it was going to turn out, and that strikes me as a exquisitely difficult decision. It is I'll, say this. Arsons disease wasn't a disease that gives you a clear path forward. We could
I have decided to again try to maintain an manages disease and there's all sorts of new models.
the treatment they make that easy do every day or undergo this thing which, as you say, correctly
involves a number of things that you would never wish on anybody. Much less your precious young child
but I mean by that is specifically again massive doses of chemotherapy that basically chew up your answer.
It's either in a manageable way or in a profoundly destructive way. If you don't do it right, the after effects of that
the syndrome that comes with engraftment syndrome, when the new cells kind of try to make a new home in that body. All these things, those are guaranteed and then there's a whole host of other things. Literally, you know it would take thirty minute.
to go through every other nightmare scenario. The kin emerge in the course of that thing. Tether
two things in my opinion, that make this book riveting one is you just do a great job, you're trained storyteller, so you do a great job of there's. The suspense of is this going to work? Are these genius scientists going to be able to figure out how to save this little boy? That, in some ways, is a story we've heard before what makes the book truly original, in my opinion, is running alongside that.
Narrative is often the parents in these stories you know come off as long suffering
sanely, martyr, types and and and
I dont say that in any way to be dismissive, amene there that's. The worst thing I can do
Can anybody having to go through, but you whore, so
worry is of somebody who's openly struggling with lots of.
The issues in how your handling them,
senor own set of flaws.
and you really open about that. So imperfections is the nice word virginia were before imperfections threat so alive. Let's start
beginning, let's just speaking for my own opinion, there is no greater stress her, so you stress,
You gotta bring out the whole thing, the whole miguel, the whole catastrophes of what imperfections you were you struggling with at the beginning and then we'll go from there. Well, you know a lot of them relate to ego, and we know leading insecurities that I try to cover up with the trap,
as of status, instability that a lot of people, particularly educated professionals, have a tendency to do right. I had certain assumptions about how my life was going to go based on primarily past experience,
I am certain assumptions about my role in the world, my status in the world and what I could expect from the world. I
and certain assumptions about the amount of control I was going to have over my life. My circumstances, my relationships and when something like this happens, it cracks you clean, open brother, and it reveals you ve fallacies and the house,
cards upon, which you ve build so many of those assumptions, and I would submit that many parents can roll with that many parents, perhaps
in tested before in ways that enable them to have the tools to cope with these kinds of setbacks and some
and I was in the don't category for sure. So what does that mean well
It meant that a number of kind of negative personality traits that I've always had anybody would tell you. I've always had kind of turned into all caps. Bold face font, expressions of those ugly sides me and that included anger for starters, right and angers. You know probably one of the worst things you could have, but I was angry and I had reasons to be angry, not just because I felt
I was being cheated somehow, but because, if there is anything more innocent than a newborn child, I can't think of it off the top my head, and why.
New born innocent child would have to suffer not just intermittently, but
the rest of their lives was infuriating in terms of kind of how I understand the universe, so I would
find myself having eruptions of temper either. You know how
temper, where I would actually yell or curse or what I was sometimes
a cold temper where I wouldn't raise my voice necessarily, but would just say something after which he was there. We can have an unspoken you idiot too.
people around me, either at home or at work or random people and became problem, a problem that I ultimately add to address. Other wise. I was going to
Not just kind of create momentary moments of hell on earth for those in my immediate orbit, but quite possibly result in a catastrophic damage to my family through divorce or any other form of catastrophe that was on the table. What were the terror of lowest moments in this.
what is quite a few to choose. From goodness I blew up one of our nannies, who basically resigned as soon as you could on the spot
You know I managed to get ourselves evicted from the ronald mcdonald house when we were down in duke and that wasn't a function of anger. It was really just a function of mindlessness. You know a friend
I gave me a bottle of bourbon. Did I left him
fridge, rater raw mcdonnel house, and they have
tolerance policy and they take that no dollars thing quite seriously and right.
At this very sensitive moment when we needed to kind of have certain things taken care of and have a budding support system more
You're down, there's deriving, we got a victory for the run. A mcdonnel house may now shameful. Is that so we had to deal with that and I'm
to later on pretty much destroy our make a wish trip, because I basically had a crippling anxiety attack regarding some of submissions post transplant setbacks. So these are all things that ultimately lead.
at some point felicia to say you gotta get your act together or otherwise. This marriages gonna end
led me to do a number of things, one of which was to come to you for advice of all people?
and an eye
hey you're vice wasn't just helpful- was blue, quite surprising autonomy,
when we talk about that at all by yourself and the story, but you're part of the story I haven't, I
I bought it just on the make a wish thing. I'm not sure that everybody will know what that is. So can you describe what that is and what happened so yeah so don't make a wish. Is this wonderful philanthropy and we've donated to them, but I'm reminding myself here to donate more that through private donations is able to subsidize the wishes for kids with serious illnesses and I'd always thought it was for kids who are like going to die or kids who
were seriously impoverished ripe, but now they wonderful organisation they are provide. These wishes for kids, who have?
undergone things like bone marrow. Transplants are now india,
side of it and have a good chance of survival
and they don't necessarily means test. So we were invited to go and make a wish with our sun sebastian who, through the course of his young life, had
hell of a intense and ongoing love of trains, and so we wanted to go on. He wanted to go on this train trip in canada, and so we did that. But while we were literally packing getting ready to go, he had his first significant setback and it was his
here started following up and actually in the grand scheme of things it was a very minor setback. It happens frequently both transplantations- they have dry scalp
and it dries out the hair, follicles and some hair starts coming out in clumps, and
it really wasn't that life threatening in and of itself. Nevertheless, because I had been now through four or five years of stressing intensely about my son's health, and I thought at that point that he was going to be ok and we had this
setback. It sent me kind of tumbling down a well of
desire and sadness.
anger that made me a seriously imperfect, travelled companion for the course of that trip and an almost blew up. In other words, did it all get cancer? You just make it super unpleasant
the latter yeah I've been. We made it home in one piece and I think my way,
felicia, and I had one of our silent period for another week after that and
I want to say that was one of the things that sent us back into marriage counseling for a good year. If I'm getting the chronology correct so yeah, it was a I managed to. We did it and if you were to ask Sebastian about it, he'd probably say it was a great time, but, objectively speaking, it was a troubled experience. Part of what makes this book so great is that you're not just describing your struggles you're, also describing the many things you did to address them, let's start with wherever you want to start in terms of what you did to kind of address, your imperfections
as you were going through this crucible. Well, I mean when we first got the diagnosis, and I was first kind of letting the shock of that wash over me. I tried a number of things that I would not recommend. I tried denial
and I tried a kind of macho stoicism, less marcus aurelius than arnold schwarzenegger, clint eastwood kind of stoicism, which is not that
michael, I tried work. A hall ism because you know work was kind of a refuge in a sanctuary, and I tried kind of junior varsity substance to be
is with alcohol and edibles, and you don't need me to tell you there's not
long solution either. So
the nation of all those failed attempts, many of which I think had to do with a kind of somewhat rich.
great understanding of what masculinity was and how many are supposed to
handle crisis? I had the aforementioned marital crisis that
precipitated my asking you-
for some advice and we went out to dinner. This is the story. Folks, Dan, I went out to dinner and I was expecting indeed come out with his book
the first one tempers and happier, and I was expecting to basically get the audio version of the book. In other words, I was expecting to get a heavy handed, but sincere
prescription of meditation meditation of more meditation and instead new said during what you said. I am actually were recall.
any of this. Where do I dont? Where were we going to dinner? It was at easily,
I play son, oh yes, yeah, yeah yeah, and you said
I would recommend days surround the football approach and that entailed basically trying everything
there's like should I do the meditation you know my wife says we need counselling and you said just do it all see what works for you
and I thought that was rather surprising- and I was so I thought
Does this uprising eight that it actually might work? So I tried that, and you said something else.
which I thought was actually rather insightful to you said in my experience and I my wife is going to join us soon, so she can contradict all of this if it's, if it's not accurate, but you said in my experience, women do tend to give points for effort, so just
an effort and that in and of itself might help the situation. Regardless of what substance of benefits you get from any one of these.
modalities of treatment herself up, so I took that a heart,
but one of those modalities of self help. If you will was indeed meditation.
and we went shortly thereafter not handed
and but almost haven hand together to the,
Ass centre are now west is a twenty seven to twenty eighth street was the answer was right up
dinner because the oddity is located near the inside meditation centre. In
in lower manhattan. So we I took you for your first meditation session. I believe,
You certainly did yes and we
locked in there and I remember distinctly. They have like the serious experience, meditate his room and then they basically,
kitty table like give it your first time you going a little room, and so
I went to the little room and you into the big room and of course,
Coming out of the little kids room, I thought two things one was actually. This is good. I actually feel better. I could use
I this and the second thing was this: the eagle talking
I want to graduate the biggest able so that kind of launched my exploration in two minutes
isn't, and now is the time when I really want to emphasise to your audience that I am not a meditation guru. I am not speaking to you from the top of the mountain, I'm still minos struggling to do this on a regular basis. I make progress. I backslide
the whole thing, this is necessarily a book about meditation. It feels like everybody's meditated for longer than twenty minutes has to write a book about meditation, missis reed.
one of those books and- and frankly, I have my critiques of meditation. I think it is mikey's. It had certain limits, but that was certainly one of the tools that I would say
helped stabilize me. Helped me maybe not accept.
well or attain the kind of sainted level of martyrdom, but many of these families do but achieve a level of adequacy,
that enable me to keep my marriage together sustain life
we provide for my family and do my little part to bring my son, whom healthy in one piece
can you say more about what exactly meditation did for you and what you're critiques are,
again with the proviso that I don't have enough experience to speak on it authoritatively and micro takes can probably be countered with yeah. That's your.
Because, because you're not doing it right or you didn't do enough for you doing it, I had a way so.
with all that as givens two things. One thing is just a very basic thing of separating yourself from your immediate circumstances, separating yourself from your immediate feelings
And understanding that you're going through something you are experiencing, something that is coming at life is coming at you right now. In a very intense
ay and there's part of your mind, the amygdala,
reptile, mind the whole thing that is pushing you to react and engage with these circumstances in a way that could very easily make them worse and just the ability to pause,
the ability to literally think before you speak
even though your central nervous system is clearly and hyper simulated state, the ability to just be silent when every muscle in your body is telling you you have to engage in some way.
and I know that's just the first baby step right. Let's lesson one, but I needed that lesson very badly. Another thing that was just a godsend was the practice of loving kindness, which was introduced me at I m s in the big room which was later introduced me through the writings and interpersonal relations. I have a share in salzburg, other teachers, other people that I met through the song got it. You invited me to, and essentially just taking time to truly concentrate on the fact that there are other living creatures around you who are probably suffering in their own way and they deserve love and kindness and ignore,
Judgment and adjust a silent blessing of peas and wellness upon them, whoever it is their living beings and they are suffering in their own way, and you don't have to
friends with them. You don't have a hug them, but you do have to acknowledge them in such a way that will again try to prevent you from making their lives worse, which is also a possibility. I think you described the benefits of
with practices beautifully. Perhaps you could say a bottom line or a common denominator is you're getting out of your head, your
getting out of your own way, you're getting over yourself, so
you're not
isolated embattled ego crouching in defence you're, actually seeing that your own thoughts are these,
passing impermanent phenomena that you don't need to believe blindly, seeing that there are other people around you to whom you work
next in one way or another who have their own experiences that we should acknowledge. You know, and speaking as somebody who has many of the same or imperfections as you do
Having that pounded into your neurons can be incredibly useful there. You know, I forget who was
Is it totally or is it you or is it cabot then, but somebody, one of his books talks about how you got a reality. Is this base line that can be boring and can be painful, and we all have these urges the distance between ourselves in reality and a lot of you
the easy thing to do with the kind of negative distance right you can go on he's mean you can have a tall glass of bourbon or two or three or
you can engage in any number of other kind of mindless things that kind of put a negative space between yes, you're, putting dysentery generality but you're sinking below reality.
is much more rewarding, but also requires much more work is putting positive distance between your neutrality trying to rise above reality rather than sink below it and dumb. You know, like I said that, took a lot of concentration and work and focus for me and I still screw up when I'm not being mindful enough of that kind of thing. But debts really really important
what are the critiques well I'll give you do, could jigs one? Is that time and again, I'm more experienced more
announced meditate or more enlightened person was use. That word word. Key word might not have this experience, but I found and not an abstract whenever a concrete way that,
our circumstances. They can be so overwhelming man that for me, when I meditated aid,
instead of going to pushing away all the negative thoughts, however momentarily and rising above them, I just kind of cleared out the cargo hold of my mind so
all the anxiety could flood in and occupy every single thing, a bit of brush it every distraction. Specifically, this is the case in october, two thousand and thirteen
when our centre been diagnosed, we ve been juggling everything we ve been dealing with his intermittent hospitalizations, all that stuff I'd begun, the meditation I learned to kind of do with that, but on top of it we have another child.
your daughter. She had another diagnosis with another funky medical condition, not life threatening, but it was such that it send me into a tailspin.
And at that point is like okay, this is
What did the meditation prepared me for
This is going to enable me to kind of deal with this and rise above this and not let my daughter's health issues turn me into a mush of jell o, and I was totally wrong. I try the meditation and
you know. Dana might have maybe ten percent happier, but I needed to be like one hundred percent happier at the time or one hundred per cent less miserable, and so that was the moment when it became
clear to me that there are certain times in life when you need to explore other things, and one thing that I had been resisting.
as long as I can remember was second of medication, and there are reasons for that: egoist reasons for that right
I am not the best looking guy in the world, another most physically figure in the world. They dont make my living
my body and make my living with my brain, so the idea
My brain was malfunctioning right. There was like telling awkward,
you need a water wings or something
There was a serious hard things.
to get my head around my one little superpower actually is malfunctioning, so I ended up
going on a low dose antidepressant and I,
as needed basis
and anxiety medication, and I remember the time I think I'll talk to you about her. I talk to somebody and I felt a bit ashamed, not for the aforementioned egotistic reasons, not only I should say for the aforementioned
with degrees, but because I felt like I was failing is an editor
I was blowing it. I wasn't getting. I was disappointing all the ancient monks who had been spent all the time laying out the path before me
and I felt like a loser, but some
They may be. You said that you know you don't have to feel like you're cheating on your girlfriend when you supplement meditation with medication.
I don't know if it with me, but I agree with the sentiment wholeheartedly and I also agree with your critique and events. Even a critique
Often I would tell people you know if you have endured trauma tread lightly with meditation
and make sure you're doing it under the care of somebody truly experience, mental health, professional and something as
I'm need directional early awful as what
you were experiencing there. You know to open up to it fully. I can see why it would be too much a. Why would be too much and be why you would be in the market for something well north of ten percent happier given the baseline
at that moment, and so I think it was quite wise to reach out for other boat allergies in, and you know back to this round the football I do so, but you have another critique, while the other could you
none of the club venus or the you know it
be a little bit more stern. It would be good if the sectarian nature that can cut of pop up a minute,
Member again, you invited me the songs, which was full of wonderful people. Experience meditated. I will say that each one of
probably a better person than I am not hard for me to say,
and we had these great, sits and then there would be these talks afterwards, which also were quite helpful. Many times.
But there are also times- and you know it felt like. I was part of like a mensheviks bolshevik dispute between the
mindfulness this cod ray and the tm and agreements
one point I raised my head and I said you know I wish you all the best I I agree. More people should be meditating, but you know I'm not
leading the charge. You are not a moment, I'm just a guy trying to keep it together, and you know beyond that
it is to his cousin, ambivalent, about belonging to any kind of group, but that part of it just didn't really speak to me. Gamma again, we agree just by way of background
listeners, and there was briefly a song or just a group of practitioners that was put together and in new york city and back in the mid two thousand tens and
go, and I were part of it and are not anti any form of meditation. I am pro taken care of your mind in whatever way, work for you and timidity is also tend to be at times
rather proud. I daresay strident atheists and I owner with atheists em but
also. I have any particular problem with faith or with christianity, but in particular, and the meditation crowd really
really tries hard to establish that we're, not a religion and okay. You don't have to be a religion, I'm not trying to slap that label on anybody, but
the germs of, like my grab bag, and certainly when felicia comes on. You know the faith was a major part of what sustained her
you know. I have learned through direct experience- that people have faith are not just kind of blind zealots or you know the superstitious ignoramus
their people who try to deal with life on it
terms as well, and they have found that the teachings of genes-
of nazareth, herb saint augustine of hippo or whoever are equally valuable as any other form of teaching with,
to interpretation and gleaning of messages or yet again we agree. Let me just ask if you more
I said before bringing in your wife, because there were you, sent me kind of a a note before we went on here with with a bunch of fascinating
ideas that I did want to close down. You use
this word earlier, but I'm gonna take this word and also put it in a larger phrase that you also used. When you sent me a note before the
You used the word adequacy earlier, but then you actually have a phrase. The gospel of adequacy, which I love tat
what you mean by that? Well, it circles back to a point
You made earlier, which is that often times, and you hear of this regime. Rob story shall we say often involves you know, sick, kids, somehow the pair,
since magically become martyrs and by the way I've seen this actually happened. Some barons actually do know are able to tap into this infinite reservoir.
of compassion and love and patience and strength, but
not everybody does that and oftentimes does research on this. Of course, serious diseases in kids can have all sorts of,
on families right do yes, it can bring them closer together, get combined them. Yes, it can. You know the strengthen their connections, but can also tear them apart.
It can also bring out the worst in you. You can also fracture
you in ways that may not be repairable, and so I think it's for families going through stuff. I'd want people
now that you don't have to be heroic every single second of this ordeal and what you should strive to be. I think what I strive to be with some modicum of success was indeed
adequate and there's a lot to be said for being adequate when you're being adequate, you're, not making things worse.
And I think that is for people like me. That's a pretty can be a breach, challenging gold. So what are the messages of the book? Is that
do you know, do whatever you need to do and don't be ashamed about it and don't be shy about it and don't let things get to the point of no return before you
veil yourself of whatever it is. You need to do to be adequate. Don't you think the advice of the gospel of adequacy scales beyond people who are in extremest yeah? I think it sure could you know, and I keep warnings
you invoke that beautiful parable of the story of paquin and the samurai that I actually heard it. I m s, you know that one. I bet you gab people tell you that on this show, like five times a week, no I've never heard it. So the way I've heard it paquin is this well respected buddhist monk in japan,
and there's some samurai. Ok, who is journeyed far too come get wisdom from Pachmann anderson.
Right, comes up unease in his full armor and he's got his samara sword and he says to back and tell me pachmann what
is Heaven and what is hell. I demand that you tell me and paquin sizzling offensive.
to the samara who're, you that
I would need to bestow my wisdom upon you
nothing. But you know a manner
material world. You ve done one of his work, you're, not a my level and, of course, this infuriates a samurai, so the sami pulls out his sword and he prepares to be head back when right on the spot and just he's about to bring the sword down on pachmann pack when says that's hell and then
This is hard for me to get through and then the air the summarised falls on his ease and he starts crying because he realizes that.
The things if you thought were valuable in the things that were meaningful in life are actually not just meaningless, but their own from prison, and he starts crying into his hands and then pachmann says
That's heaven, and for me that was one of the most meaningful stories and the point is
that is not just people in extremists who can learn from this, but it is actually indeed noble very well indeed,
published samurai warriors, who are completely comfortable with their lives, who, in my opinion, can benefit from the kind of wisdom
invoke this earlier that there is a way in which masculinity can be a big block to happiness
more yellow, especially if you associate masculinity with control, which I did that was kind of one of the things about my life is that I always wanted to be dealt with
and I was wanted to be able to say you know screw you'd anybody, because I was never able to care myself- and
I always wanted to have a certain degree of authority over my circumstances in my environment and when you know believe it when you got a hospital go into hospital world, as I call it in the book all that taken away.
Extreme listening humility, because you dont control your comings and goings. You don't,
really have any authority you're, not a doktor. It's the doctors who know things you don't know anything really. You can try to challenge them. You can be an advocate for your child, patient, of course, but your expertise is not relevant, but every rexrodt easier. It's not doesn't apply.
And that again, it's just a complete immersion, in other circumstance, where your ego is burned off. You did so many
things to work. On your own mind, while you are under this stress- and you know you- you talked about meditation medication, marriage counts
knowing there was somebody you spoke to add duke, whose name is John says of,
and you were talking to him about the sort of meditation, vs religion debate and he said, and I'm going to redo this quote and then then maybe you can talk about what it means to you, John, who I've never met, but John you're. Clearly.
Quaint, evolved human being, for having said this, there is only one miracle, but I've seen it thousands of times. It's called love,
yeah yeah, so John was going to get his title wrong, but he was some sort of patient, counselor or grief counselor, something I get to write in the book. I promise
but he had seen literally tens of thousands of patients and families of varying faiths right from militant atheists em to Islam, to weaken ism, you name it and in over him the faith. Science
or the faith meditation tension without you very easy to resolve. He was just positing it as
capillary and a set of tools that one can use to try to assimilate the dogma of the craziness of life and the things that are causing.
Coming at you in finding a way to be with your feelings, be with your suffering, acknowledge the suffering of others and also acknowledge the immense beauty and grace and salvation of this thing that we call love in all its various expressions
which is the miraculous force, the changes and sustains us, and that needs to be supported and appreciated in and all his expressions, big and small. Ok, we're gonna, take a quick break and after the break will hear from
Miguel, wife, felicia and a little bit more familiar himself. You I've heard about master class for years, but I'd never actually check,
it out, which is now making me feel a little bit stupid. The good news is the folks over at master class
are now sponsoring this show and they gave me a subscription and as I look at this as I realise that this is a great place to feel a lot less stupid. The lineup on this is incredible. The people there
recruited to teach it just kind of blows my mind. They ve got Aaron sorkin on screen,
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we've listened to the show Noam chomsky on independent thinking, steph curry, on basketball. I could go on. I can't believe I've been sleeping on this app and, as I look at many of these videos, they're show well produced so informative and really really tight, so that you're not wait
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I want you to picture steve jobs, tinkering with a computer and his garage walt disney drawing cartoons for his high school newspaper every big mouth
It starts with a big dream, but what happens when that dream turns out to be an even bigger family?
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on the one or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to the big flop early and ad free on one one plus get started with your free trial and wondering dot com. Slash plus, ok, we're back. Let's hear now from felicia. I do thank you for coming
thank you for having us. You've been listening to your spouse.
For a little bit. I before ask any specific question: I just did any responses. Anything you want to add clarify reflect upon. Well, the word that keeps coming up for a guy
And also when reading your book and hearing your podcast, where orders that comes up as control- and that is something that I have come to understand- we try to do, but control in a way is like a prison in and of itself. We put a lot of pressure.
Ourselves to control- and we ultimately know on some level that it's impossible
by trying to control many cases, because we are looking at things
in such a negative way that we feel there is so much to get us someone's out to get us. These pathogens are out to kill us, and so our control our need to do that goes into hyperdrive and that just creates so much more anxiety and depression
And as michel was talking about control, I was really thinking about our sons, disease, chronic, currently thomas seas,
and how I'm a carrier for this disease. What we're? Finally,
now about carriers,
who did he and many excellent rare diseases is that women can have a lot of issues. They were previously thought to be
asymptomatic and now research shows that we do have serious symptoms, and when we have this sum, mutated jean it can manifest and a lot
information that can cause feelings that anxiety, brain bog, confusion and all kinds of problems. In terms of concentrating I could, with my status as ddt carrier,
and that on certain days I performed very well. I can function at a very high capacity in school. I scored very well and also those tests, but I couldn't always manufacturer manifest that in the classroom in this continued in my career and I began to do.
Myself, I began to confuse the inflammation that was occurring in my brain with being not smart and that led to a lot of.
Behaviors that weren't very productive for me and my teens and twenty is one of which is that
I rebelled against the christian faith.
I was raised so to answer your question when I really
from what mcgowan you were talking about. I like him back to this word control and I had really tried to control things during Sebastian, his illness, because, as we ve heard, Miguel was completely out of control
sound. Sometimes I felt like I had three children and lydia's sebastian it, and then miguel, and so I was doing everything I could to keep our sun alive and that included his daily medication that he had to take keeping him away from things with with suit. You do you
have to keep our children away from all kinds of pathogens that are normally innocuous, like woodchips, hey soil lakes. So suddenly the world became even more scary to me,
and that brings us to the point when we were in the duke hospital, where I ultimately found that I needed to give up control and what a tremendous relief that was for me for the first time in my life. So it sounds like you went from the person with the sword to the person crying into your hands. Were you gave up control and gave up the you go? I thought that you could run everything in a universe that isn't tropic absolutely.
I was not planning to live in north carolina for nine months. I was planning to go there for two days, I'd packed for two days and it turned into nine months. I was not planning for them to tell me. We have to take your son now into the transplant unit, and so my life in new york was stripped away. All of my friends were stripped away. My ability to control anything was
just ripped from me, and I was brought down to my knees literally like you said dan, I didn't know what to do even more.
Miguel Liddy, worse, they got said bank, they caught the flu, and so they can come into the transplant unit and so
in my family, my small family, that was there they were stripped away from me. I couldn't even see them. These are the things the catastrophic things I had been facing and when your stripped and you're at such gaps for the pressure is so intense, I was so grateful that I could go back to my faith and be able to just say lord. I can't take this. Take this from me and, to my surprise, after rebelling against the way, was raise this intergenerational faith church. I found that this well, that was running deep within me, was still flowing and I just hope, washed. I felt flooded with this love just lifted up and loved in a way that was so profound that I'll always be grateful for the moment and because I felt such profound love
It was able to feel immediately a sense of peace and a sense of calm, and I was able to focus on what I could do to support my son. I was able to focus on what I could control within that moment and within that environment. It's interesting the difference between yo miguel and I were talking before about loving kindness meditation. Were you train up your ability to love.
Whereas if I understand it, what you found in that moment, were you fell to your knees in them in hospital world. Does miguel calls it in the book your family strive to view your friends stripped of you, your life in new york city, stripped of you, you felt loved. It wasn't like. You, were training up the ability to spread.
I love into the world. You felt like the universe or god or some larger beneficence force was holding you in. Do I have that right? Yes, exactly it's like that story from the prodigal son, even though this person from the bible turned his back on his father on everything which which I had done I'd I'd left,
Where I grew up in chicago, I went out to the world let in Prague. I was all about my achievement, all about showing everyone I didn't need god. I didn't need, and you want to tell me that I couldn't do it- that I was a smart enough. I was going to prove myself to everyone and the thing about fate
is that faith is faithful even when we're not and were loved. Even when we dont show love back
and I had no that once when I was able to know it again after that moment that you describe of being in the hospital and having this kind of awakening.
How do you practice going forward? What do you do to get back in touch with our feeling so that you can kind of? We were. I use this phrase before can't get over yourself and get over your desire to control everything and do what you can give it what's available to. I go back to that prodigal son story because there is such a compelling moment when the sun comes back after he's done I'll be
things he's been in the den repute is taken. All as inheritance is blown it he's doing wine, women and song. You know
well, who knows how long it is dad was still there looking for him and when he saw his son return. He ran out to greet him with such love, and I think this is something that we would all do if from our children ever decided that they didn't our daughter wants to move japan. You know when she goes to college, so if our children just decided that they wanted to not be around us for awhile will always be waiting for them.
at the door looking for them to come down the road and running to them when they appear. So that's how we can understand it and that's how I felt, and I felt that all the way through
because I love that I started to feel was love for myself, that was
love that I knew that with love. I was missing and once I started feeling that love than other people who felt that love had faith came forward
to me in ways that were, I would call the miracle. So, for example, someone from the people with whom I were raised in the church in chicago knew some one who knew someone who are illegally
In fact, this person- and I just happen to call her when I was there- I didn't have time to call her. If I left- and I said jessica- I you don't know me
but I know maria- and I know that- and I'm here alone,
and I don't have any one who can help me and my sons in the hospital and she said felicia, I actually I'm going to nursing school in the building right next to where you are I'll. Be
it over, and so these are the kinds of things that we experienced miguel. It said
So we don't know anyone and durham flesh. We can't go there, we don't have a support network, but one you have faith and I too have really strong paid at that time before we went there and lo and behold, Miguel has really good friend, who is also mentioned in the book tina, who turned out to be a wonderful.
Percent of us. She was working as a high profile business consultant and she became everything tat. She became a sister to me. She dropped everything to help us to take care of our daughter. She was there for us, and now she's become a nun
and she works a duke. So there is a lot that we have learned through our experience. There's a lot that I'm not going to say I can understand it. I can't it's mysterious and that's what wonderful about it
but these are the kinds of things I I wanted to share with you that perhaps in a way answer the questions that you've asked me. I appreciate it. Let me ask you one more question: how is sebastian Sebastian is great. He just auditioned for a role in Annie, Jr, the musical and
he said. Mom, you didn't tell me that I actually have to audition before we went, I said you have to. You know, sing something and he began to get really upset when he said. I can't do this. I can't do this and then I said sebastian. I think you can, I believe in you, and he got that same look on his face when we were in the transplant unit.
This resolute determined face and he walked in there and he won the president, roosevelt role, so he's going to be singing with Annie, the sun will come out tomorrow and it will and how old so he's eight and he has of has
functioning immune system thanks to the doctors at duke. Yes, you would never know when you look at him that he's been through a stem cell transplant
The one thing I do want to add, though, that of course its it is, of course thanked the doctors and nurses, a duke who were you, know, heroes beyond description, but also we are constantly grateful and mindful of the patients who came before us, the people whose suffering and in many cases peoples is death, contributed meaningfully to the evolution of the medical science that have made these breakthroughs possible were kind of fortune enough to stand on the mountain that they built through their sacrifice. That's a great point absolutely where
we believe that faith is the union and works in tandem with science and medicine. It's not binary colored vacuum ago, as we come to the end of our time here. How would you say you ve changed after all
I mean I've. I've known you for a long time. I could answer it, but I'd be yours letter what you say. Well I mention in the book that there are some ways that we ve changed, that are a little bit hackneyed a little betrayed. A little bit can self help bookie cliched, I will save. As one can imagine. We have a rather profound change of perspective in terms of what's important and what's unimportant and that manifests itself in all sorts of ways. You know parenting in this country in particular, can kind of b of the competition it can be an inn.
history, where you have to buy certain products and pay for certain services in order to kind of qualify as a good parent, and I would say that felician I have both successfully distance ourselves from some of those more obsessive pathologies. We also found ourselves at certain key moments. Just
separated rather dramatically from other things, that a lot of people think a really important among
them would be.
The ongoing and
continuing lee acidic political schism. You know
If we follow the news,
do you know, I'm a journalist I been out. I participate in this to a certain degree, but I've certainly
no longer really. Let things that are on a tv screen upset me the way they use to, which is not to say that political apathy is what's needed, but it just helps me not feel that their needs to dominate my mind, set on a regular basis. There were some other kind of quirky ways that had changed us. One is that we, I think, and I want to pay for felicia, but I do think you would agree
We have much less tolerance for things like onscreen violence as entertainment. You know when you see how easy it is for the human body to get broken and how hard it is to repair it watching, even if it's just make believe violence of people shooting each other upper, you know engaging in fist fights on tv. You know, I'm not say we should ban that stuff. Obviously, but it just doesn't entertain me, I don't have the reaction to it that I do.
Before I had this experience and then finally, you know, I think it made us a little bit more eager to try to help others, because, yes, you need to take care of yourself. Yes, you need to you, know, meditate and do whatever you need to do to address your own
problems, but it's really good to get away from your own problems and stop gazing at your navel every once in a while and focus on someone else's problem and just help. Somebody else who's dealing with their own stuff and be of use in some very practical way. So that's something that we've done. Felicia is doing that big time with her advocacy for the cjd patient community and it's something that, as I said, I'd started to do on a small kind of local level and want to do more of going forward. What about the imperfections we talked about at the beginning of the show that again, which I say without judgement, I say more-
with empathy, because the er imperfections map quite neatly on top of mine, but did a sort of ego, the anger desire to control, etc, etc.
I mean I would like to say, and I think empirically I can say that I dont have
Grady anger episodes. That often I would like to say that I've, let a number
If things go, that I used to think were very important about, I know my kids, their performance and other material things and I'll tell you this, I'm certainly more comfortable with the idea of dying than I was bunch of years ago, when this
I'll started, I'm not looking forward to it. You know, I don't want it to happen tomorrow, but having seen the kind of beautiful and graceful and transcends in ways that some people can approach the end of their life, I'm much less resistant to that process than I would have
while ago Felicia. Let me give you the final word. You can comment on anything girls said or offer. Anything else had come to mind circle back
your question downs really good one. How do I maintain this feeling of not needing to be in control?
I certainly am not perfect at this. I have my periods when I'm just very down, especially during the pandemic. I was really I went
through a feeling of hopelessness and some really dark days. But I have been able to find people who come forward and seemed to just help me out of that will say, come on felicia, let's talk. Let's just do something together, let us go for a walk together, and this is real fellowship that I have with people who are of faith or or people who just
understand the importance of an authentic conversation, venetian doing that with my friends. I do that with the suit you d association of america and we get together and talk and having been through what we ve been through its just search
fresh thing to not have walls up to be able to say here I am this is who I am. This is who you are
and just as you said, I'm enough, I'm, ok and I'm accepted.
And maybe even loved you know. So those are the kinds of things that are really there.
above to me and I think, to our family now, and I'm just really grateful for you down, because I think you.
Will you put a line on this that we can have an inauthentic experience or we can have an authentic one and ultimately might look
like you, nothin to experience is great. You know that, with all the trappings of things out, we my covered the house, the car, the vacations, but it can be very empty as well, and so I'm really grateful to you for helping people to start
Looking past those things and and talking about what really matters. Thank you both. I think you've done this incredible thing of taking one of, if not the very worst things that can happen to a human being and then turning it into something useful through this conversation and through an incredibly well written book which, again for the listener, is called more than you can handle, and I recommend it and you can get it wherever you get your books, be Ellen felicia. Thank you. Thank you dan. Thank you Dan.
Thank you too. Both miguel and felicia really appreciate them come in on the show is made by samuel johns dj kashmir, Kim bike ma maria were tell and jan point with
the engineering by ultraviolet audio, as always a big shout out to ryan kessler. Unjust, co him for maybe see news we'll see while on friday, for
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Transcript generated on 2023-09-11.