New Realities recorded on August 28, 2007
Summary
In this episode of New Realities, host Alan Steinfeld interviews Dr. Mike Larcombe, a clinical psychologist from England. They discuss the integration of spirituality and psychology, emphasizing the importance of heart-based connection over traditional mind-based therapeutic approaches. Dr. Larcombe shares his personal journey of transformation, his unconventional approach to diagnosing and treating conditions like Asperger’s and ADHD, and his views on the need for a paradigm shift in the educational system and societal conditioning.
Transcript
Alan Steinfeld
Welcome to New Realities television and radio here on BBSradio.com. New Realities is produced by me, Alan Steinfeld, and each week I explore evolving human potentials in an evolving world. This series investigates how to become more conscious beings, how to live in a more conscious reality, and how we can evolve through our body, mind, and spirit. Tonight a very interesting guest, someone who’s explored lots of possibilities in consciousness and psychology and we’re going to talk about his spiritual journey and what his understanding of psychology and spirit really and how that all comes together. His name is Dr. Mike Larcombe and he is a clinical psychologist and he’s from England, so I think we’ll have a really interesting show. Hi Mike, welcome.
Dr. Mike Larcombe
Hi there.
Alan Steinfeld
Let me say that we’ve both been on a spiritual journey. How do you think spirit and psychology because that’s your background, how do the two really come together in your opinion? Spirituality the search for who we are and the understanding of the human mind.
Dr. Mike Larcombe
Well I think it comes together by how we actually connect with people and I’ve learned through spirituality that the best way to connect with people is through the heart. Before that my psychology training led me to think that the way to help people was to come from the mind and as that combined with spirituality I’ve got a different perspective on things now.
Alan Steinfeld
Do you think psychology is changing all around or are people caught in the old school?
Dr. Mike Larcombe
Yeah, there’s a bit of both. Some people seem to be caught in the old school and I meet people who are more open and more connected with spirituality.
Alan Steinfeld
I mean there are so many really classical psychologists that would say this belief in spirit, spirituality is sort of a wishful thinking and there really only is the mind and I don’t know how to talk to those people because obviously you need to have an experience in order to have the understanding. So what do you say to your colleagues?
Dr. Mike Larcombe
Well I don’t have a great deal of conversation with colleagues that aren’t into spirituality. And my advice to anybody going to see a psychologist or psychiatrist would be to feel them out and not go to them if you can’t feel a good connection.
Alan Steinfeld
So do you want to talk about your spiritual journey because obviously I don’t know that much about you. But you probably come from that sort of mind school. So what happened?
Dr. Mike Larcombe
My spiritual journey sort of began about three years ago and before then as you said I was very much studying and coming from the mind and interested in different therapies and I attended therapy groups. So I was interested in personal development too. And then I came across somebody called Paul Lowe and heard him speak and was immediately attracted to him and I’ve done lots of workshops with him and everything was new to me. I didn’t really have any spiritual background. So I went into it as a psychologist, someone interested in personal development and I completely transformed my life and how I now think about things.
Alan Steinfeld
Well yeah Paul’s been a great guest on this show as well and he’s someone who’s influenced my thinking and in the sense of how to drop into a deeper connection to myself. And it seems like even in Paul’s philosophy in the way he works with people he includes psychology but he doesn’t limit who we are to just psychological mechanisms.
Dr. Mike Larcombe
Absolutely and I think what I learned from Paul it totally changed how I work with people. Before Paul I would be in my head with people. I’d be using my brain to think through problems. I’d plan a session, plan what I was going to say, what they were going to say. And the reality is that I never really knew. So my perspective now is to be open-hearted with people and not know what’s going to happen, not know what they’re going to say or what they’re going to bring but be available to respond to what they bring. So I feel before a session I’m empty and available to respond.
Alan Steinfeld
That’s great. Is this a new type of psychotherapy, this type of way?
Dr. Mike Larcombe
I think it is. I haven’t come across anybody that would recommend doing it this way. But I know it absolutely works.
Alan Steinfeld
That’s very exciting. So you drop in, you feel the other person and then you just respond from that.
Dr. Mike Larcombe
Absolutely. And I see what they bring. And I’ve got to the stage now with new people that I hardly want to read the file. I look at a referral letter but if it’s a good day I just forget what it says and just let the client bring what they’re bringing and respond to that.
Alan Steinfeld
It’s I mean what I want to say is like this is a revolution in psychology in a sense.
Dr. Mike Larcombe
Well it feels like a revolution in the way that I work. I’m not sure I see myself as a clinical psychologist in that way. I remember when I qualified I wasn’t sure what a clinical psychologist was but then knew that I was one because I’d just qualified. And I think people work differently. So when I’m in the room with someone I’m not a clinical psychologist. I have my knowledge, I have my experience and I’m a human being and I’m connecting with another and that’s what it’s about. So I don’t wear my psychologist’s hat.
Alan Steinfeld
Well the interesting thing I’ve learned a whole another piece there so I appreciate that. But another interesting aspect of your work and I want to see how you integrate this is working with people with Asperger’s syndrome. Do you want to describe what Asperger’s syndrome is and then…
Dr. Mike Larcombe
So another aspect of my work and really the main focus of my work is to diagnose Asperger’s syndrome. And in a nutshell we’re trying to find impairments in cognitive functioning in three main areas.
Alan Steinfeld
Are you going to describe what it is?
Dr. Mike Larcombe
So it’s connected to the autistic spectrum and people with these have difficulties in their social interactions, their communication skills and their imagination. So they have impairments in those three that triad of difficulties and it affects how they function in the world.
Alan Steinfeld
So social skills, imagination and communication. So yeah it does sound very autistic in a sense but there’s also supposedly some really intelligent people who have this as well.
Dr. Mike Larcombe
It isn’t to do with IQ. The whole IQ range is within the autistic spectrum as the whole IQ range is in what we would call the normal population. So in a way we’re categorizing people. And although I diagnosed many, many people, I have some uncomfortableness around that because there’s a part of me that doesn’t really agree with that process. But I believe that by diagnosing them it’s helping them in some way fit into society.
Alan Steinfeld
Is there medication? What do you do for someone with this syndrome?
Dr. Mike Larcombe
I think the most important thing that I would support diagnosing someone with this condition is that it changes how other people think about the person with the condition. So it’s important that people that are close to them or work with them or teach them understand that they have particular difficulties and they need help and understanding with. So I’m not really into getting the person with the condition to change. It’s more about accepting them as they are.
Alan Steinfeld
Well how would someone with Asperger’s syndrome actually show up? What kind of behavior would they exhibit?
Dr. Mike Larcombe
Well different people are affected in different ways so everybody’s unique. As everybody with Asperger’s syndrome it manifests in a unique way. So you can get variations. So some people can be very withdrawn socially isolated and not really wanting to interact with the world. Others are what termed as socially active but unusual and these people are sociable but they kind of get the rules wrong and they make mistakes all the time. So for example one that comes to mind was there was an 18-year-old that was told that if that he should ask someone for a comb if he wants to brush his hair and he was on an escalator going up and there’s a woman going down and he asked for her comb. Another man was told that to make friends you should go to a pub and buy your friend a drink. So he went to a pub alone and he bought everybody in the bar a drink. So it’s kind of making social mistakes and younger children they can be some of them can behave in aggressive ways because they don’t know any other way to behave. So it’s basically getting social rules missing misunderstandings and doing things getting them in trouble.
Alan Steinfeld
You know there’s I think a real danger in labels I mean I’m sure you suggested that but it also seems to be a slight contradiction from what you said earlier when you sit down with people and talk from the heart as a human being and now you’re giving them labels I mean how do you deal with that?
Dr. Mike Larcombe
It’s a good point and I guess a lot of my therapeutic work tends to be working with parents about their children and accepting them and accepting their children. The diagnostic work is like as you just said it’s kind of feels like a separate piece of work and I’m not sure if it’s something that I’m going to want to continue with. But at the same time I meet a lot of undiagnosed people with Asperger’s syndrome that are in distress and a diagnosis can make all the difference because people start treating them with care and understanding which they weren’t getting before. So that’s the benefit of it. But it isn’t as I keep saying I’ve been doing this for a number of years and it feels in conflict with how I work with people now.
Alan Steinfeld
I mean you said there’s really no cure and no treatment for this?
Dr. Mike Larcombe
Well that’s not strictly true I mean there is intervention but when you ask about cures some parents when their child receives a diagnosis they really want to find a cure and they will try different interventions. One of the things that’s important as I said earlier for parents would be to accept their child as he is with his difficulties. So I met a man once that went on an intensive therapeutic treatment called Son-Rise and he was with his son 12 hours a day and he said to me that before the treatment he wanted to remove the autism from his son. As he worked intensively with his son he got to know his son and then he started to accept the autism as part of his son and for him that was a big shift. So as I said before it was the parent that shifted in their understanding and not the child. And there are various interventions that are supposed to help and some are successful and I mean many people that have claimed success but I tend to think the difficulties will always be there at some level and what we have to do is as I keep saying have acceptance.
Alan Steinfeld
So I mean once we have this acceptance then it does seem like some cure is possible. It always seems like especially because you are so compassionate and empathetic it seems like it would be possible for these people to have an awakening just like you know I sort of see the rest of the population which is also unconscious and also basically antisocial I mean just look at the world we’re making wars we’re separating ourselves we have exaggerated emotion we’re sort of autistic as a race in a sense and people are shifting and waking up so there must be something possible.
Dr. Mike Larcombe
There’s two things there I think that once we have acceptance of everyone including people with Asperger’s syndrome we will no longer need to diagnose them. It’ll become unnecessary. Part of the reason they come to me undiagnosed is because they’re not being accepted in the world. And that’s a big problem. And the second thing you said about a cure again you see I if we were going to think of a cure then we have to think there’s something wrong with these people or that they have an illness or a disorder. Although technically it is a disorder but I think that they have a different perception and a different way of perceiving things and a different way of looking at the world. So they function in a different way than us. And if the majority of people if over 50% of the population had Asperger’s syndrome then we would be the ones getting diagnosed with a condition because all it there is in many cases is just a difference in operating.
Alan Steinfeld
So let’s take this to a planetary level right where I mean how do you see because we both work in the transformational world we just gotten back from a great week with Paul Lowe who is actually retiring for those who are interested in that. But you know we see there’s a great planetary shift there’s a polarity of consciousness having more and more people are waking up to this divine part of themselves and more and more people seem to be polarizing in that you know in this country especially you know where we have this really insane war and where the government has lost touch with the needs of the people I mean Cheney actually says I said I know it’s an unpopular war but it’s something we have to do it’s like he’s he’s not realizing he’s an elected official working for the people it is a there’s something disturbed there and also Asperger-ish about the US government in the shape that it’s in. So how do we on your if you were going to be a global psychologist what would you kind of diagnose and also prescribe to for the planet as a as a patient?
Dr. Mike Larcombe
In a general sense for everybody?
Alan Steinfeld
Yeah well in a general sense how are we from your psychological background going to make that change?
Dr. Mike Larcombe
Well a planetary right sorry. I think change is already happening and I think the I mean I was just connecting what you said say a little bit more about the people with Asperger’s because what they have I was thinking whether we need to help them change because I can feel that in myself and other people we need to change. And what they often have and I’m generalizing but they they don’t focus or think very much about the past or the future. They’re very in the here and now. They show little againstness towards people. And so they have there’s a lot for us to learn from them. So on a global scale for all of us I think that as I touched on at the beginning I think that we have to be taught to come from our hearts. And it has to start really with what we’re teaching children because we’re getting that completely wrong. And what we’re doing is developing their brain function and we need we need to help them explore their emotional selves and how they can come from the heart. And I think that you know when I say these things they’re just concepts but we don’t teach kids any of this stuff. You know we’re obsessed with getting their brains to work better so they can pass exams and it just doesn’t work. And so we have to we have to explore that. And I also think that we have to learn from children and people with difficulties about how to be in the world. And it seems to me like things are upside down because the adults who I think most of us are, I can’t think of a better phrase to say that, perhaps most or all of us are messed up in some way through our conditioning and children the younger the child the less likely they are. And we have a lot to learn from them about how to be. And if you watch you know if you watch small children three year olds or five year olds or six year olds operate you know they are showing us how to be.
Alan Steinfeld
They’re showing us how to be. So you’re saying and I think it’s a great point that instead of sending children to school to disconnect them because it does education disconnects them from their hearts they’re forced to think their emotions their feelings and suddenly they’re forced to remember things and to kind of disconnect from who they are. But it’s like we’re so stuck in the system do you see a new system developing that could really work for children and integrate education into emotions?
Dr. Mike Larcombe
I think so I think you know the I almost feel like I want to say the best way to start would be to close the schools, close every school for six weeks and start again. Because it feels to me that we’re it is absolutely completely wrong and I and I meet so many kids that are struggling in school or out of school and not going to school and it is a very, very harsh place for kids. And it’s and it’s totally wrong what the way our schools operate and expectations we put on kids and what we and the values what we say is important. And as long as we’re doing that we’re just going to produce more kids that are going to become adults who are in turn going to do damaging things to kids.
Alan Steinfeld
Wow. What a I mean I’ve heard this before and I think it’s always sounds like a radical idea because we have been so conditioned to be conditioned to condition our children and to yeah it would be great to shut the schools for six weeks and how then what would you start with? What’s your vision if you could create a vision?
Dr. Mike Larcombe
It’s so difficult because most adults believe in what they’re doing or I say that but I meet many teachers that are under a lot of stress and a lot of pressure because they feel that they have to do it in a certain way. And it actually goes against their natural selves. So how we can turn this thing right around is really it feels really difficult and then I think well anything’s possible. And I think that again you know people sense and know that things are damaging. And the teachers I know and speak to, many of them are not happy in what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. And so it feels that what we have to do is give people the freedom to follow their hearts and do what they feel is instinctively right. Because what I’m getting is that it’s not for me to tell people how to do it. It’s for people to feel into their hearts and do it themselves. So people need to be free to operate from how they think or how they feel best.
Alan Steinfeld
I’m happy to hear you say that. And I also think that there’s probably something impractical in a sense. I mean it’s idealistic, it’s great, it’s beautiful, it’s a visionary but I mean it almost seems impossible.
Dr. Mike Larcombe
I think what I see and experience with my work with children and what goes on in schools is that I can see that it’s not working. And my truth is when I’m asked a question about what can we do about it is that I don’t know. And if I did know I’d tell you. But I know what is happening isn’t the way forward and it can’t go on.
Alan Steinfeld
Right no I get that and also what I’m getting from you is a sense that I do get from you and it’s like you I mean I’m just speaking of you because I feel like you know I know you and I feel like you are your work is your compassion for other people. You’re empathy. Your feeling for them. So what you’re giving back to the world is the feeling and love you know and the empathy and the ability to feel what other people are feeling in a sense that’s that’s all you can do on some level and it’s actually very beautiful and a great example.
Dr. Mike Larcombe
Yeah I mean one of the things that occurred to me over the years I’ve been working is that I don’t think I’ve come across anyone that that doesn’t buy the concept that punishment and bad behavior and bad behavior should be punished. And people seem to think that on one level or another and people debate about what kind of punishments we should have whether theyre very mild or severe. And what is bad behavior naughty behavior and what isn’t. But for me you know that whole concept of thinking is so unhelpful. Because what we do is we look at the child’s behavior and we view it in that duality of whether it’s good or bad and we give the child rules about whether they’re good or bad. So a child grows up with this concept and it actually doesn’t make any sense. And I’ve seen parent after parent that have asked me for techniques about how they can better control their child. And they’ve tried all sorts of punishments and what they’ve found is that things don’t work. And I think that what we have to understand is that we are not able to make another human being do something that they don’t want to do. And I think if we can accept that then we can operate from a different place.
Alan Steinfeld
I get that and I also know because I’ve been around children and that they that they’re very independent and they I mean I wouldn’t like that you know it’s like I didn’t like following rules and fitting in and I think that’s probably a natural way to be. And people like well many people like Robert Bly has said you know here’s this child arriving with the power of the universe and all a parent can say to them is be a good child. I mean that is such a limitation.
Dr. Mike Larcombe
And what they need to hear from parents is a message that says not be a good child, be who you are and let the child express themselves in their natural way. So if you’ve got a child that’s very active and needs to be outside, then let that child play outside. And what we tend to do is we try and control them and tell them they have to go against their natural instincts and then we end up diagnosing them with conditions such as ADHD, giving them medication and trying to make them different from who they are. And every child should be free to express their natural self in whatever way is appropriate for them.
Alan Steinfeld
That’s good so like we talked about the ADHD or attention deficit disorder is a fabrication I think by a culture that doesn’t know how to control probably these new children that are arriving with this new energy would you say?
Dr. Mike Larcombe
Well it’s interesting whether they’re children arriving with a new energy or whether they are responding to the negative energy that they’re in. You know I don’t know what the answer is to that but what I do know is that you know again it’s a concept and and I talked about Asperger’s syndrome which I kind of believe is a condition but when we look at attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHD I’m not sure about that and I meet many children who are suspected or already diagnosed with ADHD and they come from places of distress and difficulty. Many of them are in homes where there’s a lot of tension and anxiety and conflict and of course what some people will say is that the children are the cause of that and then it’s a chicken and egg situation. So and obviously you know some children are affected by their diet. So you know again it’s a controversial diagnosis and in my view it doesn’t help anyone when we diagnose a child with a condition like that and give them medication and explain all their behavior away as them having something wrong with them. And you know and again I don’t think it’s a good experience for that child.
Alan Steinfeld
Well the awful thing about that then is also to give them drugs that sort of limit to distort or limit or shut down apart I mean I think that’s an awful awful thing to give a child who’s just acting out drugs to control them because their parents can’t handle them. What’s your experience with drug in children and how do you deal with parents about about that?
Dr. Mike Larcombe
Well it depends who the parents is and and if it fits into their belief systems. So I mean I saw I met a 14 year old who had been on Ritalin for nine years and it’s only recommended that he that he’d be on it for two. And so I think he began it when he was five. And that experience is awful for him you know and he’d been teased at school and you know and he had a very poor self concept because he grew up with the belief that he had a condition that explained all this poor behavior. And when I looked at his background you know there was his father left when he was young and then there was violent partners that lived in that home two different ones. You know and he had a terrible…
Alan Steinfeld
No I understand. I’ll continue because that’s fine that’s fine.
Dr. Mike Larcombe
So and the belief system in our culture system in the UK is that the parent with if you go to a psychiatrist or a pediatrician and they and they say they’ve got this condition and they will say okay and then the schools agree. So everybody in the system agrees the child’s got a problem and the drug makes them behave somewhat different sometimes it subdues them and it just masks everything. It masks their feelings, it masks what what is going on for them. So the whole thing is completely wrong.
Alan Steinfeld
Wow. That is amazing it is and I do agree it’s wrong and to wake up and start dealing from a real place from the heart space is very challenging when the entire system supports this sort of false pretense. Well how do you how do you fight that battle?
Dr. Mike Larcombe
Oh we don’t fight anything. There’s no point in telling people giving this as an explanation to people if they’re not going to be open to it because if someone’s invested in it and a professional has told them and giving a label they’re going to they’re going to fully be invested in they’re going to so fully believe it. And what I’m saying is that if and if we have that concept and we give that to parents and children they’re going to grow up and thinking about things in that particular way which I think is unhelpful. We could think about child behavior as I said earlier in a different way and arrive at a different explanation for that child’s behavior that will be more helpful to the child and more helpful to the parents and may change the whole dynamic and make everything more possible.
Alan Steinfeld
So you know so I don’t know it’s just such a shock it must be such a shock then to see these children after they’ve been given Ritalin to see their the potential that’s been zapped in them I mean how do you deal with the actual child himself?
Dr. Mike Larcombe
Well I think as I said earlier there are a lot of my work is with parents sometimes with children I mean the younger the child the more likely I’m working with the parents because I believe that that’s the best way of helping the child. If I see someone like that where I feel they’ve been squashed and suppressed by our culture and how and how people are thinking about them I will as I said at the beginning be accepting of them as they are I will challenge their beliefs, I will challenge their beliefs about what other people believe about them. I will you know put things in a different way with them and their parents. And it all depends really on how open and responsive the other people are the child or the parents or anyone else involved are. And sometimes people are responsive and change happens and sometimes not. And that’s why you know what I’ve learned is that I’m not trying to impose my ideas on people I’m responding to what people bring. So if I see a family where they’ve lived with ADHD for five years and it’s part of who they see they they are then I’m not going to challenge that straight away I’m going to work with what I’ve got and with what they bring. So you know I’m going to do what’s appropriate to respond to where they are. So that’s why my work with each person is varies from person to person depending on where they’re coming from.
Alan Steinfeld
Thanks. Thanks Mike. I didn’t catch the last part of that so yeah okay.
Dr. Mike Larcombe
Well it depends on where people are coming from.
Alan Steinfeld
Okay. No I get that and I think you have a really great overview of the educational system and so as we kind of just want just one more area of discussion that I think that we’ve been discussing and I don’t quite know how to fit it in but we’ve been looking at alternate realities and we’ve been I mean the name of the program is New Realities. So you’ve given a very academic very practical psychological and spiritual perspective but then we know that reality is much bigger and more expansive we’ve had experiences me you and a bunch of other people that say there’s there’s more this whole radio show is called New Realities because we know I know that there’s a much bigger picture going on that we’ve been really sheltered from. So we need to be re-educated about the nature of reality. I mean how do we how do we open up as a planetary race as children ourselves to the possibility that there’s so much more if you take this like psychological background and a spiritual perspective how do you because that’s what nice part of mind when creating this program and other programs how do we start to educate people and myself about the possibility that there are other and new realities from any perspective all that you put in expanded out could you talk about that?
Dr. Mike Larcombe
Well I think that what needs to happen what I would like to see happen is that we would come together people that have had these experiences and are open to seeing that there is different there is possible to live in a different reality and then we become examples of this. And then we can invite other people that have no experience of this to live with us for a while or we could have a child center where children with difficulties would come for a while. And I think it has to be it has to be shared on a practical day-to-day level so that people experience us as people and I think you know in my work I try and do that in the clinic room but it’s not actually you know they’re experiencing me for that hour in the way that I want to be but they’re not really feeling me fully as a human being because it is about. So what I think that we have to be examples and live with with people that are like us and also people that aren’t like us.
Alan Steinfeld
I like I like what you said there. But you know there’s what great teachers and great teachings say is live in the unknown. Live I love that line in Alice in Wonderland where the Red Queen says to Alice I like to believe six impossible things before breakfast. You know we are taught to be logical, to think logically with our minds, disconnect from the heart, ignore intuition and experiences and this is the educated out of us. And now as we move into this greater possibility we’re we’re understood yes feel with your heart, access your intuition your intuition is the key to a greater experience. How do we bring that back as an educational program to to schools and to local drop out march I mean you might not have might not have thought about this before but you know because you have thought about education I’m just curious if you’ll just take a stab at it.
Dr. Mike Larcombe
Well I get from that is that what clearly doesn’t work is telling other people how they need to live. So what if I start saying how I think it should be then I’m setting up my my rules and my ideas and I know that there’s just another person doing that and it doesn’t work. So the way the only way I can see around this is be responsible for how I live and be an example myself of how things can be different. So my focus needs to be on my my reality what’s in front of me and who’s in front of me and how I communicate and interact with everyone and and as I said from from a heartfelt place in the here and now. And that’s all I can do. And whatever comes my my way I’ll respond to or I intend to respond to in that way. And beyond that, you know so I’m seeing myself as being able and as possible for me to expand and include everyone in my life and to expand further. And so to come up with ideas or to say how we should live or how we should be feels wrong to me and and we’ve been doing that for thousands of years and it hasn’t worked.
Alan Steinfeld
Right, we’ve been doing what I mean yeah it’s just lets us down a kind of negative path or a path that seems to lead to disconnection between who we really are. And what we’re trying to do is reconnect because all you’re doing if you start telling people what they need to do is you’re communicating with their minds and again you know and they either believe you or they don’t or they go for it or they don’t and then there’ll be people that oppose it and it’s all mind stuff and it’s all more arguing and disputing and and trying to make it better and and it just doesn’t work that way.
Dr. Mike Larcombe
Right. So another key here and we’re just coming to the end of our conversation at some point soon another key here I think and what I look for in new realities is what Heraclitus said is that he said expect the unexpected because it is difficult and hard to find. Meaning that we are so conditioned to believe that reality is just one particular way and if something comes along that’s outside that box it’s actually shocking, frightening, it’s traumatizing this we’ve been and it’s full of a traumatic disconnect cognitive dissonance I mean this whole aspect that when something comes into view how do we train ourselves to do what Heraclitus said expect the unexpected.
Alan Steinfeld
Well my take on that is that we it’s about paying attention to whatever is happening right now and and we don’t know what’s going to happen and so when we’re paying attention to what’s happening right now we’re always ready for the unexpected. And we just don’t know what’s going to happen next. But that’s where our attention needs to be and that’s where our response needs to be. So we can’t sort of plan and think ahead of what might or might not happen because if we do then our attention is taken away from the moment. So you know we could talk and plan and think and sit in rooms all day and say when this happens we’ll do that but as soon as we step outside the room something that we never considered happens. So we just have to be able to respond in a moment to moment way.
Dr. Mike Larcombe
Well that’s good. So like you said there’s there really is no predicting the future to try to lay it out it’s actually counterproductive and probably a waste of a lot of energy. And and really the unknown as Paul Lowe says it’s not really about planning or having ideas. It’s about paying attention to whoever’s in your reality, what they’re saying in every situation so you don’t know what it what anything means. And I you know and I felt drawn to come well to LA and I thought I wonder why I’m going. And today I met someone in a shop and she and somehow we started talking about trauma victims and she’s from Bosnia and she’s been over here for 12 years and she said if you want to go and work with trauma victims in Bosnia I have a place and you can go and stay. And perhaps my reason for coming to LA was for that conversation. How do I know? And I think in my mind it was to see Alan and and do things with him. So I pay attention in that shop to what she was saying and we swapped email addresses and I think that may happen. I’m not saying it’s going to happen. I don’t know what’s going to happen but I’m open to it as a possibility.
Alan Steinfeld
Yeah I think that’s a great way of living. We plan the future and God laughs right because there’s just so much magic out there waiting for us if we let it in. And to hold to some rigid structure which I think psychology and the ego the mind tries to make everything controllable takes away the magic. I hope that makes you know the point that we don’t have control. The illusion of control is basically the cause of neurosis. Once we’ve given up control then there is so much possible.
Dr. Mike Larcombe
Yeah. The other thing about expectations you know whenever you have expectations about a certain group or people or situation then that sets you up for disappointment too. Because you know you don’t know what’s going to happen you have an expectation it doesn’t get met so you’re disappointed and frustrated and annoyed. You have an expectation it is met and then there’s an element of oh I knew that was going to happen anyway.
Alan Steinfeld
Right. Oh okay, thank you Mike. I really appreciate it. Is there any sort of summarizing comment that you want to leave you know because this goes out over the Internet in the archives will go around the world this show eventually. So what some is there something that you’d like to leave people with and also perhaps you know information about yourself so. Anything comes to just wrap up.
Dr. Mike Larcombe
The anything that comes when we talk about being in a heartfelt place obviously when you’re responding to where other people are so feeling into where someone is so of often there’s a lot of frustration and tension in the room and and I just share what I’m feeling. So what I so the message I I have I guess for myself is to be who I am in each moment and to share that. So if I’m feeling some negative emotion in the room with people I’ll share that. And that’s and that’s so it’s not just about being a positive role model it’s about just genuinely being who you are and sharing what’s going on.
Alan Steinfeld
How do people get in touch with you if they want to get in touch with you or anything?
Dr. Mike Larcombe
If yeah if people can email me my email address is mike at j Larcombe which is l for lima a for apple r for robert c for charlie o for omega m for mike b for bravo and e for echo and then it’s dot wanadoo w-a-n-a-d-o-o dot co dot uk.
Alan Steinfeld
Thank you very much Mike I’ve been talking to Mike Larcombe, L-A-R-C-O-M-B-E and he’s from England and uh I welcome comments about this interview and others that you’ve heard on New Realities if you want to reach me I am at newrealities@earthlink.net and my website is also newrealities.tv. I’ve been broadcasting pretty much on BBSradio.com for the last I think two months and there’s a whole bunch of great archived interviews available if you go to the archives at bbsradio.com go to New Realities go to archives and then click New Realities I’ve done some shows recently about orphanages and and care in Nepal and water rights around the world in um with a person William Marks and talks about tribes in Africa about certain um you know contacts there um last week was Kyra Kay US hands with hands.org charity and each week I try to have the most interesting and exciting guests that I think are really at the cutting edge of understanding a new way of living on the planet. So my name is Alan Steinfeld and I really welcome comments please email me newrealities@earthlink.net and any ideas for upcoming guests or any types of new shows or new new possibilities I might be interviewing Stanton Friedman who is also does another theme of this show which has been UFOs and UFO exploration. I just got back from the UFO Expo in San Jose which I’ll report a little bit more about next week. So because next week I will be interviewing Stephen Bassett who is putting on the exopolitics conference in Washington DC September 16th and 17th. So more information about that also next week. If you have any interesting stories in your life please email me whatever you feel inspired. Thank you for listening tonight I’m going to end with a song by one of my favorite people Deva Premal and it is the Gayatri Mantra. And the Gayatri Mantra is a great mantra to just contemplate and help you enter an altered state. It’s the mantra to Ganesha which is who is the remover of obstacles. So just let the words wash over your mind, open up shift to a new consciousness and be aware of new realities. Thank you for listening tonight.