Part Two: Psychic Ability, Energy Healing & Remote Viewing: Her 100% Success Rate | Lisa Kudrow

Lisa Kudrow gets candid like never before in part 2 of our conversation, revealing shocking childhood experiences of claircognizance, a remote viewing experience involving her husband, and why she believes spoken language is actually primitive. She opens up about spirituality, consciousness, the power of the mind, and her thoughts on God, higher powers, reiki, and kundalini yoga. She also discusses her philosophy of trusting that "it's all going to be okay," why she believes things happen the way they're supposed to, and how those beliefs have shaped her life and career. Lisa shares surprising insights into the future of entertainment, explaining how the latest season of The Comeback reflects the growing reality of AI in Hollywood and why the show's themes feel more relevant than ever. She also reveals the inspiration behind the series finale, what it's been like returning to the iconic character of "Valerie Cherish" over such a long period of time, and how the entertainment industry has dramatically changed since the show's debut. She also weighs in on the Friends writers' room lawsuit, reflects on the expectations placed on women in Hollywood throughout her career, and discusses navigating fame in an evolving media landscape. Plus, Lisa asks Mayim about kundalini yoga, questions Jonathan about reiki, explains why she can't go to concerts, and shares rare personal stories and perspectives you've likely never heard before. From Hollywood and AI to spirituality, consciousness, intuition, and the future of entertainment, this is one of Lisa Kudrow's most revealing conversations yet! Follow us on Substack for Exclusive Bonus Content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BialikBreakdown.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.bialikbreakdown.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube.com/mayimbialik⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/mayimbialik%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0 Every self-made person started somewhere. Yours starts free at https://www.shopify.com/breakdown. Head to https://www. Superpower.com and use code BREAK at checkout for $20 off your membership. Unlock your new health intelligence. 100+ biomarkers. Every year. Detects early signs of 1,000+ conditions. #superpowerpodMake your summer wardrobe feel easier. Go to https://www.quince.com/breakdown for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Go to https://tidd.ly/4uVltMe and use the code MAYIM50 to get $50 off your Elastique order. Go to https://helixsleep.com/breakdown to receive 20% off sitewide, 25% of Luxe Mattresses and 30% off Elite Mattresses. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  We are creating our reality. We can control a little more than we thought we could. Ancient religion, spirituality, philosophy, quantum physics. It all pumps into each other.

• 0:10Mayim Bialik?

  Correct.

• 0:10Speaker 00

  I had an experience once with my husband. Not remote viewing. I was with him. I decided he was in Joshua Tree with friends where they were camping, sleeping out under the stars. I was home and I take a bath and I thought, just focus all your attention on being with Michelle.

• 0:27Mayim Bialik?

  You were not on mushrooms?

• 0:28Speaker 00

  No. Remember me?

• 0:30Mayim Bialik?

  That's right.

• 0:30Speaker 00

  Too afraid. Really focused my attention. I am with Michelle, but am I forcing it? Cause I know he's at Joshua Tree. There was sort of a structure, but he's outside on sort of Adirondack chairs and a fire pit. I thought, okay. So I didn't do it.

• 0:44Mayim Bialik?

  Finished the bath.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  He comes home. I said, I actually tried to be with you. He said, was that Friday night?

• 0:49Mayim Bialik?

  Stop it.

• 0:50Speaker 00

  We went to a restaurant. We were sitting outside on Adirondack chairs at a fire pit.

• 0:55Jonathan Cohen?

  Wow.

• 0:55Speaker 00

  And I went, okay, so I did do it.

• 0:57Jonathan Cohen?

  So you have the ability.

• 0:58Speaker 00

  I did it once.

• 0:59Jonathan Cohen?

  But you have a hundred percent success rate.

• 1:01Speaker 00

  I could be in my bedroom tonight and you might be in my bedroom with me, but I won't be. I promise. You like me too much. I do.

• 1:14Mayim Bialik?

  Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik.

• 1:16Jonathan Cohen?

  And I'm Jonathan Cohen.

• 1:16Mayim Bialik?

  And welcome to part two of our conversation with Lisa Kudrow, the multi award winning actress, star of Friends. She played Phoebe for a decade as well as so many other things. She is also the star of The Comeback, a series in three seasons told over almost 20 years. Turns out she's a huge super fan of Mayim Bialik's Breakdown, reached out to me, slid into my DMs on Instagram and told me that she's a huge fan and just wanted to talk about her favorite episodes. I asked her if she would come do it in person and she agreed. It's an incredible conversation. We cannot wait for you to hear part two of our conversation with Lisa Kudrow.

• 1:53Speaker 00

  Break it down.

• 1:56Jonathan Cohen?

  There's something that I have tried to ask other actors before and I've been shut down and it sounds a little crazy, but I really believe it.

• 2:03Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 2:05Jonathan Cohen?

  If I were, if I had your experience with a variety of characters that I had had a long relationship with, I believe that those characters would still exist somewhere and that I would visit them sometimes because I would be like, know them so intimately for so long that in a quiet moment, if I was by myself tidying my bedroom, I could sort of close my eyes and be like, where is this character right now? And like, not only do they exist because like so much of their energy was created, but so many people have a relationship with them. It's like, they can't just be closed off in a box and like discarded.

• 2:46Jonathan Cohen?

  And if I was the person who had the relationship with them as them, it's not like I would be having a, it would like be like I was having a conversation with a friend in, in some way.

• 2:57Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:58Jonathan Cohen?

  I've tried to ask that question and everyone's like, oh yeah, I just kind of move on with the rest of, you know, my career, but I don't believe that.

• 3:05Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, but I do. Do you have the same answer?

• 3:08Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 3:09Speaker 00

  Do you think about Blossom?

• 3:10Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, like I played, I was thinking I played a character for five years, then I played a character for nine years, then I played a character for three years.

• 3:17Jonathan Cohen?

  But if the circumstances arise where you were by yourself, could you close your eyes and bring that character back?

• 3:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:27Jonathan Cohen?

  In a way and be like, and if you were to have sort of like a curious investigation or like a conversation where you're like, hey, what's been going on? I think that character would sort of speak and be present with you.

• 3:41Speaker 00

  Interesting. I mean, look, I, you know, I might have to bring a character back soon because they're talking about Romeo and Michelle and I played Michelle Weinberger. I'm 60 something, okay? So I don't.

• 3:57Mayim Bialik?

  Do you know where she is?

• 3:59Speaker 00

  I've seen a script, so, but that's the story.

• 4:03Mayim Bialik?

  But I mean, in here, do you know where she is?

• 4:05Speaker 00

  I mean, I do from back then.

• 4:06Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 4:07Speaker 00

  And I'm trying to rationalize. I mean, there are women in their 60s that still have vocal fry or, you know, sound like a valley girl and are innocent and try to sound, I guess.

• 4:23Mayim Bialik?

  It's interesting because I think also when I brought back Amy for the finale of Young Sheldon, Jim and I were asked to recreate these characters, but not in a sitcom format.

• 4:36Speaker 00

  Right.

• 4:37Mayim Bialik?

  Meaning it was, it's a single cam.

• 4:39Speaker 00

  Right.

• 4:39Mayim Bialik?

  That was actually very strange.

• 4:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:42Mayim Bialik?

  Because my character lived with not just a laugh track. It's not about that.

• 4:47Speaker 00

  No, I know what you mean.

• 4:48Mayim Bialik?

  It lives with the energy of hundreds of people and a lot of the things that all of us would do.

• 4:54Speaker 00

  Right.

• 4:54Mayim Bialik?

  Were something we didn't rehearse all week, but when the audience is there and you can ride that laugh and you can get a second laugh and you can give a turn of your body and get like, that stuff only exists in this, you know, dynamic of, of a live performance.

• 5:10Speaker 00

  Right.

• 5:10Mayim Bialik?

  So it was very strange and the voice came right back to me and like the posture, right? Like what would Amy be like 15 years later, right? Or whatever it is. But there was something about the rhythm that it's almost like I didn't know how to make her exist outside of.

• 5:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:27Mayim Bialik?

  Set up, set up joke. Tell me Chuck Lorre what to do, you know?

• 5:32Speaker 00

  Right. No, that I would be plagued with, this is going to be very disappointing, just because, right? I mean, it's a different, it's a different energy level and, and, oh, it's just, this is, I don't know how this is going to work. I'd be very nervous.

• 5:48Mayim Bialik?

  Well, we've, and actually.

• 5:49Speaker 00

  How'd it go? I guess well.

• 5:51Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah. I mean, it, it went well. And you know, for me, the fun was also like, what would Amy wear? What would she wear as a grown up, right? She's not going to wear exactly the same thing, but you know, we still kept with a pencil skirt. It was like a sensible loafer instead of an orthopedic shoe.

• 6:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:06Mayim Bialik?

  Um, you know, and I, the jewelry I chose, I chose a single pearl hanging because I thought that's what Sheldon would buy her. That if she said, buy me something nice, he'd be like, one pearl, right?

• 6:17Speaker 00

  Right.

• 6:18Mayim Bialik?

  Like, it just seemed like.

• 6:19Speaker 00

  There was also a tiara.

• 6:20Mayim Bialik?

  Right. That's true.

• 6:21Speaker 00

  You know?

• 6:22Mayim Bialik?

  We've talked about Don Rhea, who created Blossom. We wanted to reboot Blossom, not as a sitcom. We wanted to bring it back as a single cam. And not to say like, it's a drama, but to say, well, what would it look like when someone grows up, right?

• 6:37Speaker 00

  Very different energy.

• 6:37Mayim Bialik?

  And life is not always a sitcom. There's not always a laugh track to what happens in your life. And we thought that would be this really interesting way, also for women of a certain generation to say, yeah, what's it like when you're out of junior high and high school? We, we have been told there is not interest for that character, not in a sitcom format. And I thought, what an interesting statement. And of course I have to make it philosophical. What are we being told, right? What are we being told as women, right? This is how we want you. We want you perky and dancing and smiling and fun and.

• 7:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:12Mayim Bialik?

  We, we have a harder time wrapping our head around what happens, you know, when cute kids grow up, right? When we all grow up, like what is this next phase of life like? And it almost feels like this strange irony. That's something I wanted to do creatively. I can't because the exact reason that I want to do it, right?

• 7:31Speaker 00

  Well, but it might be an interesting movie or, you know, as I call those a one off.

• 7:36Mayim Bialik?

  That's what, yeah, that's what we've talked about.

• 7:39Speaker 00

  I don't think it's women and don't want to see women. I think it's don't want to unravel a happy ending. Cause you would have to, if you're now going to explore.

• 7:51Mayim Bialik?

  Really?

• 7:51Speaker 00

  There's a fantasy about when something's over, like, oh, good. So hopefully everything just went well. You know, just like end of everything.

• 8:00Mayim Bialik?

  That's a perfect setup for, can you talk about the comeback?

• 8:03Speaker 00

  Oh, right. Yeah.

• 8:04Mayim Bialik?

  Can you talk about something that is spanning?

• 8:06Speaker 00

  I'm never leaving.

• 8:07Jonathan Cohen?

  Never.

• 8:08Speaker 00

  And we'll order lunch.

• 8:10Mayim Bialik?

  Whatever you need.

• 8:10Speaker 00

  Then we'll go into dinner.

• 8:12Mayim Bialik?

  No, but I wonder if you can talk about, you know, creating something that is spanning not just time, but phases of your life.

• 8:21Speaker 00

  Cause the comeback started right after Friends. Friends wrapped January 2004. We shot the pilot November.

• 8:29Mayim Bialik?

  Oh.

• 8:29Speaker 00

  2004, which meant Michael and I were writing it in the fall. So, um, and that was the beginning of reality TV. There were no Housewives yet. There was Survivor, there was Amazing Race, and those shows to me were the end of civilization. I thought, you know, these people are signing up, I think, because they just want to be seen and be, get attention or be famous. The five of us, the six of us, wow, me and five others, um, went through that and that was hard.

• 9:09Speaker 00

  And we had each other, you know, to try to ground us and support with that. I don't know if they know what they're in for. It's not good. Also Survivor, that ending, they all voted the most despicable guy for being, despicable made him a good player and got the reward.

• 9:34Mayim Bialik?

  Sounds like capitalism to me.

• 9:36Speaker 00

  Well, I don't, but, but I mean, historically, this country has always been merit-based, and if they're, and if you can be decent about it, you win the prize. And that woman was decent about it. And

• 9:58Speaker 00

  it, that was the most depressing thing I'd ever seen.

• 10:01Mayim Bialik?

  It was a real shift.

• 10:01Jonathan Cohen?

  Kind of a signal of what was to come.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  What was to come, yeah. You didn't ask for all this.

• 10:06Jonathan Cohen?

  Yes, we did.

• 10:06Mayim Bialik?

  No, but that's, that's a, that's a great framing, though.

• 10:09Speaker 00

  Yeah. And then Amazing Race, first season. And there's a married couple, and the challenge was eat spicy soup. It's so spicy that they're vomiting. They can't choke it down. So there's a bucket next to them. And it's the first time I had ever seen people crying, choking and vomiting while the husband is screaming at her, get it down so we can move on.

• 10:35Jonathan Cohen?

  And this is entertainment now.

• 10:37Speaker 00

  And that's entertainment. So to me also, it was, oh, this is the end. This is terrible.

• 10:43Jonathan Cohen?

  It's only divulged from there. That was the high point.

• 10:47Speaker 00

  But it, no, because there were guidelines then. This was, there were, unions weren't involved. There was no duty of care, if that's what that is called. So, yeah, I mean, but anyway. And, and there were no housewives yet, who seemed to have a plan and knew what they were doing. I guess they do. I think they do. Anyway, um, so I just thought

• 11:15Speaker 00

  this would be, this is something. This is something to do. And, and the only way you don't feel devastated for this person is make her an actress. Who's going to be on a sitcom, but the studio, and Michael Patrick King and I then worked out, and the studio is so panicked, they're hedging their bets. They'll do a sitcom, but let's have a companion reality show to go with it. And this actress who has tunnel vision about like, just, this is great. Another opportunity, going to be back in the spotlight. Okay, here we go. You know, she's just, that's all. It's, it's sort of like a narrow focus.

• 11:55Speaker 00

  And not seeing that the producer, played by Laura Silverman phenomenally well, is there to manipulate her and get footage and just try to make it the best

• 12:07Jonathan Cohen?

  entertainment.

• 12:07Speaker 00

  Joe Entertainment Show, yeah. And then you have the showrunner, played by Lance Barber, who played the father of young Sheldon. And that's why I'm here. But, and he is so abusive and punishing and in pain because he wrote a show about four sexy, single women in their 40s that the network said, eh, make it more like Friends. Okay, so they do, but you gotta keep the 40-year-old woman somehow because that's the reality show we need. Figure it out. So, yes, of course, his head is going to explode. And

• 12:50Speaker 00

  the other writers in our writers' room

• 12:54Speaker 00

  knew that abusive showrunners were in abundance. Okay. I was not drawing on Friends. I have to say this because it keeps coming up. And it's so close to when I finished. If anything, the only thing that was like about Friends to me was, um, Juna and Valerie, the young, beautiful actress, and that there wasn't really competition, you know?

• 13:22Speaker 00

  And that she was sweet. The only person that was really sweet to Valerie was that person. Because that was my experience on our show. I swear to God. We really loved each other.

• 13:35Speaker 00

  So, yeah. And I didn't really know about, there was a lawsuit.

• 13:41Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 13:41Speaker 00

  With the Friends from Writers Assistant. And I didn't know the details. I just knew that there was one and I wasn't sure. And at the time, I honestly thought, yeah, that's a writers' room, you know?

• 13:54Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, the lawsuit, just to frame it a little bit, there was a lawsuit regarding language and behavior in a writers' room, which unfortunately was ruled, it went to the Supreme Court, was ruled, um, you know, par for the course, essentially for that job.

• 14:07Speaker 00

  The state, maybe state Supreme Court.

• 14:08Mayim Bialik?

  That's what I meant. Yeah, sorry.

• 14:09Speaker 00

  Yeah. That, you know, well, that's what it is. And that is how we felt, like, okay. Just looking at the world,

• 14:18Speaker 00

  here's, here, here, here are the rules of engagement. And this is what society is. So this is what you have to work with. And it's hard to navigate. Okay.

• 14:29Mayim Bialik?

  Mindy Alex Breakdown is supported by Rabbit Air. I have to say, we absolutely love our Rabbit Air purifiers. I'm one of those people who didn't know that this could change my life until I got my Rabbit Air. We actually have three of them, so we can have allergen-free air wherever we're spending our time and recording. And with fall allergy season on the way, having a high-quality, effective air purifier on hand is absolutely key to tackling those fall allergens and keeping your space clean. Rabbit Air's advanced Bio GS Happa filtration goes beyond standard filters by trapping over 99.99% of ultrafine particles down to 0.01 microns. It efficiently captures microscopic allergens like pollen, mold, pet dander and more

• 15:12Mayim Bialik?

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• 15:56Mayim Bialik?

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• 16:39Mayim Bialik?

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• 17:06Mayim Bialik?

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• 17:52Mayim Bialik?

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• 18:38Mayim Bialik?

  I was on Big Bang when Me Too happened. So there was a tremendous amount of conversation then.

• 18:42Speaker 00

  Boy, yes, there would be.

• 18:44Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, meaning we had to reckon with these things.

• 18:46Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 18:47Mayim Bialik?

  But anyway, go ahead.

• 18:48Speaker 00

  Right. Well, I think, thank God. Because it, I mean, ultimately, people had to treat people with respect in a workplace. So that part's great. Sorry about the fallout from other things, you know, that everything got really sensitive and almost impossible.

• 19:05Mayim Bialik?

  Yep.

• 19:06Speaker 00

  But it's a time capsule of how much abuse, discomfort. And we deliberately had Valerie just determined to get what she wants. So she would speak up and say, you know, that joke might be offensive. You know, you're saying Korean barbecue, don't think the audience is gonna like it. You know, you see a, you see a basket of puppies, I see Korean barbecue. Um, so, you know, and she's saying, you're not gonna like it. And Jim Burrows, plays Jim Burrows, the director, and he's, and he says, you can't tell a bunch of 30-year-old writers that their joke's not gonna work. Let the audience tell them. And at the time, it's, yeah, he's right. What's wrong with her? Doesn't she know to keep her mouth shut?

• 19:51Speaker 00

  And that was our joke.

• 19:53Mayim Bialik?

  You were ahead of your time, though.

• 19:56Speaker 00

  We were kind of just reporting what was. There was no laugh trap. There's no, there's no music to tell you, you know, this part's funny, this part is serious. You know, we weren't doing that. So it just became sort of a time capsule of this is how it was. And ended up making people feel really bad watching it, really uncomfortable. It was cringe, um, which shocked me. It just, I didn't know why. Until later, Bill Maher was commenting, someone made a joke about someone, you know, and it wasn't fair because the person was disabled. And, um, you know, you can't, you can't make fun of a victim.

• 20:40Speaker 00

  And I went, ah, women are victims? Is that what happened? Because women are still victims? Oh, that's depressing. I thought we were all the same. Shoot. Yeah.

• 20:52Mayim Bialik?

  Can you also talk about what it's like to do three seasons this many years apart? Because I don't know that I've ever known a show to do this and to do it so well.

• 21:02Speaker 00

  Thank you. Um, what's fantastic is 10 years later, when we're asked to do season two, because we got canceled, right, immediately. It made someone at HBO really uncomfortable. But it's a different time. The TV landscape is completely different. There aren't as many 22 episodes of a multi-camera show. It's single-camera dramedy, comedy, because the concept is funny, but there are no jokes. And, um, so, yeah, so we're setting, we're putting it in that setting.

• 21:44Speaker 00

  And, um, by the way, the number of writers you need just got cut in half. Because you don't need 12 to 15 writers in a writer's room for 22 episodes. This is 13 episodes. And then we have our Valerie, you know, this time we're looking at her marriage. And this reality, she's back on this now, it's a doc series, gonna be, or a doc, um, that Jane's doing. And she's on an HBO show, so it's very meta.

• 22:14Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 22:14Speaker 00

  And, um, and this time, we have her confronted with actual personal. Her hairdresser, who's her big support and closest thing to family next to her husband, um, has cancer and he's sick. And she's at the Emmys, that, how that went, and she's at the Emmys, which is everything to her. She gets nominated for an Emmy, come on. And he can't go because he wasn't feeling well. And she's kind of separated from her husband right now, had a big fight. And she sees, she gets a text that, um, her Mickey, it collapsed and is in the hospital.

• 22:59Speaker 00

  And she's sitting there at the theater and she can't sit there. She said, let me just go call and see if I can find out. And she leaves the cameras. That's the first time we're seeing Valerie without reality cameras on her. She leaves the cameras and realizes she can't go back in that theater because she can't not know what's going on with him. She just can't. And goes to the hospital and it felt to people like, oh, she'd be, like Pinocchio became a real boy. You know, she became an actual human. So third season, and it's daunting to do this, third season, because people thought that was the best ending for the thing. Like, oh, okay.

• 23:37Mayim Bialik?

  There's more.

• 23:37Speaker 00

  That, okay, well, figure it out. But Michael Patrick King said, okay, we couldn't think of anything. You know, I don't know what would be big enough. Now it's like an event, it has to be. And Michael said she's, she gets the lead in a multicam, her favorite thing, um, which is great, but it's the first one written by AI. And went, perfect, that's exactly the meat grinder she would throw herself into. And, um,

• 24:06Mayim Bialik?

  That's hilarious.

• 24:07Speaker 00

  It was, it's good. And we had to do some research and talk to people, um, keeping it just to entertainment for the most part, keeping it to writing. Because, yeah, it easily happened.

• 24:23Mayim Bialik?

  So I've heard.

• 24:24Speaker 00

  It could, I mean, commercials are probably, especially non-union commercials, you know, that things I'm sure are being done. And it's Valerie. So she's not looking at the big picture, what does this mean for humanity? She is just against it at first because the writers are gonna hate me. That's what that whole strike was about. And her husband, who's, you know, a business guy, he's like a finance guy. Well, it was about a little more than that. It was about streaming. She's like, no, I was there, I know, I was, spent a day with them on the line. And, you know, that's the villain. AI's the villain. So I can't have a meeting about, you know, a show like this.

• 25:06Speaker 00

  And then she realizes, well, I better, because she just did a film she thought was gonna be, it was a terrible experience on an indie film. It's like, all right, someone's offering me something, so let's go, at least see. And the head of the studio, played by Andrew Scott, no, he's the best actor alive, I would say, right now. He lets her know, oh, no, we have writers. Doesn't tell her as beards. Have to have writers, yeah. And it's okay with, and you know, Valerie's just looking for, it's okay? Like someone's giving her permission, good, done. But because the writers are beards, they're not gonna participate in the writing.

• 25:51Speaker 00

  Jim Burrows agrees to direct. He just wants to see what this thing is, okay? And, uh, the end, he wants to see what this is. And then says, yeah, it's never gonna be great, they're not engaged. Too bad, good part for you. And it's also, yeah, and AI picked her to do it. So, yeah, so there are practical issues with AI. It still hallucinates, so there's that. And she's realizing, one, reluctantly, she's now the only one in charge, and who cares? Number two, she realizes, we need a human writer. We need two or three human writers.

• 26:37Speaker 00

  Because, yes, it might be fast and spit out a bunch of jokes, but you still need the human to decide which joke is gonna be good. And then if anything goes wrong, as it goes along, there's a studio paywall.

• 26:50Mayim Bialik?

  Wow.

• 26:50Speaker 00

  That it hits. Because they're doing too much with AI. And so, yeah, now you only get to use as much of it. So we need a human writer and no one will listen. And so it becomes about, like, that's the message. It's not pro-AI, it's not anti, you know?

• 27:08Mayim Bialik?

  It's the reality, though, of what we're dealing with.

• 27:10Speaker 00

  That's what we meant it to be.

• 27:12Mayim Bialik?

  I think in each of the seasons, as you're describing them,

• 27:15Speaker 00

  Right.

• 27:15Mayim Bialik?

  that you've been able to touch on what's in the zeitgeist.

• 27:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:19Mayim Bialik?

  Where are we?

• 27:20Speaker 00

  It's a time capsule.

• 27:21Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 27:22Speaker 00

  You know, but every show, it turns out, is a time capsule.

• 27:26Jonathan Cohen?

  I just don't know that there's ever been a show that has had the ability to touch time in such a unique way because of how spaced out the seasons are, which is unbelievable.

• 27:36Speaker 00

  So it's a time capsule for the television landscape.

• 27:39Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 27:40Speaker 00

  And then what we also wanted to do was show that the Valerie that you felt so badly for, saw her as a victim or some witless victim, isn't. She was creating her own reality the entire time. That's how she was able to keep going. And it looked delusional, or she's in denial. And what's the difference between that and coping?

• 28:08Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 28:08Speaker 00

  Unless you're headed for something very dangerous, actually, physically dangerous. But what's the difference? Doesn't matter.

• 28:17Jonathan Cohen?

  There's also a through line, both in the comeback and in your experience on Friends and in through many of these episodes about the creation of our own reality, right? It's like,

• 28:28Speaker 00

  Right.

• 28:29Jonathan Cohen?

  when you talked about, um, your comeback character, you know, maybe describe the end, that end scene that you shared with us at the beginning, because there's a reframing of what everyone else's expectations are, right? Even with your son, if you had said, well, the doctor knows better than me, and so I'm gonna just accept whatever they say, that is a frame of your reality.

• 28:49Speaker 00

  And let me be fair, though, with my son, there were moments where I went, okay, shit, I guess, oh, my God, watched Rain Man and went, is that what's gonna happen? No. And it wasn't, but, you know, sure.

• 29:00Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah, but taking even what she said and then just being able to evaluate it with a grain of salt versus this is what I have to do.

• 29:06Speaker 00

  But I think it's important for people to know that even if you are pretty clear on something, it's not every second and every minute.

• 29:13Jonathan Cohen?

  For sure.

• 29:14Speaker 00

  It's just that luckily, the doubt is momentary. So don't feel too bad.

• 29:19Jonathan Cohen?

  Or that there's another way of seeing something. Even getting fired from Frasier, you can see that in one particular way, or you can start to say, wait, there may be more information. And I think all the podcasts are like, maybe there's just more here than we're actually realizing.

• 29:39Speaker 00

  After something unpleasant happens, right? And then it turns out, okay.

• 29:47Speaker 00

  Just remember, it turns out, okay, is, is the thing that you don't need to fret, mutcher yourself too much. Don't, you don't need to suffer too much. It's gonna be okay. And I really, I don't know, be, again, here I go again. This might be really stupid. But, you know, even you, you embark on some creative endeavor, you know, that, oh, I don't, maybe I'm not paying enough attention to this aspect of it, or, you know, going over the script with a fine tooth comb, you know, sometimes you're compelled to, sometimes you're not, sometimes it doesn't work out, sometimes it doesn't.

• 30:30Speaker 00

  Thank God, when it hasn't worked out, I have to say, and how nice when things did work out. But just trusting it's okay. Like, you'll know when you need to put the effort in there. You'll know when you need to put the effort in there.

• 30:49Mayim Bialik?

  So God has two answers? Yes, and not now. I've got something better.

• 30:54Speaker 00

  The thing that struck me the most with truth was, I think it was like James Gladfelter. Oh my God, I love him.

• 31:04Mayim Bialik?

  Yes, that was an amazing, that was an amazing conversation.

• 31:07Speaker 00

  Other things, talking about, you know, ancient religion, spirituality, philosophy, it all bumps into each and then quantum physics. It all comes into each other. And it reminded me, you know, in Judaism, there's no word for God. There's no Hashem, you can say, you can't, there's no name, because it's nameless, which sounds a lot like a field of information. Also, a lot of times, it's translated to all that is, all that was, all that ever will be. Holy cow.

• 31:46Mayim Bialik?

  I've brought that up. I've said that.

• 31:47Speaker 00

  You have?

• 31:48Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, I've talked about it, that the fact that one of the most common names for God in the, you know, that we use in like, the Old Testament, you can't pronounce it.

• 31:59Speaker 00

  Right.

• 31:59Mayim Bialik?

  You're not allowed to pronounce it.

• 32:00Speaker 00

  Right.

• 32:01Mayim Bialik?

  And so even the initials, you have to like, break them up, or when you write it, we don't write it. And it's an acronym for was, is, and will be.

• 32:10Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 32:11Mayim Bialik?

  And that like, this whole, this notion that even when you try and understand something that's bigger than you, you, you can't pin it down, which is a lot like a particle and its wave function, right?

• 32:23Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 32:23Mayim Bialik?

  You cannot pin it down.

• 32:24Speaker 00

  I'm saying yes, which I understand a little better now.

• 32:28Mayim Bialik?

  But, but the collapse of the wave function gives you one point, but, you know, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, you can't know the location and the speed of an op, like, that to me, like, that's divine. And when people would say, how are you a person of faith and a person of God? I'm like, look at the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Is there anything more incredible than you can't know something when you try and pin it down? Unless you let the wave function collapse.

• 32:52Speaker 00

  You know, one's belief in, or faith, isn't in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, you know, like, and Lot.

• 32:59Jonathan Cohen?

  The other thing from the Gladfelter interview that has stuck with me, and, and we sort of reviewed as we were prepping for this conversation, is his notion that the crisis of meaning that so many people are facing, the solution to that is actually in re-enchantment. And this idea of re-enchantment actually, I think, connects back to childhood, to play, to creativity, to recognizing that there are many ways towards an end goal. It doesn't have to be so serious. And again, I'm not saying we don't have to work hard. We do. But sometimes, being able to just be relaxed enough to notice the things around

• 33:40Jonathan Cohen?

  us, to be amazed, has such an empowering and magical influence on us.

• 33:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:47Jonathan Cohen?

  And we realized that, you know, Dr. Ellen Langer.

• 33:51Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm, loved.

• 33:53Jonathan Cohen?

  She actually has the same idea, right?

• 33:55Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 33:56Jonathan Cohen?

  Redefining mindfulness as being aware and noticing.

• 34:00Mayim Bialik?

  Literally.

• 34:01Jonathan Cohen?

  The little moments of aha that we can get by simply like, I never noticed something in my yard before, on my walk before, that had, the impact on our physiology is very similar to what Gladfelter is talking about in terms of re-enchantment.

• 34:16Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:17Mayim Bialik?

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• 35:00Mayim Bialik?

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• 35:38Mayim Bialik?

  Use the code Miam for 60% off an annual plan. That's I-N-C-O-G-N-I.com/miam, promo code Miam. It's completely risk-free with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Check the link in today's episode description to get started. And yeah, and Ellen Langer literally proved, your physiology will change from your perception of your surroundings.

• 36:00Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 36:02Mayim Bialik?

  And that, I mean, she's one of the strongest cases, and this was in the 70s, also, for a woman at that time, right?

• 36:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:08Mayim Bialik?

  To be doing this kind of research. One of the experiments was the chambermaids, which is what we used to call people who worked in hotels and changed the sheets and stuff.

• 36:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:16Mayim Bialik?

  And they did an experiment with these chambermaids where they told, they told, they had half of them as a control group, where they just changed the beds and did the things, and they had to weigh themselves and see how much they weighed. And the others, they said, guess what? The work that you do as a chambermaid, it's basically exercise.

• 36:33Speaker 00

  Right.

• 36:33Mayim Bialik?

  Because you're like, putting the sheets, and that's like, doing a squat.

• 36:35Jonathan Cohen?

  And you're carrying things.

• 36:36Mayim Bialik?

  And you're carrying, and those women, from doing nothing more than their job when they were told it was exercise, actually lost weight.

• 36:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:45Mayim Bialik?

  And it was statistically significant. It was published in like, a peer-reviewed journal, and blah, blah, blah, all the things. But she also did this study where they brought, I believe, older men, right, in their 80s?

• 36:56Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 36:56Mayim Bialik?

  To a setting where they made it look like, basically.

• 36:59Jonathan Cohen?

  They brought them to a hotel.

• 37:00Mayim Bialik?

  A hotel, and they designed it like it was 30 years prior, I think it was. The music, the food, like, everything, the style, the movies.

• 37:08Jonathan Cohen?

  The TV.

• 37:08Mayim Bialik?

  And they, I mean, all their physiological markers for blood pressure, like, all these things, weight, fitness.

• 37:14Jonathan Cohen?

  Eyesight.

• 37:15Mayim Bialik?

  Everything improved. Right. Unbelievable.

• 37:18Speaker 00

  Alex Graham, who created Who Do You Think You Are?, did that.

• 37:22Mayim Bialik?

  Oh.

• 37:23Speaker 00

  As a show.

• 37:24Jonathan Cohen?

  Wow.

• 37:25Speaker 00

  And I think it was a one-off.

• 37:26Mayim Bialik?

  To look that up.

• 37:27Speaker 00

  Well, he also did Colonial House.

• 37:29Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:29Speaker 00

  Those are, those were fantastic experiments.

• 37:33Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, yeah.

• 37:34Speaker 00

  You know, but yeah, he, he first told me about that, because he said, yeah, we're doing a really interesting show.

• 37:39Mayim Bialik?

  That's incredible. I didn't know that.

• 37:41Speaker 00

  And, and on our show too, you could see.

• 37:44Mayim Bialik?

  Wow.

• 37:45Speaker 00

  Improvement, yeah. Like, he documented.

• 37:48Mayim Bialik?

  That's amazing.

• 37:48Speaker 00

  His version of that study, I guess. Yeah.

• 37:50Jonathan Cohen?

  I mean, that opens just like, this rabbit hole, right? Like, what is the intention that we bring to everything that we're doing?

• 37:56Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 37:56Jonathan Cohen?

  If we have that self-consciousness, if we're terrified of speaking up, what is that gonna do?

• 38:01Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 38:02Jonathan Cohen?

  To our physiology? What does that do to our ideas? How open can, creative can we be?

• 38:07Speaker 00

  Right. Yes. Exactly. I mean, I don't know what to say, other than, it's true.

• 38:14Jonathan Cohen?

  I'm telling myself that podcasts is great exercise.

• 38:17Speaker 00

  Well, it is. I mean, and I'm telling myself that, you know, I can have some chips if I'm so busy. And then guess what? I can. And I haven't gained weight. And if I tell myself, oh, you've eaten a lot of chocolate today, but I'm so happy, but I've eaten a lot of chocolate today, and two pounds more on a scale.

• 38:37Mayim Bialik?

  That's right.

• 38:38Speaker 00

  And like, two pounds? I didn't even eat two pounds of chocolate. What, how did that happen? You know, it's true.

• 38:46Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 38:46Speaker 00

  All that stuff, it's so, we are creating our reality. And physically, too.

• 38:52Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 38:53Speaker 00

  And, I mean, people have always, it's kind of annoying when someone, my husband used to say, because he's always been like, what we're talking about, okay? He's always been aware that we can control a little more than we thought we could, and, and there's impact, and thoughts have impact, and all that. And he would say, if I got sick, why do you want to get sick? And I would want to punch him.

• 39:19Jonathan Cohen?

  When you're sick, no one wants to hear that, right?

• 39:21Speaker 00

  And the worst is, why did you want to get cancer? You know, he didn't say, he didn't say that, but it's, that's the thought that no one dares say, that is the most punishing thing. And.

• 39:35Speaker 00

  So what I say is, it's not that you wanted it, it's just what had to happen. That's all. And, and he's always said, and I never believed him, I thought it was so stupid. When it's your time, it's your time. And I've come to honestly believe that.

• 39:55Mayim Bialik?

  Do you mean in life or in death?

• 39:57Speaker 00

  Both, all of it. All of it. I mean, when it's your time to figure it out, you'll figure it out. You know, if there's something you need to do, or you need to wake up from something, or release yourself from something you've been punishing yourself over, when it's your time to do it, you do it, or you don't. I don't know. Doesn't matter.

• 40:16Mayim Bialik?

  It's a very peaceful perspective. It really is.

• 40:18Speaker 00

  It is. I try to remind myself of that. But you, but here's my, I have two questions.

• 40:23Mayim Bialik?

  I was gonna say, do you have any questions for us before we say goodbye?

• 40:26Speaker 00

  Yes. Oh, well, you should. At some point, you might have something else to do.

• 40:30Jonathan Cohen?

  I have nothing. Just exercising through the podcast.

• 40:33Speaker 00

  Me neither. Um, okay, where do I start? Okay, you're a Reiki practitioner.

• 40:41Jonathan Cohen?

  I am.

• 40:42Speaker 00

  How and when did you start that?

• 40:44Jonathan Cohen?

  So, this is, look.

• 40:46Speaker 00

  No? What?

• 40:46Mayim Bialik?

  Yes.

• 40:47Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 40:47Mayim Bialik?

  It's a great question.

• 40:48Jonathan Cohen?

  And, you know, what has been amazing about this conversation for me is your openness about feeling uncomfortable about specific questions, and Reiki has been one of those topics that I've always been almost ashamed to talk about. Because there are so many different versions of it. And when I was growing up, it was this like weird thing that wasn't publicized or talked about. And like, when I tried to explain it to people, they were like, you know, this again is almost 25 years ago.

• 41:21Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 41:23Jonathan Cohen?

  In, uh, you know, very-

• 41:25Mayim Bialik?

  Suburban Toronto.

• 41:26Jonathan Cohen?

  Suburban, um, you know, not overly open Toronto.

• 41:32Speaker 00

  Right.

• 41:33Jonathan Cohen?

  And people are like, what are you talking about? Like, this is so weird and strange.

• 41:38Speaker 00

  What happened to you?

• 41:39Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 41:40Speaker 00

  You were so smart and promising.

• 41:43Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah, and it was like weird. And, you know, all, anyway, so the short version of how that happened was, it was family tragedy. My, um, my sister had extreme health problems from the time she was very young. Um, at like 11, she had, had back surgery, she had a ski accident, or water ski accident. And her level of physical pain after that far surpassed the actual accident itself. And, um, over the years, she had fibromyalgia, she couldn't walk up and down the stairs. For a while, my brother, like, when she came down for dinner, she would like come down on her butt, and like scooting down the stairs, and then he would have to piggyback her back up, up the stairs.

• 42:28Jonathan Cohen?

  Um, and she was very sick and saw every different type of specialist. At the same time, years, you know, she's six years older than me, my brother is three years older than me. My brother was injured in a car accident and left with a traumatic brain injury. And at that point, she-

• 42:45Mayim Bialik?

  He was in a coma.

• 42:46Jonathan Cohen?

  He was in a coma.

• 42:47Mayim Bialik?

  Extensive injury, yeah.

• 42:48Jonathan Cohen?

  Very extensive injury.

• 42:49Mayim Bialik?

  It was your desire to see your brother heal in a way that doctors were basically saying, we don't necessarily know if he's ever going to walk, talk, communicate.

• 43:00Jonathan Cohen?

  Yes, and that was a little bit past, but sort of the way I got to Reiki was that I saw my sister have a drastic transformation in her health after it cratered after my brother's accident. So like the stress and the family stress of my brother being in the hospital only made her physical condition worse. So like, there was these parallel tracks of two injuries. And years after my brother's accident, my sister dropped out of business school, and like started changing her life, and worked at a health food store, and started doing yoga, and started basically looking at all the psychosomatic stress aspects of her disease. And eventually started to get out of a wheelchair and be able to walk, and ended up backpacking around the world. And, you know, she caveats that story by saying

• 43:44Jonathan Cohen?

  that, you know, she walked cautiously, you know, she wasn't like running up mountains, but like her body was strong enough to be able to do that. And so, one day, she's at the kitchen table while my parents are away, and it's like, uh, we're throwing parties as I, as I do, and I'm 17 years old. And I go and reach into the toaster, because I've made myself a snack, and I singe three fingers on my right hand, on the toaster oven grill. I go to put them under cold water, and she's like, why don't you let me cup your hands for you? And I don't know what Reiki is at this time, but I see the blister starting to form on my hands, and I, she's, and I'm like, what are you talking about? She's like, just sit down.

• 44:25Jonathan Cohen?

  So she puts my fingers in her hands, and I'm like joking with her, because we knew something, she was up to something. Well, you know, she was a vegetarian, and we thought that was crazy.

• 44:34Speaker 00

  Right.

• 44:35Jonathan Cohen?

  Um, and we didn't know what yoga was, and I'm like, do I have to chant? You know, what do I have to do? She's like, just sit there and be quiet. And I could feel my fingers pulsing and throbbing. And 10 minutes later, the blisters were almost gone. And I was like, well, that's pretty cool. Like, how did you do that?

• 44:52Speaker 00

  Right.

• 44:52Jonathan Cohen?

  And she's like, well, you know, she tells me it's Reiki, and I'm like, cool.

• 44:57Speaker 00

  But is there, is there an intention she has while she's cupping, or? I know, now I'm asking you to explain Reiki.

• 45:02Jonathan Cohen?

  Well, I can explain Reiki, um, which is, and I think this is true with all different forms of energy healing. You're, you're kind of tapping into that universal access, and you become a channel for it, and it just flows freely through you.

• 45:17Speaker 00

  Heard him talk about that on one, an early podcast where, and that's how it can be remote.

• 45:22Jonathan Cohen?

  It can be remote.

• 45:23Mayim Bialik?

  That's the idea.

• 45:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:24Jonathan Cohen?

  So that's why it's pulsing, and, and the body then is, you know, the recipient is basically doing what it's, the natural function of the body, which is to expedite whatever healing process it is.

• 45:36Speaker 00

  But that's a big idea.

• 45:38Jonathan Cohen?

  It's a really big idea. It's like, well, if you take away the limits of whatever the issues are, then it has its, you know, our natural want is to sort of come back to some form of equilibrium.

• 45:49Mayim Bialik?

  I don't mean to be a party pooper, but the, the pulsing may have also been from the injury and not necessarily the Reiki, but I'm not supposed to say that.

• 45:57Speaker 00

  But-

• 45:57Jonathan Cohen?

  Yes, that's true.

• 45:58Mayim Bialik?

  I'm just saying.

• 45:59Speaker 00

  You've never felt pulsing? You've never felt waves?

• 46:03Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 46:03Speaker 00

  In exchange?

• 46:03Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, but I'm saying in this case, we can't necessarily say Reiki caused those sensations that he was feeling, because it could have been that he had singed his hands, and that was the throbbing.

• 46:13Speaker 00

  It could have been.

• 46:14Jonathan Cohen?

  And the scientist in the room will say that this is an anecdotal account. The blisters may not have been as extreme as I remember them, I remember them extreme, I remember them being decreased after that happened, what was the mechanism? All I know is that a week later, I'm in a basement who, of the woman who taught my sister, because there happens to be a class.

• 46:34Mayim Bialik?

  And he's a teenager.

• 46:35Jonathan Cohen?

  And I'm a teenager, and, and she's, it was a level one Reiki class, and I had to agree to finish the class if my parents agreed to pay for me to go, because I had a history of signing up for things and then dropping out. And I thought I was gonna learn some sort of secret spell that I could say that would create miraculous healing.

• 46:59Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 46:59Jonathan Cohen?

  And it turned out that that is not the case at all.

• 47:01Speaker 00

  God bless you.

• 47:02Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah, that's what I thought at 17. And I'm like sitting there being like, they're talking about energy and this, and clearing yourself, and this is so slow and boring, and this woman talks a lot. Uh, and it was a four-day class, and on the final day, I'm doing, and you receive and you give sessions as a practitioner, learning how to do this. And on the fourth day, I'm treating, a woman is lying on a table, and my hands are over her head, and there's this pulsing in my hand that I don't understand. And it's extremely strong, and it's kind of undeniable, and my hand is sweating and pulsing.

• 47:42Jonathan Cohen?

  And I'm like, maybe this is what, for the last four days, this woman is talking about, about energy. And I'm like, that's weird, how does that happen? Because if everything she just described about, you know, the system of healing, and, and this energy flowing through us, and the body doing the thing, and I'm like, well, that isn't explained in anything that I've grown up understanding. And so, I left that, uh, that weekend, and I was just extremely curious. And for the next four years, I just did as much of it as humanly possible.

• 48:18Speaker 00

  That's starting at 17. Wow, okay. Oh, you started that early.

• 48:25Jonathan Cohen?

  And I became an assistant to her, and I started pretty much twice a month was assisting classes that she was teaching. And I just saw all these people, you know, some of the classes were 20 people, some of them were smaller, and you have like multiple tables of these people who were like, they're lying down, and all of a sudden, there is something that emerges from them that is usually highly emotional, highly cathartic, screaming, crying, sweating, pain that starts and then dissipates. And all of a sudden, you're like, starting to map that everyone is holding something that you would otherwise not know. And your hands can have an intelligence to sort of go to those places

• 49:10Jonathan Cohen?

  and find those things. And then you start to incorporate, well, distance is also possible. You can tap into the same stuff from a distance.

• 49:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:18Jonathan Cohen?

  And as you start to work on people, you can also start to like, the things that they're carrying emotionally in their body are also available in the field around them.

• 49:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 49:30Jonathan Cohen?

  And so, you know, then it's like, starts to get wormhole-y, where you're like, well, what is this information? Where is it coming from? And who's providing it? And, um, and that's really hard to go to high school parties and like, talk about things that are, you know, not that.

• 49:48Speaker 00

  Yes, that would be hard. Also, I mean, like you were saying, going to certain venues, and it's hard.

• 49:58Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, yeah.

• 49:59Speaker 00

  Same, I can't go to concerts. I never could. And, I mean, one part is, the emotions are gonna get too, it's too much. Everyone's just gonna get worked up, and, um, oh my God.

• 50:13Mayim Bialik?

  You can feel that.

• 50:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, too much.

• 50:15Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 50:16Speaker 00

  Also, too loud.

• 50:18Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 50:18Speaker 00

  And then, where are the exits? Because then something happens, everyone panics, trampled.

• 50:24Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 50:25Speaker 00

  Um, you know, I, that's from forever.

• 50:28Mayim Bialik?

  Was this your experience? Like, like for me, uh, it's lovely to be nominated for Emmys, but it terrified me. Oh wait, do you have this experience?

• 50:40Mayim Bialik?

  And I was like supposed to be happy and everyone was like, that's amazing. And every time it happened, I was like, uh huh.

• 50:46Speaker 00

  Cause now I have to go.

• 50:48Mayim Bialik?

  Now I have to go.

• 50:48Jonathan Cohen?

  Too many crowds.

• 50:49Mayim Bialik?

  I have to get, I have to get dressed and I have to pick a thing and.

• 50:52Speaker 00

  Forget it. I don't know how to dress.

• 50:53Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 50:54Speaker 00

  I mean, if someone dresses me, okay. Yeah. Yes. But I've somehow figured out some of that, like that's now a little easier.

• 51:06Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 51:09Speaker 00

  But a party, I can only do a couple.

• 51:13Mayim Bialik?

  No, I can't drink anymore. That was how I was able to at least get through a party. Like, just like a little liquid courage.

• 51:18Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 51:19Mayim Bialik?

  You know, like after, after a glass and a half of white wine, I'm delightful. You know, like I could manage it.

• 51:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:25Mayim Bialik?

  It's still not like I won't be staying late.

• 51:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:28Mayim Bialik?

  But no, I started not being able to drink without having allergic reactions. And I was like, they took away my liquid courage.

• 51:34Speaker 00

  Do you know what I just learned and maybe it's not right, so I'll check with you guys. That, um, things like alcohol and, you know, I think, yeah, I don't know, other things.

• 51:45Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 51:46Speaker 00

  Um, actually, there's GABA, which is the filter.

• 51:50Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 51:51Speaker 00

  And it increases the amount.

• 51:53Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 51:54Speaker 00

  Of filter.

• 51:55Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 51:56Speaker 00

  So it's not releasing inhibitions.

• 51:58Mayim Bialik?

  Correct.

• 51:58Speaker 00

  It's actually creating more of a filter. So you feel a little safer.

• 52:02Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah. You feel like the smartest person in the room or the, yeah.

• 52:06Speaker 00

  Maybe just let go a little more because.

• 52:08Mayim Bialik?

  Correct.

• 52:09Speaker 00

  Good.

• 52:10Mayim Bialik?

  Yep.

• 52:10Jonathan Cohen?

  Wow, I didn't know that.

• 52:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:12Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 52:12Speaker 00

  I didn't know that till recently.

• 52:14Jonathan Cohen?

  You had two questions.

• 52:15Mayim Bialik?

  That was your question for Jonathan about Reiki.

• 52:18Speaker 00

  Yes, Reiki. Yeah, I'm all in, by the way. And same as you talk about like placebo, nocebo. My father used to say, everyone ignores placebo. It's real. It's 40%. A lot of medications are only 40% effective. So what's the difference? And no one's looking at it.

• 52:36Speaker 00

  But that's really interesting to me. So that's why I keep saying, what does it matter? What the exchange is.

• 52:42Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 52:43Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 52:43Speaker 00

  And whether, um, you know, you can just decide. I'm gonna eat chocolate because it'll make me happy. Maybe, you know, epinephrine and chocolate, you know, certain neurotransmitters. So you feel better, right? And, and, um, or you just did it yourself because you made a decision.

• 53:04Jonathan Cohen?

  And you made the association with that action that that's going to cause whatever result that you're looking for.

• 53:09Speaker 00

  Right. But what are, you know, what if it doesn't? Anyway, um, now I don't remember what I was gonna ask you. Oh, well, sorry, Mayim.

• 53:19Mayim Bialik?

  You'll have to come back again.

• 53:20Speaker 00

  Oh, sure. You've got another six hours by the time I catch out a sentence. So Mayim, no, my question for you was about, I've heard you talk about Kundalini yoga, meditation.

• 53:35Mayim Bialik?

  We've talked about Kundalini rising. Yeah, I've had, I have had some experiences. We had, I'm trying to think who we spoke to. It was.

• 53:45Jonathan Cohen?

  Sumo Mor.

• 53:47Mayim Bialik?

  Who talked about being a total materialist, I think. This was her story and a skeptic. Also Federico Fajín talked about this. That sometimes you are struck by something.

• 53:57Speaker 00

  Right.

• 53:58Mayim Bialik?

  And the Federico example was, he was just like going about, he was in the kitchen in the middle of the night, like getting a snack. And all of a sudden was, you know, struck by a light that pierced through his soul and made him feel connected. Right. So this is, there are poses, postures, breathing, all these things. And this is the Kundalini rising. That's the energy that, you know, certain branches of yoga have described for this place. I, I've definitely felt things. And the thing with Kundalini, there's a lot of repetitive movements we do. So there's like a lot of somatic stuff that gets kind of activated. There's a pulse that you can start feeling. I mean, to me, it's kind of like, it's all the same, right? It's all these different ways to try and get at the same thing.

• 54:44Mayim Bialik?

  The same like connection with source or that awe, right? That sense of like, huh, right? That feeling, that knowing in, in some way.

• 54:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:54Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 54:54Speaker 00

  But I mean, does any of it help? Like, can you use it to sort of, if you're having anxiety over something? Can you use it to?

• 55:04Mayim Bialik?

  I've found, I mean, I think breath work of a variety of ways can be helpful. I think it depends. I mean, I think, and this is one of the reasons also, we talked to so many different kinds of experts and people. What works for one person doesn't work for another, right? There's so many different ways to, to get at that. For some people, like box breathing is it. For some people, walking meditation is it. For some people, transcendental meditation is it. And like Thomas Campbell, they're like flying in the, you know, stratosphere.

• 55:31Jonathan Cohen?

  And I think for other people, it's like being able to be reminded that there's some sort of guidance that we have a purpose here or that everything isn't random, that just because I experienced something challenging doesn't mean that, you know, I'll never work again or my, you know, relationship, I'll never love someone again. Like, I think that also can, you know, they're different for each person.

• 55:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. The hardest thing, I think, is knowing, um, what's yours to take on and what's not yours? What's somebody else's thing?

• 56:04Mayim Bialik?

  I think most people don't know the difference.

• 56:06Jonathan Cohen?

  You've actually taught me the most about that of anyone.

• 56:08Mayim Bialik?

  Me?

• 56:09Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 56:09Mayim Bialik?

  Why? Cause I have so many things that you want to make yours that you know are not yours to fix.

• 56:14Jonathan Cohen?

  Well, the notion of, uh, Al-Anon in the rooms and that level of like, well, people have chaos in their lives and you can love them and really care for them and want so much for them. But actually, what is your role in helping them?

• 56:30Speaker 00

  Right.

• 56:31Jonathan Cohen?

  And being supportive and, and what is just going to entangle you into whatever thing that they're in?

• 56:35Speaker 00

  Right. That was my first big one. And it was, and Al-Anon, one time, one person.

• 56:41Mayim Bialik?

  Wow.

• 56:41Speaker 00

  Who just talked about someone.

• 56:44Mayim Bialik?

  If your name's not in the sentence, it's not your problem. That's how we say it.

• 56:47Speaker 00

  That's interesting.

• 56:48Mayim Bialik?

  Like if you say any given problem in a sentence and your name's not in it, it's not your problem. It doesn't mean you don't care about it. It doesn't mean you're not engaged with it or that you can't be loving and supportive.

• 56:57Speaker 00

  Right.

• 56:58Mayim Bialik?

  But in order to do that, as you said, without it becoming yours. And I've experienced this, um, you know, as a parent, your children will experience things. And sometimes it's very, very hard to tell the difference between they're upset and you're upset.

• 57:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:12Mayim Bialik?

  Or what is it like to feel empathy, right? For your child, for a friend, for your parent and not have it consume you, right? It's very, it's a huge challenge. And what's interesting is, um, you know, there's, there's a porousness to our physiology as well, right? When we let things in that are not ours.

• 57:32Speaker 00

  Right.

• 57:33Mayim Bialik?

  They can have an impact as well on our immune system, on the way that we heal.

• 57:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:38Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 57:38Speaker 00

  For me, the big, the one where I need it the most is things that make me angry.

• 57:45Speaker 00

  And if someone, I'm thinking, I, I really hate being, everyone does, lied to. Everyone hates being manipulated without skill. I don't, manipulate me all you want if I don't know what's happening and fine with me. Also talk behind my back all you want.

• 58:03Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 58:03Speaker 00

  Cause I, it's not happening as far as I'm concerned. That's fine. But, um, that stuff, oh boy, that can really get me going. It starts a whole circuit.

• 58:15Jonathan Cohen?

  What does it look like for you to get angry like that?

• 58:18Speaker 00

  Well, it takes different forms, but you know, it, um,

• 58:24Speaker 00

  lot of bad language and, um, and then, yeah, just how dare wishing them ill? And how do I let them know that that's not, you know, like how do I slam that shut hard? And that's never the way to deal with any of that. It always has to be, um, you know, just, it's not yours. It's their thing. They don't mean harm. They're trying to help themselves and they think they're protecting themselves. They think they're advocating for themselves and they're not. And so, and that way you can just sort of, I got really good for a while.

• 59:10Speaker 00

  And then, you know, I got knocked off balance, you know? But really good for a while, being able to, to just say, mm-hmm, yeah, okay. Yeah. I don't think, I don't, I can't help you with that, but I understand.

• 59:26Mayim Bialik?

  It's a boundary, yeah. It's an energetic boundary too.

• 59:30Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's important.

• 59:33Mayim Bialik?

  I have a very hard time with other people being wrong and not like either.

• 59:38Speaker 00

  Being wrong, just factually wrong?

• 59:39Mayim Bialik?

  No, well, sometimes, but that's just, you know, I was raised by English teachers. We can't help it. Um, no, but like when someone.

• 59:45Speaker 00

  Speak really well, so that's good.

• 59:48Mayim Bialik?

  No, like if someone believes something that, um, that is not rational, I have a really hard time just letting them believe that. Like I want to fix it and tell them that there were.

• 59:59Speaker 00

  What's rational and what isn't after what we've been talking about for 12 days just now.

• 1:00:04Mayim Bialik?

  Why are you so happy?

• 1:00:05Jonathan Cohen?

  Well, I'm so happy because.

• 1:00:06Speaker 00

  That someone's acknowledging his point.

• 1:00:10Mayim Bialik?

  I've never seen him happier in his life.

• 1:00:11Jonathan Cohen?

  No, I'm very happy.

• 1:00:15Jonathan Cohen?

  Cause there's other information. Sometimes it's like so obvious, but then you're like, well, actually, if you see it from this other angle, it's not obvious at all.

• 1:00:24Speaker 00

  What's wrong? For example, what would be wrong?

• 1:00:28Speaker 00

  Although I can think of some things that are wrong. That would be wrong and irrational.

• 1:00:34Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, I'll just give an example like. I don't know if this is a good example. If someone's in.

• 1:00:41Mayim Bialik?

  You know, an abusive relationship, like a really damaging abusive relationship. And they, for, you know, their own good reasons, right, don't want to leave.

• 1:00:51Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:00:52Mayim Bialik?

  And they might say something like, oh, well, um, you know, I, I can't leave because I don't, um, I don't think I can afford it, so I'm just gonna stay. And my response, if I were allowed to, would be. Have you looked into it? There are ways that if you need to escape an abusive relationship, that you can get that help. It's very hard for me to be like, oh, well, that's their path.

• 1:01:15Speaker 00

  Oh, not for me. That is not hard for me at all. That's their path.

• 1:01:20Mayim Bialik?

  Really?

• 1:01:21Speaker 00

  That is not hard.

• 1:01:23Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:01:24Mayim Bialik?

  It's not that you don't feel the pain or, you know.

• 1:01:27Speaker 00

  I understand. I completely understand.

• 1:01:29Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:30Speaker 00

  Yes. But I'm not being asked. They're not seeking help to get out of it. They're just saying. Basically, here's why I'm, I'm still in it. And it doesn't even matter, and here's why. All they're saying is, I'm still in it.

• 1:01:49Mayim Bialik?

  And take, take people at their word.

• 1:01:52Speaker 00

  Well, yeah. Also. When they're ready, they'll be out of it one way or another. A horrible way or.

• 1:02:01Mayim Bialik?

  A healthier way.

• 1:02:02Speaker 00

  A healthier way and, yeah.

• 1:02:04Jonathan Cohen?

  It's hard for you to see them actively in it because you know the pain that they're going through to be in it.

• 1:02:09Mayim Bialik?

  Well, and also, the, I don't, like, I don't like, you know, if there's a reason that they're, you know, making up that is like not true, then yeah, you're right. That's just what they need to say because they're not ready to leave.

• 1:02:22Speaker 00

  They're not ready to leave.

• 1:02:23Jonathan Cohen?

  But sometimes you just can't see that other option.

• 1:02:26Mayim Bialik?

  Right, and sometimes people are asking, you know.

• 1:02:28Speaker 00

  Cause I mean, the only thing I think you could say to me is, oh, did you want to? I wouldn't even go there.

• 1:02:35Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:36Jonathan Cohen?

  You would wait for them to, to sort of more formally say, do you know of any ways? Cause then that indicates that they're, have a willingness to seek alternatives.

• 1:02:45Speaker 00

  Although, to, that's rationally what I'm saying.

• 1:02:48Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 1:02:49Speaker 00

  Wouldn't be the thing to do, but I know me.

• 1:02:51Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:52Speaker 00

  And I know I would say, oh, if you really want to change something. I could tell you.

• 1:02:58Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:58Speaker 00

  Couple of things that maybe would work for you.

• 1:03:01Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 1:03:01Speaker 00

  You know, I mean, I.

• 1:03:03Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:04Speaker 00

  And then I would say, I'm very excited about them, so I'm gonna tell you about them anyway, you know? And see if it sparks anything.

• 1:03:09Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 1:03:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, so while I'm saying, but I don't, I don't get worked up.

• 1:03:14Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 1:03:14Speaker 00

  Over it.

• 1:03:15Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:15Speaker 00

  Cause it's not mine to get worked up over.

• 1:03:18Jonathan Cohen?

  You're very good at solving problems, though.

• 1:03:20Mayim Bialik?

  Me?

• 1:03:20Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:21Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, well, my brain was. Made for that.

• 1:03:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:25Jonathan Cohen?

  Puzzles.

• 1:03:26Mayim Bialik?

  I love puzzles.

• 1:03:27Speaker 00

  Uh, me too.

• 1:03:27Mayim Bialik?

  I love a puzzle. Really?

• 1:03:29Speaker 00

  Well, what kind of puzzles?

• 1:03:30Mayim Bialik?

  Well, let's talk about it.

• 1:03:31Speaker 00

  Puzzles. Oh, God.

• 1:03:32Jonathan Cohen?

  What kind of puzzles do you like, if not jigsaw?

• 1:03:34Mayim Bialik?

  You like word puzzles?

• 1:03:36Speaker 00

  I like word puzzles.

• 1:03:37Mayim Bialik?

  Like crossword puzzles?

• 1:03:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:39Mayim Bialik?

  You like Wordle?

• 1:03:40Speaker 00

  I, I do.

• 1:03:41Mayim Bialik?

  Okay.

• 1:03:41Speaker 00

  It's all right.

• 1:03:42Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, but.

• 1:03:43Speaker 00

  It's too lucky.

• 1:03:44Mayim Bialik?

  What, okay, but what kind of puzzles do you like, then?

• 1:03:47Speaker 00

  I like, I don't know, on my.

• 1:03:49Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:03:50Speaker 00

  Device.

• 1:03:52Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. Thought puzzles?

• 1:03:54Speaker 00

  Matching things.

• 1:03:55Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, I do like some thought puzzles, and then I don't want to give it too much time.

• 1:03:59Mayim Bialik?

  That's well, yes, no one should.

• 1:04:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, cause I want to relax.

• 1:04:04Jonathan Cohen?

  Do you feel like your path was predefined?

• 1:04:09Speaker 00

  Oh, I do.

• 1:04:12Speaker 00

  To a degree. Only because of some of the things I told you.

• 1:04:16Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:16Speaker 00

  That I kind of heard, saw on some level, even as a kid. I mean, I could, I. There are things I knew.

• 1:04:26Mayim Bialik?

  Have you ever considered doing any healing arts yourself as a practitioner? Because if you're tuned into receiving this kind of information, I'm curious if it ever occurred to you that that's something you might be able to, you know, channel, for lack of a better word.

• 1:04:42Speaker 00

  It takes so much effort. I mean, I did, I.

• 1:04:48Speaker 00

  I had an experience once with my husband. It's like a, not remote viewing. I was with him. I decided, I'm gonna try this. He, okay. I didn't. Yeah, of course I didn't tell you this. So, and I haven't done it since, cause it was so exhausting. But, um, he was in Joshua Tree. I knew he was in Joshua Tree with friends. Where they were camping, sleeping out under the stars and taking mushrooms. And, um, I was home and I take a bath every night. Cause I like being in the water and it's calming and all of that. And I thought, ooh, this is a good place. Just focus all your attention on being with Michelle. Just be with Michelle.

• 1:05:33Mayim Bialik?

  You were not on mushrooms?

• 1:05:34Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:05:35Mayim Bialik?

  Okay.

• 1:05:36Speaker 00

  Remember me?

• 1:05:36Mayim Bialik?

  Yes, that's right. Okay, sorry.

• 1:05:37Speaker 00

  Too afraid. And.

• 1:05:41Speaker 00

  Really focused my attention and started, oh, okay. I'm with Michelle. I am with Michelle. I'm with Michelle.

• 1:05:52Speaker 00

  But am I forcing it? Cause I know he's at Joshua Tree, so don't impose. I'm with, no, I'm with him. Oh. Yeah, this isn't right. And I didn't get it right. He was, um, outside, there was sort of a structure. But he's outside, sort of Adirondack chairs. Joshua Tree camping, um, and a fire pit. No, okay. Yeah, I thought, I got, okay. So I didn't do it. Got it.

• 1:06:21Mayim Bialik?

  Finished the bath.

• 1:06:23Speaker 00

  He comes home. I said, I actually tried to be with you. But somehow there was a structure, you were in a fire pit on like Adirondack chairs. He said, that was what, not Friday night? We went to a restaurant.

• 1:06:35Mayim Bialik?

  Stop it.

• 1:06:36Speaker 00

  And we were sitting outside on Adirondack chairs at a fire pit smoking cigars.

• 1:06:42Jonathan Cohen?

  Wow.

• 1:06:43Speaker 00

  We didn't camp.

• 1:06:44Jonathan Cohen?

  We didn't camp.

• 1:06:45Speaker 00

  Fully. That was one night we treated ourselves.

• 1:06:49Speaker 00

  Okay, so I did do it. All right, good to know.

• 1:06:53Jonathan Cohen?

  So you have the ability to.

• 1:06:55Speaker 00

  I did it once.

• 1:06:57Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, but like, I could, I could be in my bedroom tonight and you might be in my bedroom with me.

• 1:07:02Speaker 00

  But I won't be. I promise you.

• 1:07:03Mayim Bialik?

  I don't believe you. You like me too much.

• 1:07:06Speaker 00

  I do. I'm in awe of you, but I won't.

• 1:07:09Jonathan Cohen?

  You have a hundred percent success rate.

• 1:07:11Mayim Bialik?

  But also, that's like, I mean, on the scale, when Julia Mossbridge talks about, you know, precognition, when she talks about remote viewing, when she talks about this kind of synchronicity, you had three facts.

• 1:07:23Speaker 00

  I, three facts.

• 1:07:24Mayim Bialik?

  Right? Because if you had said like, oh, uh, Adirondack chair, like, you had a, a, a structure, like a building.

• 1:07:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:07:32Mayim Bialik?

  You had chairs, you had a fire pit, which like, people might also say like, well, what are the chances? Like, you're camping, of course, there's gonna be a fire pit. So that's kind of a common thing, but the Adirondack chair.

• 1:07:41Speaker 00

  There was also laughing. There was also.

• 1:07:44Mayim Bialik?

  The fact that he wasn't supposed to be in a building.

• 1:07:46Speaker 00

  A number of people around also sitting in them, and there was an extra person and it was a guy, yeah. No, there were a lot of things that were right.

• 1:07:54Jonathan Cohen?

  New reality show. Maya and Lisa. Learn to become remote viewers.

• 1:08:00Speaker 00

  Maya and Lisa tried to debunk each other. But, I mean.

• 1:08:05Mayim Bialik?

  Maybe I want to hang out with Michelle.

• 1:08:07Speaker 00

  But it was exhausting. And, and I don't.

• 1:08:11Mayim Bialik?

  Physically like, whoa.

• 1:08:12Speaker 00

  It took a lot. And I don't, I'd rather focus my attention on being here.

• 1:08:17Jonathan Cohen?

  And I will say that as you do things like that, maybe not going remote in that way, because it sounds like you were traveling. There are ways to do it with less effort and it becomes less exhausting as you sort of lean into it a little bit more.

• 1:08:34Mayim Bialik?

  Did it scare you?

• 1:08:36Speaker 00

  No. Not at all.

• 1:08:38Jonathan Cohen?

  Because it's, it's a creative imagination, and so I, I make up what I'm about to say next, just. It sounded like you were like really trying to go there versus kind of going into a state and allowing it to come to you.

• 1:08:51Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:08:51Jonathan Cohen?

  And the going is very taxing, but the coming to you is actually quite pleasant.

• 1:08:55Speaker 00

  Right. That's interesting. But you're saying, practice it.

• 1:09:01Mayim Bialik?

  In, in theory, you, it might not be as exhausting, is what he's saying.

• 1:09:04Jonathan Cohen?

  I'm gonna suggest a book, um, which is, uh, I have to check the name of the book. I think it's called How to Read the Akashic Records.

• 1:09:11Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 1:09:12Jonathan Cohen?

  And. When you asked about, you know, the readings.

• 1:09:17Jonathan Cohen?

  Finding that place and the access to that is an interesting exercise because once you know how to access it, you can kind of go and it's, you know, like wandering around a little bit. Instead of going, you're just kind of like seeing what presents.

• 1:09:32Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:09:32Jonathan Cohen?

  So imagine, you know, this huge library of information, just like we talked about that everything exists and it's available. Well, if you go to the place where the information exists and you, you make it intentional and you kind of open that space, you can kind of stand there and see what is, what is brought forward.

• 1:09:49Speaker 00

  Interesting.

• 1:09:49Jonathan Cohen?

  And it just becomes a little bit of a...

• 1:09:51Speaker 00

  Why not?

• 1:09:51Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:52Speaker 00

  Why not?

• 1:09:53Jonathan Cohen?

  A little curious wandering into the records.

• 1:09:55Speaker 00

  Okay. But have you never had an experience, like something you can't explain?

• 1:10:01Jonathan Cohen?

  Her house has been haunted.

• 1:10:03Speaker 00

  Oh God, Canute and the five-year-old when his...

• 1:10:06Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:10:07Speaker 00

  What the?

• 1:10:09Speaker 00

  That, what?

• 1:10:10Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, Henry with his son, Henry. That was not, that was...

• 1:10:14Speaker 00

  Well, Henry just corroborated what he experienced.

• 1:10:17Mayim Bialik?

  Correct.

• 1:10:18Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:18Mayim Bialik?

  We were talking about when Kevin Canute saw a man in his child's bedroom.

• 1:10:23Speaker 00

  Not a man.

• 1:10:23Mayim Bialik?

  No.

• 1:10:24Jonathan Cohen?

  Oh, a child.

• 1:10:24Mayim Bialik?

  It was, that's right. It was, sorry. It was a child. That's right. I'm sorry.

• 1:10:27Speaker 00

  A five or seven-year-old and his son was not that little.

• 1:10:30Mayim Bialik?

  No. And then his son was terrified and said that there was a boy in his...

• 1:10:34Speaker 00

  And the boy looked terrified.

• 1:10:36Mayim Bialik?

  Yes. Well, there's something happened. Yeah.

• 1:10:40Speaker 00

  And that would...

• 1:10:40Mayim Bialik?

  Something happened that he could not get out of. I haven't had things like that. I don't...

• 1:10:46Jonathan Cohen?

  You haven't had things like that?

• 1:10:47Mayim Bialik?

  Like, my mom thinks my dad is a hummingbird. Like, you know, it's...

• 1:10:49Speaker 00

  Oh, sure. No, no, sure. Yeah.

• 1:10:52Mayim Bialik?

  She, you know, she's got a whole thing about that.

• 1:10:56Jonathan Cohen?

  Something, something in that vein, though, the Tara Swart episode where...

• 1:11:00Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, she saw her husband at the foot of her bed after he died.

• 1:11:02Speaker 00

  Oh, right.

• 1:11:03Jonathan Cohen?

  And, you know, she didn't say it exactly, but she said something to the effect of, "I used to be a part of teams who would recommend institutionalizing people who would have claimed to have the experience that I had."

• 1:11:16Mayim Bialik?

  Said it changed. I mean, her whole worldview had to change.

• 1:11:18Jonathan Cohen?

  So, you know, how do we, as people, both be open to that type of information, but also, as you explained, be here and now and present and available and not, you know, driving in our cars saying ghosts are guiding me to, you know, the wrong exit?

• 1:11:36Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah. My, my younger one, we used to joke, he sees dead people. He's got some special perceptive abilities, I would say.

• 1:11:44Speaker 00

  But they scare him. They don't scare him.

• 1:11:46Mayim Bialik?

  Well, when he was younger, he would say, he would say like, "Yeah, there's a darkness in the house." And I kept buying lights because I thought that's what he meant. But that's not what he meant. There was something that he was, you know, picking up on.

• 1:12:00Speaker 00

  By the way, I also think with children, we throw a lot of symbology at, you know, "Oh, they said this. They said it wrong. They meant this." What if they knew exactly what they were saying?

• 1:12:12Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:13Speaker 00

  And it was the wrong word for a reason.

• 1:12:17Speaker 00

  And all the things that they invent that we think, "Aw."

• 1:12:20Mayim Bialik?

  Isn't that cute?

• 1:12:21Speaker 00

  That's so cute and aw. Yeah. I don't know. I just, it makes me, like, what if? That would be an interesting experiment to me.

• 1:12:30Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, that creative imagination is something also that, you know, Jung worked with. And like when people do shadow work and, you know, I've done some hypnosis work where, yeah, you, you conjure aspects of yourself, different parts of yourself, and you tell stories, right? But it's, nothing's accidental that we say and think. It's all rooted in something that has either truth or resonance.

• 1:12:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:12:55Mayim Bialik?

  It's some very, very interesting work can come out of that kind of exploration.

• 1:12:59Speaker 00

  But that's why, to me, I don't care whether you're, you know, your father is coming back, not coming back, but represented by a hummingbird for your mom or it's what he's thinking about him, feeling him and deciding, or needing him and deciding that he's there. And he is there. I don't, I mean, what does it matter?

• 1:13:22Jonathan Cohen?

  How much happier would people be if More of Life was an improv game where we were meeting people where they are, right? Instead of trying to convince someone that the hummingbird isn't the association they made, which just puts us against each other. What if it's like, "I'm gonna just put whatever I think down for a minute long enough to enter..."

• 1:13:40Mayim Bialik?

  Yes, and.

• 1:13:41Speaker 00

  Yes, and.

• 1:13:42Jonathan Cohen?

  Enter your world and maybe I'll walk around that world and I'll make a connection with you and I'll either agree or I'll go back to my own world, but your world doesn't have to terrorize or, or invalidate whatever world I'm gonna go back to.

• 1:13:57Speaker 00

  Yes. But I feel like that's what all this is right now. For me, I am, especially telepathy tapes, it's a big yes and because it doesn't matter. If, if none of it is real, how's that possible? You know, then, you know, I'll, I'll know. I'll find out, you know, we'll all know. But why shut it down? That's the stuff I'm more suspicious of. Why, why shut it down? What's the problem? What's the problem? What's at risk? And I have a feeling, you know, I don't go all the way to, you know, deep state, doesn't want us to know because it's their domain and maybe, but there's some, like, it's institutions

• 1:14:42Speaker 00

  that shut it down, especially academic institutions and, you know, I don't know. Everyone's so afraid.

• 1:14:51Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:52Speaker 00

  To be shunned and shut out. And, and someone was brought it up. It was, yeah, a neuroscientist that I know who had a revelation while meditating, but also, and so everything flipped, but was saying, or someone was saying, I can't remember what it was, like, yeah, but it's, you know, it's a lot of women and older women that are doing this work and, like, men too. I said, "But it's because once they retire, they are free to say, they're not dependent on their job or getting a grant or publishing or..."

• 1:15:32Mayim Bialik?

  Just like, "I'm too old to give a shit."

• 1:15:33Speaker 00

  Yeah. So in some ways, you've not had Rupert Sheldrake on, have you?

• 1:15:38Mayim Bialik?

  No.

• 1:15:39Jonathan Cohen?

  Not yet.

• 1:15:39Mayim Bialik?

  Not yet. We've talked about him because we talked about him with DT Young and we talked about him also regarding telepathy tapes because it comes up in one of the episodes with animal communication.

• 1:15:48Speaker 00

  Right. Come on.

• 1:15:51Jonathan Cohen?

  I mean...

• 1:15:51Speaker 00

  Come on.

• 1:15:53Jonathan Cohen?

  Anyone who has had a very deep connection with an animal...

• 1:15:57Mayim Bialik?

  A smart animal, yeah.

• 1:15:58Jonathan Cohen?

  You know there's something going on.

• 1:16:01Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:16:02Jonathan Cohen?

  Especially as they get older because they're kind of oblivious as puppies and they're just exploring and you can't really get their attention the same way. And as they age, they become more and more attuned to, and like, things are just exchanged.

• 1:16:15Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:16:15Jonathan Cohen?

  Without any form of communication.

• 1:16:17Mayim Bialik?

  That was one of the things, we had Vinnie Todd Tolman, one of the NDE experiencers who we had on. He died in the bathroom of a Dairy Queen and watched himself be zipped up.

• 1:16:26Speaker 00

  That's a recent one.

• 1:16:27Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, that's more, yeah, you haven't seen that one.

• 1:16:28Jonathan Cohen?

  It's an unbelievable episode.

• 1:16:29Mayim Bialik?

  It's an unbelievable episode, but one of the things he said is he always liked animals, but after his NDE, and he was dead for about two hours, zipped up in a body bag. And then an EMT literally was like, "I think he's not dead," and brought him back. It's a whole thing.

• 1:16:43Jonathan Cohen?

  The EMT was like, the, the people in the front were like, "Don't mess with the body. You're gonna get fired."

• 1:16:48Mayim Bialik?

  And the EMT was...

• 1:16:48Jonathan Cohen?

  And he was like, "No, I, something in me is telling me that this guy's not dead."

• 1:16:52Mayim Bialik?

  Anyway, what Vinnie said was that before his NDE, he liked animals, but after his NDE, he came back with a, a way to communicate. And he was here with our dog who historically does not do well with men. And the dog went right up to him and looked him in the eye and he said, he said to the dog, "Oh, you were hurt and so you're here to heal people." And I was like, "What's happening?" He said, he just, after his NDE, he came back with an ability to experience their consciousness, their communication.

• 1:17:30Speaker 00

  That's what this dog was communicating?

• 1:17:32Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah. And he was. He was a traumatized dog.

• 1:17:35Jonathan Cohen?

  We didn't tell Vinnie anything about this dog.

• 1:17:36Mayim Bialik?

  No.

• 1:17:37Jonathan Cohen?

  This dog was tied to a telephone pole in the desert and left for dead.

• 1:17:40Mayim Bialik?

  And abused very badly.

• 1:17:42Jonathan Cohen?

  And when we got him, he was pulled out of a kill shelter where they spray the concrete floors down every night. He had respiratory problems. He had a big scar across his face. He had been starved.

• 1:17:53Mayim Bialik?

  And he was terrified of men in particular. Anyway, he walked right up to Vinnie and Vinnie was like, "Yes, I see you." It was amazing.

• 1:17:59Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 1:18:00Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:01Speaker 00

  No, yes, of course I believe. All that. Why not?

• 1:18:05Mayim Bialik?

  All that and more.

• 1:18:06Speaker 00

  But why not?

• 1:18:07Mayim Bialik?

  Yes.

• 1:18:07Speaker 00

  I believe. I mean, yes. Let's see. Sure.

• 1:18:12Mayim Bialik?

  That's the title of the episode. Let's see.

• 1:18:14Jonathan Cohen?

  Why not? It also makes life a lot more fun, right?

• 1:18:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, look, it's create your own, choose your own adventure. I mean, it's whatever you want.

• 1:18:27Jonathan Cohen?

  All right. My, my real last question for you. Have, have you been shown what's next for you in a way that you were shown what has already happened?

• 1:18:42Speaker 00

  That I've been shown what's already happened.

• 1:18:44Jonathan Cohen?

  Meaning when you were younger, you got intuition.

• 1:18:47Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, when you're on Letterman, don't do that. Have you seen more about what comes next?

• 1:18:52Speaker 00

  Oh, it's glimpses of things that it's like, maybe or maybe not is how I feel about it. And then, once it comes to pass, I'm like, oh, all right. So I guess that was a thing.

• 1:19:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:19:04Mayim Bialik?

  Well, we look forward to seeing what's next.

• 1:19:05Speaker 00

  Everybody has that. I'm not letting you get that clever last line.

• 1:19:11Speaker 00

  But I guess. Everybody has that. I'm not the only one.

• 1:19:16Jonathan Cohen?

  Do you have that?

• 1:19:17Speaker 00

  You just don't pay attention.

• 1:19:19Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:19Jonathan Cohen?

  Oh.

• 1:19:20Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, I think it's the not paying attention.

• 1:19:22Speaker 00

  You just don't pay attention.

• 1:19:23Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, or you're not tuned into it, or you're too busy with, you know, the things that take up our attention.

• 1:19:28Speaker 00

  When I was little, very little, like, I didn't speak really clearly till I was, still not, three. And I remember watching people talk, grownups, my brother and sister, six and eight years older, and just watching them going, oh, my God, you're not even listening to each other. That's not what, that's not what he meant, and now you're really mad. And, oh, this is all getting out of hand just because you, oh, boy, every, no one lis, you're not listening. And I just thought, uh-oh, you get dumber as you get older. Like, you can't see people's intentions anymore. You get dumb.

• 1:20:11Speaker 00

  Lisa, it's gonna happen to you too, I guess. It's gonna happen to me too, but just please remember this. Just remember this thought. So I have certain things that, just remember this.

• 1:20:24Jonathan Cohen?

  Wow.

• 1:20:25Mayim Bialik?

  That's so special. That's so special.

• 1:20:27Speaker 00

  Isn't it?

• 1:20:28Jonathan Cohen?

  That's a very, very powerful realization to have then and now. Because, I mean, I feel like our, my role here is English to English translation. And yours is to help translate what I'm saying to other people.

• 1:20:41Speaker 00

  Right, but part of it, to me, looking back, feels like, right, because spoken language is so primitive. I mean, it's like fire compared to what communication probably can be.

• 1:20:58Jonathan Cohen?

  That's the thing we hear about telepathic communication. And when I've heard or felt like I've received messages from someone else is that you feel their intentions so much more than what actual language conveys.

• 1:21:12Speaker 00

  Right. Like, I could see, oh, I know exactly what you just heard. And that's not what they meant, but wow, you're coming with a whole bunch of, like, a stack of information that's coloring.

• 1:21:25Jonathan Cohen?

  You know, that's a, I don't want to call it psychic, because psychic has a bad association to it, but it's, what were the four clairs?

• 1:21:35Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, there's, there's clairvoyance is the one that people know, but there's clairaudience, there's clercognizance.

• 1:21:40Jonathan Cohen?

  That's clercognizance.

• 1:21:41Mayim Bialik?

  Clercognizance is what it's called. This has been an absolutely delightful conversation.

• 1:21:46Speaker 00

  I, I know. I said, I know.

• 1:21:49Jonathan Cohen?

  She had preplanned.

• 1:21:50Speaker 00

  I am delightful. Me too.

• 1:21:53Mayim Bialik?

  Where can people?

• 1:21:54Speaker 00

  All three days of it.

• 1:21:56Mayim Bialik?

  Where can people find out all the things about Comeback or anything else you want to direct people to?

• 1:22:00Speaker 00

  The Comeback, all three seasons, is on HBO Max or whatever it's gonna be called.

• 1:22:07Mayim Bialik?

  Thank you. Thank you so much.

• 1:22:10Speaker 00

  Thank you. I love your podcast.

• 1:22:12Mayim Bialik?

  Thank you.

• 1:22:13Speaker 00

  Everything I get to hear about on it.

• 1:22:19Mayim Bialik?

  Jonathan, I really didn't know what to expect when we decided to have Lisa on. I had such a wonderful conversation with her, completely off the record. And she really wasn't sure what she would talk about. Turns out, she was a fantastic guest and reviewer of some of our favorite episodes, too.

• 1:22:35Jonathan Cohen?

  I said to her as she's walking out, hour three, we're getting more information, unbelievable stories, that what she describes about seeing how people misunderstand each other as adults.

• 1:22:48Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:49Jonathan Cohen?

  It hit me so hard, because I could remember being a kid and looking at people, being like, they're such a mismatch. And as we get older, we rely more and more on our rational minds and less and less on our felt sense. And like, when you can't feel someone, all of a sudden, there's conflict.

• 1:23:06Mayim Bialik?

  There was actually a lot you have in common with Lisa Kudrow. I think you're from the same village.

• 1:23:10Jonathan Cohen?

  Maybe we're cousins.

• 1:23:11Mayim Bialik?

  You probably are cousins. Jonathan, this was really, really terrific. So, so glad we got to do this episode. It was so special.

• 1:23:18Jonathan Cohen?

  We talked to Lisa so long that there's actually bonus material not in either one of the episodes we've released online that you can get only on Substack.

• 1:23:28Mayim Bialik?

  Go to biologicbreakdown.substack.com or just look up MyBioX Breakdown on Substack, from our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time.