Intro:              00:00          Podcasting from the base of Lake Tahoe in the Eastern Sierras comes The Medicine Wheel. We are a group of progressive physicians seeking solutions and enlightenment while surfing the seas of big data and summiting mountains of research. In an effort to make the practice of medicine more personal and medical knowledge more accessible and empower you, the listener to be as healthy as possible. Now, The Medicine Wheel.

 

Dr. Floyd:          00:34          How do you get people to abandon negative beliefs about themselves and help guide them to have positive beliefs and positive self worth?

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    00:45          Well, first, you start by letting go of the belief that I can even do anything.

 

Dr. Floyd:          00:50          You can't control anything past your fingertips.

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    00:52          You can't control anything past your fingers, they control that. And for example, I teach with permission, everywhere I gave a presentation I'm teaching because those people in attendance gave me permission. The people who didn't give me permission either are not there or they got up and left, that's fine, it's nothing personal. It took me a long time to realize this truth. I am right and wrong, at the same time, as I say every word. I am right to the people who agree with me, and I'm wrong with the people who disagree with me. What do I control? The clarity and integrity of what I say. So one of the key things about my teaching, and it's something my father always emphasized with us, don't talk about what you don't know. If you don't know it, don't touch it, only talk about what you know. And if you only talk about what you know, then you don't need to rehearse anything. You don't need to memorize it, it's there, you know it. So when I share with someone, I'm sharing me, this is what worked for me and it might work for you. Take it or leave it. You know, we approach that, my father, my brother, myself, and even my grandmother, all of us approach it this way. Take it or leave it. We're not going to impose our will upon you and we're not going to give you permission to impose us. We're not going to subjugate ourselves to your point of view, but we are equals. So here it is. If it works for you, great. If it doesn't work for you, great. But I want to do my very best to put it in words that you may be able to understand. That's in a way, that's how we write books. You know when you write a book, you write with your heart and with the mind, the first draft of the book, you write the audience is you. So when you first learned how to write, it's like trusting yourself to purge. It doesn't have to be pretty and it doesn't have to be grammatically correct. It doesn't have to be profound. Just let it out. Trust yourself to let it out, let it out, let it out in that first draft, the audience is you, that's when you write with the heart, you edit with the mind because now the second draft, the audience changes. It's not going to be you. It's going to be them. So you're going to translate it into a language that they can understand. So you first, you hit save on that first draft, you hit copy and paste, you know you sing modern day Word there. And then you use that and you edit that one, you first introduce grammatical rules and then you start separating the paragraphs, then you start moving things around like a puzzle because you want, you have to figure out what you want to say and you fill in the holes. In the first draft because it's not you, you can fill out any of the holes, but that book has to stand on its own. It's not going to have you, so you fill out the whole holes. That's what we do. Going back to the question, you do the very best you can to put it in words that will resonate with them. If it doesn't resonate, it's not going to go in. If it does, there it is. When I do a presentation, if anyone has ever seen me do a presentation, I do a lot of stand-up comedy, and that, I do a lot of jokes. I tell a lot of stories, but I deliver a lot of punchlines in a different way. When people, the reason why I do that is because, when people laugh, they see themselves in the story and they let down the guard. That's why we laugh. That's why comedians get so much laughter because they're laughing at themselves. They see themselves in a story or they know something, so when you put a story or a lesson in a language that resonates, Wow. And I, you know, I find this in social media right now, it's like that's part of the gig. You share those, those, they call it memes or teachings or whatever and you can see which ones react more, like the ones where they see themselves. I teach by permission, which means when someone wants to help themselves and they use our teachings as that instrument it's because they're the ones who practice. When people come up to us and say how much the four agreements, or my books, have helped them, or how I helped them, I just have to say, "well, yes, thank you so much for the opportunity to share that, but the person who changed their life was you because you heard, you saw the story, it resonated with you, and you ran with it, and the fact that you ran with it. This is what makes the change." It's something that I've learned, it's what keeps me humble. It's not me who changes someone. All I'm doing is sharing with people what resonated with me, and it may resonate with you. It's talking heart to heart. You know, first you take out that upper thing, you know it's like a- it's the higher self, you get rid of that. You know, I'm a teacher and I'm on the same level as you, we all are. I don't domestic myself to live up to that image. You know, a teacher once taught me the key to enlightenment is effort. That's what enlightenment, that's the key. Apply that effort, effort is using the energy that moves your arms to move your legs, to create, create a thought. Discipline is remembering to apply that effort every day. That's it. That's all discipline is. Remembering to apply that effort and follow through the success of that, follow through, follow through and eventually you'll get there. And all the way, you enjoy who you are, you accept yourself. So in helping someone else, first, you go through the work yourself. So when someone asks you, you'll know what you're talking about. If you don't know it, don't mention it. Just say, "sorry, I'm going to have to redirect you to someone else." And not be afraid to say that. Like my wife says, "Miguel, you're my husband, not my teacher." I love that, because my wife, but it shows the exact point, I only teach with permission. So I'm there to help someone who is looking for that help, but the help that they're gonna, that's where you're gonna help them, is their own. I'm not the one doing it. That's what keeps me humble. The only impact, my words in my life that really helped me are the ones that I'm the one who gives it permission. And I share it with people. Some of the stuff in my book, and my books, won't resonate with people, but there's always that one little thing, that little gem. So discovering what that gem is, is important, and, you know that by listening, learning to listen, not interpreting what they're saying, but actually listening from their point of view. And that's what's helped me help people. Someone once ask me, what do I do? And what I do is helping people heal from the wounds that conditional love left in their lives. But in order for me to do that, it requires that permission. And that's how I help.

 

Dr. Floyd:          08:20          That's awesome.

 

Dr. Devlin:         08:23          Yeah, no that was extremely clear. You touched on some more points and one of them goes back a little bit, but the concept of sort of unconditional love versus the state of fear and the acronym that we always associate with fears that false evidence appears real. So, could you talk about that dichotomy and how people, I mean not how people, but they understanding that unconditional love is simply that.

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    08:46          Yeah, so, conditional love and unconditional love. So conditional love sees only what it wants to see, and unconditional love is the willingness to see the whole, the truth, that's how you can simply separate it that way. Conditional love, only sees what it wants to see that image of, "I love you If you live up to the expectation, and the punishment that happens if you don't," that's conditional love. Unconditional love, is the willingness to see the whole of me, I am both sides of the yin yang, I'm the whole, I'm both wolves, both the wolf of love and hate, I'm all of it, this is me, to stop pretending to be something I am not, for the sake of someone else's point of view, including my own. Fear, to go beyond fear- I know my dad wrote a book about it, it's a very good book, but here's my interpretation, this is what I've learned from it, to go beyond fear is to come back to peace with fear. To respect for you to want again. And we start by being aware of what the function of fear is, the function of fears to keep you safe. That's it. That's what fear is. It allows you to secrete a hormone or a chemical in your body, in your mind, that allows you to survive a clear and present danger. It allows you to freeze, flee, or fight, and this hormone will allow you to do it. If you're going to fight is the thing that's going to numb some of that pain from the whatever. If you flee, you're going to run fast, faster than you ever expected, or you freeze, and that'll work with a rattlesnake in front of you, or sometimes with someone with a gun in front of you. The fear is real. It's because we experienced it, but it's meant to protect you. It's meant to keep you safe. Here's the thing, we can abuse fear in the same way we abuse alcohol and drugs. And here's what I mean by that, we experience fear when there's false evidence appearing real. Okay, let's imagine going to the movie theater and seeing, in the theater, for the very first time, a movie that scared you in life. In my case, Poltergeist, and the last movie that made me fear, experience fear, is The Blair Witch Project, back when it came out in 1990, and I've seen it since then. Now I don't realize my, I'm like, "why was I afraid of this?" But that first night I saw it, Whoa! It scared me, after that World War Z, and The Walking Dead can can also get you a little bit, but nothing got me more like The Blair Witch Project, that one got me pretty good. Now here's the thing. What's happening in the screen is not real. I'm not in any real danger, but sitting in that movie theater I was experiencing my body secreting that hormone that made me flee, fight or freeze. I'm feeling fear, even though there's no real danger in front of me. Now, here's thing, my mind is more powerful than any movie projector there is because, I can project onto life so many things, I can fill the "what-if"s with a worst case scenario, that's what anxiety is, of course. We feel, we project onto life the worst case scenario with the "what-if"s and we're afraid of it, "what's around the corner?" "What's going to happen here?" "What's up with that guy?" "The workers..." This, that, this. And you hear those stories, you hear the stories that are on the news. What happens with abductions, with things like that, especially when you have kids, that's false evidence appearing real. Is there a danger out there? Yes, of course, there is a danger, but it's not happening right now. And we are abusing it like a scorpion that sings itself over and over again with its own tail. We are experiencing that, and to a certain effect it, does lead to a disorder, you know, cause at one point we lose control of it, and then, you know, in the body needs it and it doesn't know how to do it and impacts the mind, and there goes the not producing enough GABA, too much gluten, and all that kind of thing that we create our own PTSD from experiences that that didn't actually happen, but we experienced those PTSDs in there, and just, there it is. It's an experience, a thought, a belief can impact the mind, that's what my dad was talking about, you know, it's like, here he was on a treadmill, as a neurosurgeon, and never getting to the root, and what's the root? That; We can project onto life the worst case scenario someone once said, "to be impeccable with the word, is to always say the truth." Well, here's the thing, sometimes we say the truth with so much emotional poison that we're not being impeccable in any way, shape or form. That's because we're projecting onto life the worst case scenario, our prejudgments, our preconceived notions, and all that kind of thing. At this point, false evidence appearing real, fear, What my dad calls "irrational fear", can make us fight. Anger. When, my son's psychiatrist, cause my son has autism and anxiety disorder and ADHD, he always describes to us, "anger is just a symptom of not feeling good, that's all it is." That's what all anger is, you don't feel good. And the only way we respond to it is through anger, fight. Fleeing, you run away. It's too much. You don't want anything with it. These two are all right, you know, that's what happens, But the most damaging one is the freezing. When we freeze, is the moment we are no longer trusting our yes and our no, we're no longer trusting ourselves to make a choice because we're so afraid of the pain of a consequence. Domestication, once again. Anger, prejudice, that's not the opposite of love. The opposite of love is love. Anger, prejudice, hate judgment, these are all instruments we use to implement the opposite, which is just conditional love. The opposite of unconditional love is conditional love. But we're afraid of pain and especially with domestication. We are afraid of being hurt, rejection, a of that kind of things, and we're afraid of it, and we were trying to protect ourselves from pain. But what happens if you lose that fear? To respect life, to respect that life has all the rights to say no to you. To respect life to make a choice because to respect me is to respect my no, just as much as I respect my yes, my no is just as powerful as my, yes, that's true for me. That's the respect that this to be true for all of you, for all of life. To respect everyone in my life is to respect that they're capable of saying no, just as much as I want to say yes. Whoever's afraid of losing someone, that person is going to be the person who domestics the other, or subjugates themselves to someone else's point of view it's when the tyrant has power, because the victim gives them power, "Who am I without it?" The subjugated, I should say. Let me take out the word "victim" and put "subjugated". But that's only gonna be until we give it power. Like Eleanor Roosevelt said, "no one can make me feel inferior without my consent."

 

Dr. Devlin:         16:51          Right.

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    16:51          Well, the best way to let go of fear, the best way to let go of conditional love is to forgive ourselves for ever saying yes to it in the first place. It's natural to protect ourselves from pain, but if you abuse fear too much, we'll stop living life. We'll be in war with everyone, and we'll never be present.

 

Dr. Devlin:         17:23          How do you go about finding your own yes and your no's. I've talked to other folks in the past about this and is it something that comes up in you? Is it like, you know, a feeling of giddiness or a pull towards something and/or is it like resistance or a wall going up? I mean, how does it work for you?

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    17:44          Well, it's understanding who I am. Funny, we're going back to the question about the authentic self. My authentic self is very simple, I am the infinite possibility and it could be described in this way: First, I am the sum of every decision, every choice I've ever made, every choice, every success, every mistake has led me here. Good. The next phase, at this very moment, I'm the youngest I will ever be. I have my whole life ahead of me. The easiest way to see the infinite possibility or that authentic self, is to to some of us that are one in the same, at least to me, it's one in the same, is when you hold a newborn baby in your arms. When I hold my son and my daughter, I could see that them become a lawyer, they could become an activist, they could become an artists', a soccer player, they could be anything, because I'm looking into the eyes of someone who has their whole life ahead of them. That's why it's easy to imagine all these possibilities. I'm looking into the eyes of the infinite possibility, life. Well, the difference between the baby that my parents held over 43 years ago and the man that's sitting next to you guys right now, besides the fact that I grew up, is that I've learned how to use my body and I've learned how to use my mind, but I'm still the infinite possibility because right now I'm the youngest I will ever be. Whether I only live one more week or a day, or whether I live one more year, and if I live to be as old as my great-great-grandfather don Exiquio who lived to be 116 years of age, according to family legend, I've got 73 years of life left in me, 73 years, if I reach don Exiquio's age, or if I reach my great grandfather and my grandmas, they both died at the age of 98, I still got some ways to go. But here's the thing, what makes me the infinite possibility is that I can go in any direction. The word yes is a three letter word that represents the moment where I make the choice to use the energy that animates this body that animates this mind to manifest something. The word yes is what allows me to be that infinite possibility for I choose in which direction I want to go. Level two, preference, preference simply means that direction I want to go in. That's my preference of all these possibilities I have in my life, that is my preference, and like I said before, discipline is following through. Effort is going that direction. My no is just as powerful as my yes, because that two letter word represents the moment where I choose not to use the energy that animates this body that animates his mind to manifest a single thing. It's the thing that makes me say, yes to this particular direction, and no to the rest it, my no is just as powerful as my yes. Where does it come from? By answering the question, what do I want out of life? What kind of consequences do I want? My dear friend Kirk Summers has a phrase that I absolutely love, and I'm going to repeat it, and I'm going to quote him, "is the juice worth the squeeze?" I love that because processed that into my point of view, there I am processing it, interpreting again. There's the illusion there. It means to me, is the consequence worth the effort? Now consequence is neither good nor bad, nor right or wrong, it's just a consequence, you know? Part of that, the key to our tradition is in order for an object to move, there needs to be a force that moves that object. If I use nahuatl, "tonal" means object, matter. The force that moves "tonal" is "nagual". Nagual has three definitions in our family, spiritual teacher, spiritual guide, yes, but the most important one, the force that animates tonal, my body, my mind is tonal, matter. The force that moves it, is nagual. I'm not this body, I'm not this mind, I am life, and I've been here for a long time. That automatically triggers something else. There's law, for every action there's a reaction of equal force. That's what we know as a consequence. What kind of consequences do I want to experience? If I'm aware of that, then I'm more aware of what I want to say yes to and what I want to say no to. What kind of consequence do I want to live? Someone says, to raise a child unconditionally, that means that you raised them without consequence. And I say no, that's absolutely not true. Life teaches us through the consequences of our actions, of our choices. That's how we learn. That's how life teaches us. That's when it becomes that's when we become students of life. We learn from our consequences, nor good nor bad, nor right or wrong. So is the consequence worth the effort? Is the juice worth the squeeze? And that's from my friends Kirk, his learning in life. He was- he's a retired fire captain from Turlock fire department. That's his experience, and I learned from that, and I'm sharing with you. So where does my no come from? Being aware of what kind of consequence or experience I don't want to have.

 

Dr. Floyd:          23:34          That's profound as well. That's great.

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    23:40          Thank you.

 

Dr. Devlin:         23:42          So I was going to ask, I know, in some of the Toltec traditions that you have been working with that there is these sort of wisdom keepers and people much like that were in your family who went on to teach. Is there anything within that matrix that looked at or supported rites of passage among young men or women and what were those?

 

Dr. Devlin:         24:06          Well, the four agreements, when I was born- well, when I begin an apprenticeship, there were seven. And my dad already covered five of them. The other two is life and death, which is the book, the Toltec art of life and death. It's the other agreements, but it's different in a sense. And that life is all that exists and death is everything that it doesn't, it's the only truth that exists, the manifest and the un-manifest, the rest is just the point of view. That was a ceremony that my father did for us and my brother Jose, when I was 14 years old, and my brother was 12 or 11, something like that. And there were- it was the first time we were both interested in knowing and that's when we did a ceremony in [redacted], and my father showed us these stones that we covered in a leather pouch, similar to what you have over your chest, and it represents the intent. Objects, things like that, there are, but my father always taught us these are just objects, they're just inanimate. What gives them powers you. So you can say it's the impeccability of the word. Not in the sense that, we use the word as a parameter of like, who am I? What am I? We use the impeccability the word and knowing that my words have power because I gave it power, with my life. The same energy use to move my arms, to move my legs. It's the same energy I use to create a thought, it's the same energy I give power to my word. How do I want to use my word? To help me? To liberate me? Or to subjugate me? In essence, that's it. That's the, that's the tradition. Everything else is just a different way of explaining that.

 

Dr. Devlin:         26:18          Hmm. Did you, when you were at this point in time in your life and you had some semblance of autonomy, you make your own decisions, did it have an impact on you?

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    26:26          Well, I rebelled against it completely, of course I rebelled against it. Yeah. Is it a family tradition to do that? We want to create our own life, you know, like a teenager or whatever. But eventually I found how it resonated with me and I came back because, one, because I to help my father, two, I began to understand it. Of course I was a father and I wanted to help my kids. But it's the moment where I really gave myself the permission to heal with it.

 

Dr. Devlin:         26:55          Yeah.

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    26:55          And that's really it.

 

Dr. Devlin:         26:56          Wow. Now with your own children, how are you present as a dad and subsequently a teacher, to some degree, an an example setter, how is that relationship now for you guys? Cause it'd be very interesting to have you as a father, I think. I think that it would be a unique.

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    27:14          Well, you have to ask them when they're ready for that question. It may be, might be similar to the question of, what was it like growing up with my father? And the answer is, he was fun, he was interesting, but he was my dad. You know, we teach with permission, which means my father taught me when I gave him permission to teach me. Maybe my children- all right, here's the story: My father received my son, you know, my wife's doctor was next to my dad and my dad was the one who received him, it was a beautiful thing, and my dad, you know, they, among doctors, they talk to one another. So my dad being a doctor and all that, that was like, the last doctor thing he did, he received my son. And after they cleaned up Miguel Alejandro and all that kind of thing they gave him back to us, and Susan had him in his arms and all that kind of thing- in her arms. And my father looked at us and he said, "congratulations, you made a beautiful baby boy. Now domesticate him". And I'm like, "what? The author of The Four Agreements is asking me to domesticate their child?" And he says, "yes. If you don't, someone else will, and you're not gonna like it."

 

Dr. Floyd:          28:32          That's... True.

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    28:34          So that's the way my father taught us. Like, you remember how I said before, if my father, the way he teaches us is through experience the consequence, well, that was the challenge. All right, figure it out, Miguel. Because if you don't, someone else will. So I spent many, many years trying to find a way to raise a child without domestication. And my kids are 14 and 11 years old now. And here's my reply. It's impossible. It's impossible to raise a child without domestication. But here's the thing, what I've learned, domestication is the corruption of how life teaches us. Life teaches us through action/reaction. Through every action we take, there's a consequence. There's a reaction. All right. Like I said before, domestication is a system of reward and punishment by which we model the behavior of an individual. If you live up to expectation, they get a reward and if they don't, there's a punishment. All right. First step, I learned is that I don't control their perception, they do. Example, my daughter, when she was four years old, she and I decided to play a game of who was going to blink first, and she lost almost immediately, but I continued to look into her eyes, and she said, "pop, why are you still still looking at me?" I said, "I'm looking at you because you're beautiful." And she says, "Papa, no, I'm not. I don't have any makeup on." Four years old, my emotional reaction was like, "who taught that to you? What it mom? Was your friends? Was it the TV?" And then I realized it doesn't matter, she learned it, and then my temptation to domesticate her showed up, to corrupt the beautiful thing to love yourself just the way you are. "If You want to be my daughter, you love yourself just the way you are." And that's the temptation to corrupt that, just like the way I corrupt the the four agreements, and turn them into the four conditions, there is that. And Luckily I'd already learned what the four conditions, so I was aware of it, but you should never take for granted the power of planting a seed. So I said, "honey, you're beautiful just the way you are." And I left it at that. I didn't say anything else. I planted a seed. Of course, as the weeks progressed, I decided to put the seed just in case it landed in the wrong place. That's, you know, that's the teachings of Christ, you know, because like just in case. So one day I said that, and daughter said to me, "I know Poppa, I know. Makeup, I'm beautiful just the way I am. But makeup makes me look pretty." And I was impressed. She created a counter argument to me, but it taught me, it reminded me of the lesson. The important thing, I don't control her perception, she does. And the reason why we plant seeds is that in that moment of doubt or whatever, you hope that that seed will blossom in that moment. She finally hears me, maybe not that day, but later on, I'm happy to say that a few months ago I brought that up with my daughter again. I said, "Hey, I've been teaching this, remembered this?" And she says, "yes, I remember that. Dad, you were right, I am beautiful just the way I am, but I still like to play with makeup. But, I know I'm beautiful just without it." And part of me went, "yes, it blossomed!" So that's the very first step, I don't control their perceptions, they do. Now we have to become aware of what the difference is in life. Okay. We all live here in this room, we live very near a place called Donner's pass. If you live in a place like Donner's pass, and it's known because sometimes it gets winters that are very harsh and its' named after a party that, well, the winter was so bad that they actually had to eat each other, because that's the only way to survive. If you live in a place like that, you do all the work in the spring, the summer and the fall that allows you to survive the winter. Chances will go higher if you don't do any of the work- and sorry for pushing the mic- Your chances of survival would be a little less, it'll be a little slim. It's a, it's an action reaction, but a much more simpler way to describe it is this: Imagine you're in your home, and just like in his room, there's electricity. At the end of the month, you're going to get an electric bill. The consequence if you decide to pay the bill is that you're going to get electricity. Neither good nor bad, nor right or wrong. It's just a consequence. If you choose not to pay the electric bill the consequence is, you're not going to have electricity, neither good nor bad, nor right or wrong. It's just a consequence. The consequence of paying or not paying the bill, neither good nor bad, and sometimes, sometimes a month, you may not have enough money to pay for the electric bill and food. You have to make a choice. Food or electric bill, so you decided to pay for food, because that's what's going to nurture you, and if you want to be able to afford both, you do the work in that month that allows you to afford both. Neither good nor bad, nor right or wrong. It's just action, reaction. What kind of consequences do you want? The domestication on the other hand, is this: If you pay the electric bill, you're a standup person in my eyes, you're responsible, you have a good job, that means that you make enough money, I'll even then you some money because you're a standup person in my eyes, in my judgment. If you don't pay the electric bill, then you're a bum. You're irresponsible. You don't have a job that allows you to pay for either one of them. There's no way I'm going to lend you money and you're not in good standing, In my eyes. There's a judgment, and here's the thing. If you don't have money for both, but you don't want to look bad, like the sin of being poor, then I'm going to use my credit card to pay for both and there I am, I don't have enough money to pay for them. Food, the electric bill, and my debt gets getting worse and worse and worse and worse. All because I'm trying to live an image that doesn't exist, and there's the difference. Domestication, the motivator is, "I love you, if..." my acceptance of you. Action, reaction, consequence is "I love you", my love is not the motivator by you. I'm not going to use my love and acceptance of you to motivate you, but what kind of consequence do you want? My wife is the disciplinarian at home because since I travel so much, she's the one. So we are a team of course, but she's the one that carries it, and the way she does is very simple. This action has this one, this action has this consequence. This action has this consequence, what kind of consequence do you want? And it'll teach them to have a choice. Last year, my son has autism, and like I was saying before, and autism and puberty came in hard handed, and that made things kind of complicated. We felt like we took a couple of steps back. Any parent that has special needs children would understand what that means. And it felt like I had anxiety again, I was going through some anxiety last year. And you know, my son taught me what is to love someone unconditionally. You know? For example, when when my son was diagnosed with autism, I was depressed for a whole week. Then a week later my son walks up to me, he's two years old, puts his hands on my knees, looks me in the eyes and smiles, if you know about autism, you know, that's a big thing. And it snapped not me out of it. It's like going, [inhales deeply] I breath again. I'm like, "what am I doing?" Here I am mourning as if my son died, but he is here alive. And then I realized, It was like, what I was mourning is that, you know, when I was talking about the infinite possibility, that you see all those potentials? Conscious or subconscious, I got attached to one of them and I was beginning to domesticate my child to fit that image and then comes along this diagnosis and it begins to push that into my son. And I got depressed because, one, I was mourning the death of my attached belief of who is supposed to be. And I had this mask that didn't let me see it, but he broke right through it. He put his hands on my knees, looked me in the eye and smile. He's right in front of me. And that's when I learned, he is going to live his life. My job is to teach him how to live, to make his own choices. It's going to be up to him whether or not autism is a parasite or an ally, which is true for all of us. Special needs or not. It's the truth, for all of us. So last year I was having, because we were doing great work, we were going through the process and all of sudden we had the setback, and luckily for us we went to the amen clinic, and all kind of thing, and next Monday he will be at your office, over there.

 

Dr. Devlin:         38:23          Okay.

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    38:23          I was going through that same mourning again, you know, I guess it's true, some parents who have special needs, we go through mourning a couple of times throughout our life, especially through certain thresholds. And I watched a movie, helped me quite a bit, it was called Black Panther. It's a Marvel movie, and all kinds of thing, so, spoiler alert: in the previous movie, Captain America: Civil War, the father of Black Panther passes away, the King. So in this one, it's after everything that happened in Captain America: Civil War, and he's now the new King of his new country of- not "new" country, of HIS country, it's ancient, I just forgot the name of it. But in order to go, he has to go through a Rite of passage. So he has to take away the power that made him The Black Panther and he has to go and accept all challengers for the throne. And somehow he survives. He wins. And they have to give him, in order to recover the powers, he takes this potion that gives him the powers back, but it takes him to the underworld. In the underworld, he sees his father. The father comes up, grinning, smiling, "I'm so proud of you, son. You've done this, this, and that..." And then The Black Panther says, "father, I'm so happy to see you, but I wasn't ready to live without you." At that point, the father says something like, "The job of every parent is to prepare their children for their own death. Did I fail you, my son?" And the rest of the movie just- but that line changed my life because to me it meant, the job of us parents is to teach our children how to survive without us. That's what the line meant to me, to prepare our children for our own death, means that we prepare our children to live without us. And all sudden it dawned on me, that's the gig, that's the job. That's the work. Before the age of 10, our job is to keep them alive. You know, I still, he's 10 years old, I'm still going over to his bed, and I'm pushing him to see if he's still breathing. I've been doing that since he was a newborn to that moment. Now as he is entering, you know, the anxiety I had, is not necessarily about the setback about the autism, but in about five, six years, he's out there, you know. And the irrational fear kicked in, anxiety kicked in. That's all of a sudden here I am. I work very hard and I have to say at one point I definitely felt like I mastered not taking things personal. You first start with the outer fringes of your sphere of influence, your friends and you slowly make your way to the center. That's how you do it. You practice with the people outside your sphere as you slowly make your way inwards and then you hit the core, which for a longest time I thought was my father, my mother, my brothers, my family, my wife is just, she's my family, but she doesn't have the same history I have with my parents and my brothers. We, ever since I was a kid. I worked on it, and worked on it and I felt, yes, I learned how to do it. My father helped me of course, but. And then life went, "Oh really? You think this is the core? Let me peel open this onion and outcomes the real core, my kids." In my life, I have no issues with me. None. I've gotten to the point, I've gotten to that point where I feel very comfortable with me, not even with my wife, I mean her and I, we've done great work together. All my anxiety comes of that of a father. Both my kids, not just my son, my daughter too. She's a woman who is going to go out there. And I can just read the news and I can see all, you know, all this stuff. You know the, you know, it's a tough world for other either one. And then that hit me, my job is to raise them to survive in this world. To thrive, that's up to them. But if they're going to be the ones who learn it, which means let them experience the consequences of their own choices. My love is there, it's not a motivator. The motivator is them. What do they like? What do they want? Get to know them. Who are they? And use their passions as a motivator and tease them the consequences of it. If my son hits someone, he loses a privilege and he has to earn it back. It's not five days and you get it back, no. Yeah, you have five days, but in those five days you have to work for that. If you hit again or you break something like that, we start again again and again until we reach that. Find the motivator. It's ABA therapy positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, punishment type one, punishment type two, and positive and negative reinforcement is not good or bad, it's addition and subtraction, it's mathematics. Positive reinforcement is adding reinforcement, subtracting, negative. You know, it took me some time look pass positive and negative reinforcement as good reinforcement and bad reinforcement. No, it's not that, it's not what that is. Positive reinforcement is addition, adding certain things that you want to encourage certain behaviors and subtracting certain things if you want certain behaviors. In my son's case, I subtract processed sugar, processed colorings and things like that because for him, sugars like alcohol, like Brown sugar and maple syrup is like a beer and wine. Too much, And it's a lot, but just enough quantities that body processes it, add corn syrup or colorings, and it's like Jack Daniels, or Jägermeister to my son. And we're in for a rough ride. You know, it's, that's the analogy. Subtract that. But I can still use sugars to motive him, he loves yogurt. So we use, "Okay, give me a good week at school where you use your manners, use your words, tell your teacher that you need a break, you use your words." and all that kind of thing to encourage him and do good work. The consequence will be your favorite yogurt with the gummy worms that we buy for you, the organic ones, right? We use them as an instrument. Am I modeling his behavior? Yes. Is it conditional love? No. My son is who he is. He has, his autistic but that doesn't describe who he really is. It's going to be up to him whether that thing is either an ally or a parasite, it's up to him. I love him. Good, bad, right, or wrong, just like my daughter. And that's the thing. That's how we raise children. And here's the secret. Nobody tells our kids, or people who don't have kids, we don't know what we're doing. We're doing the best with what we've got. You see as soon as you get used to paying the parent of a one year old they turn two, making everything you knew about parenting irrelevant. They turn four, they turn eight- this morning right before I came here, we're actually throwing out all the dishes that were for them as the kids because they outgrew it. My daughter already donated her Barbies. We all call false thresholds. The willingness to release that image, that image that we project to release that and be aware of who they are. That's what allows us to be a parent to them. We're playing it by ear, because the person we're parenting is changing physically, emotionally, intellectually, they are changing and the willingness to see that it's what's going to allow us to learn to dance at this new rhythm, to this new song. It's still the same child meaning- scratch that- it's still the same human being, but they're just entering a different stage. My daughter's a tween, a tween or whatever.

 

Dr. Devlin:         47:15          "A Tween."

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    47:15          My accident gets in the way of me saying that, and my son is a full blown teenager, hormones and all. That's the reality and it's going to change, in a few years, it's going to be a whole thing. It's up to them. Now here in Washoe Countya special needs teacher taught us a beautiful analogy, "Yes, we put a life vest on them, but it's their job to take it off."

 

Dr. Devlin:         47:50          That's amazing. Well, you bring up something so important. I think a lot of parents that I talk to, they say, if it weren't for unconditional love, I would be in prison. I mean like I, you know, if I didn't unconditionally love this childI would've run their neck already, kind of thing, because of the frustrations that they feel. And you're right, it is an ever changing thing. And I am not a parent, but from the folks that I deal with in my own family, with my nephews and so forth, the concept is as you rolling with the punches, you're learning as you're going and you hope for the best.

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    48:21          And you pick your battles, you pick your battles and here's the thing is that: my son is my teacher of patience, and my daughter benefits from that, my wife benefits from that, everyone benefits from me, like, my son is my teacher of patience, and not taking things personal. When he hit me once, and yes, I understand the emotion, fear and all that kind of thing that comes in, and then I see it from his point of view. His autism is expressed through voice. It's like, he's incredibly brilliant, but his language is impacted. Imagine feeling all these things in your body and having not having the words to say it. Anxiety, allergies, telling people, "please no", he doesn't like hearing no, but he doesn't know how to give no, and he only knows how to get angry. You see it from his point of view. I'm not the one going through through autism, he is. And the same thing with my daughter. My daughter is the one going through the changes in her body, not me. I already went through it. I'm going through a different form of puberty here. My body's changing, and that's what allows me, is empathy, it's a beautiful instrument and here's the thing. Any person can bring a child into this world, but what makes us parents is the willingness to engage this child. But here's the thing. In the same thing, we talk about parenting. You can talk about relationships. We have no idea what we're doing in our relationships. We're playing it by ear too. But my children, it's easy to see the change because they're physically changing, they're maturing. Their mental capacity has gotten a lot better. They are growing. My wife is also growing too. She's changed quite a bit since we first started dating. We've been together 15 years and she's also evolved and I'm learning how to be in relationship with who she is now. The willingness to let go of who she was and see who's in front of me. It's not about understanding women and men. It's about understanding the person in front of you which comes from understanding the person you are. Going back to that question about the authentic self.

 

Dr. Devlin:         50:47          Right.

 

Miguel Ruiz Jr.:    50:47          Knowing who I am myself, as the experience, not a definition.

 

Dr. Devlin:         50:56          Thank you again for listening to this interview with Miguel Ruiz jr. This is the end of part two and we'll be coming into part three later on with the wrap up. Thank you so much.

 

Speaker 6:          51:07          Ff for this week with reminder to live love, listen and learn.