Jerry Hyde- The Most Dangerous Therapist In The World
You are going to love this guy! I enjoyed this frank conversation with Jerry about what it is to be a man, the ultimate nature of reality, the role of drugs in spiritual development, and much more.
Jerry is a self-described:
MENTOR, BESTSELLING AUTHOR, FILMMAKER, PODCASTER, PSYCHEDELIC INTEGRATOR, DENIM FREAK, COFFEE FIEND, and PROVOCATEUR.
Jerry is the author of:
BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF BLADESVILLE, DREAMACHINE, PLAY FROM YOUR FUCKING HEART, THE BOOK OF SIN, and the FORTHCOMING EMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL
A shadow therapist with 25 years of clinical experience, Hyde rejects many of the conventionally held views of the mainstream psychotherapy world.
He works with couples and individuals and leads the largest men’s group practice in the UK.
An outspoken advocate of shamanic plant medicines he believes for some people a combination of deep psychotherapeutic work and psychedelic entheogens to be the most powerful way of bringing about real, lasting, and positive transformation.
Find Jerry at:
Transcript:
Brian Smith 0:00
Close your eyes and imagine what if the things in life to cause us the greatest pain, the things that bring us grief, or challenges, challenges designed to help us grow to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we’ve been buried. But what if, like a seed we’ve been planted and having been planted, who grow to become a mighty tree. Now, open your eyes, open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature. This is grief to growth. And I am your host, Brian Smith. Hey, everybody, this is Brian back with another episode of grief to growth. And today I’ve got with me a fascinating man. His name is Jerry Hyde. And Jerry, I’m going to read a list of who he is. He’s a mentor. He’s a best selling author. He’s a filmmaker and a podcaster. He’s a psychedelic integrator, he calls himself a denim freak. He’s a coffee fiend and a provocateur. He’s the best selling author of blainville dream machine, play from your fucking heart, the book of sin, the short end, the forthcoming book, empathy for the devil, it’s Sherry tells me he’s going to be at about the end of this week, and recording this on October 26, of 2021. Jerry is a shadow therapist with 25 years of clinical experience. He rejects many of the conventionally held views of the mainstream psychotherapy world, which I do too. So this should be an interesting conversation. Jerry works with couples and individuals and Lee’s largest men’s group practice in the UK. So with that, I want to welcome to greater growth. Jerry. Hi.
Jerry Hyde 1:41
Thank you, Brian. It’s nice to be here.
Brian Smith 1:44
Yeah, Jerry, it’s really good to meet you. I’m looking forward to our conversation day. I know you’re a psychotherapist. But you say you reject many of the mainstream thoughts of the psychotherapy world. And why is that?
Jerry Hyde 1:55
When I say reject, I don’t mean to reject them, they can do whatever they want. And I’m sure they will. I mean, in terms of my own practice? Yeah, I mean, my, my background training is as a psychotherapist, but I don’t, I think I might have even removed most of that kind of terminology from my website, I try and distance myself. Maybe it’s a little bit like Groucho Marx, you know, I don’t want to be part of any club that would have me. Yeah, it’s, um, you know, it’s a complex thing, when you when you get into plant medicine, for example, then you know, I think medicine and psych, you know, psychotherapy are going to become more and more entwined. Over the, you know, the next few years, there’s already this thing called the psychedelic Renaissance, this phrase that I hear more and more must have been involved for almost 10 years. So it’s been pretty underground. And I think there’s a lot of people have been very underground. But if you want to call yourself a mainstream psychotherapist, then you can’t, you can’t be involved in what’s, at the moment seen as close a narcotics, you know, there’s no distinction between crack and I asked her. So, in that sense, I reject it. I’m also not a big fan of ethics. And I know what it’s like, in the rest of the world. In the UK, if you go to any of the kind of directories or places where therapists list themselves, you’ll almost always have a little foot thing saying, you know, I abide by the UK, CPS, you know, code of ethics. While I don’t, not because I don’t think people should be ethical, I think it’s really essential that at the core of your practice, you’ll be an ethical human being. But if I follow a rulebook, I think there’s a danger there. Because if the rulebook says Thou shalt not hug your client, then what if they need touch? And there are people I’ve worked with 1516, maybe 20 years, I’ve never touched them, probably never will. I’m, I can read that of them, as other people are hug at the end of the first session. And occasionally, I get it wrong. No, but not very often. But that’s called being human and doing your best as opposed to, like I was listening to a doctor or a different field. I was listening to a doctor on the radio, and he said, when I go to someone’s bedside, to tell them that terminally ill my human impulse is to sit down and hold their hand. And that’s the legal I’m not allowed to be within four feet of that person. So I have to shout across the room, you’re dying rather than be human. And I think when we take these, you know what, there’s health and safety or boundaries or ethics Whatever to that extreme, we’ve lost our humanity. So I think it’s very dangerous to operate without a code of ethics, I understand why people operate with a code of ethics. And I would understand if someone called me arrogant for not choosing to do so. But I do my best to be human rather than to follow orders. just following orders can get us into all sorts of trouble. But you’ve got to be a little bit more alive. I mean, our show I’m a fan of our show, the Indian lunatic guru. And he said morality is so that people don’t have to think for themselves. So you go, Okay, what does the Bible say? Or what does my culture say I should do rather than what if I listened to myself psychotherapy is about having a relationship to yourself. So how can I possibly follow a code of ethics? So in that sense, I’m, I would be I hope I’m considered outside, maybe I’m fooling myself, maybe everyone thinks I’m just mentioned. But um, that’s really my point. It’s not meant to be a kind of screw you to them, because hopefully, they’re doing a great job. But that’s, you know, I’ve been doing this 27 years, I’ve made mistakes. I’ve upset people. I imagine if I was a plumber, I would upset people and made mistakes and flooded people’s housing. You know, hopefully, it’s not that bad psychologically. You know what I mean? You just try and say, sorry, when you screw up, and you try and be alive.
Brian Smith 6:20
Yeah, I totally agree with everything you just said. It’s really interesting. My daughter just graduated this year with her master’s in psychology and psychotherapy. And she’s, she sees me doing the work that I’m doing. And she’s like, what, Dad, you’re not really a psychotherapist, which I’m not I help people through grief, but I’m not I’m not trained in that. But I watch it. And she says, Well, we’re not allowed to do this. We’re not allowed to touch our clients, you know, for example, she’s working with children. And you know, but you know, she’s got to follow the rules, because she’s, you know, she said, ethics and stuff like that. And, you know, you’re not supposed to talk about yourself as a psychotherapist, you know, and she’s like, well, sometimes, you know, occasionally we can, I’m like, well, then you’re not being human being. Because you’re, I think your clients want to be able to relate to us like, I want, I want to feel like I’m talking to someone who can who’s experienced what I’ve experienced. So I think that as we grow, we kind of realize humanity is more important than that set of rules.
Jerry Hyde 7:18
Yeah, I mean, no, I’m not, not hung up on right and wrong, and who should do what I think there is, for some people, there’s definitely value in having a completely blank canvas in who they talk to. That’s never been my thing. From day one. The first time I’ve once when a sort of therapist, I felt very reassured by the kind of work as you’re saying, the human contact of that person being willing to share their experience with me. And, again, in terms of rejecting conventional therapy, I’ve kind of made good almost call it a brand. That sounds a little bit cynical, but I’ve made a career out of being the fucked up therapist, and being very transparent. Because I don’t like the guru model. I always say to people, you have to be my teacher, I’m not your teacher, I’m not the leader here. I’m your companion, and I have my issues. And you really want to work with me on something that I haven’t completely resolved, because then I’m going to be very alive to that struggle. If you work with me on a subject an issue, like drug addiction, you know, I had a drug habit in my 20s, I’m in my late 50s. Now, it’s not an issue for me anymore. So I’m probably not the best person to talk to us as a drug addict, because I’m like, just stop man. You know, if it’s something I’m really grappling with, ideally, you want me to be like two steps ahead of you. So I can say, Yeah, I’m in this has been something I’ve really struggled with. But this is what I’ve learned. And I’m very kind of alive and passionate about it. I think that’s the best way to work with me. But, you know, it’s, it’s whatever your choice is really.
Brian Smith 9:00
Well, I, you know, I’m speaking as a lay person, but I did go see a psychotherapist several years ago, I was going through a crisis and it to me, I love the fact that she was human, that she you know, she could relate to what I was going through. I don’t want to talk to a blank canvas, Canvas. And frankly, now there’s, we’ve got computers that can do that I could get I could get on with an AI and have someone that says Yes, I’m listening, you know, but I want to work with someone who was who was human who knows my struggle can relate. I love what you said also, you know, some of that’s a couple steps ahead of me, you know, not this perfected. And you know, when I was going to church I remember there was a pastor I really liked this guy because he would stand there and say, I’ve you know, I’ve got the same issue as you do. I’m a DD ADHD you know, I’ve got this issue. I’ve got that issue. I’m like, that’s the guy I wanted. I wanted
Jerry Hyde 9:52
Yeah, I was I run a lot of groups. And I was running a group the other day with a bunch of guys that they must have been working with, together with me for about 18 or 19 years and one of the guys, I can’t even remember now what he said he shared something quite painful. I couldn’t honestly tell you why there was silence, but no one responded. There was like a pause, and his fucking watch went, I’m really sorry to hear that. And everyone burst out laughing, which is that? You know, it’s like, oh my God, these watches are listening to us. And then they kind of responding. I’m really sorry to hear that, John, before we got a chance, you know, so God knows where it’s going, ultimately. But yeah, I totally agree with you. You know, it’s if that’s what you’re looking for, that you want someone to share, then there’s plenty of us out there that do that. And if you I tried the blank canvas thing for a few years, I thought it would be a good thing for me to do. I went to a union psychoanalyst, and I think I broke him actually started sharing stuff with me. It wasn’t for me, you know, I’m glad I tried it just to see what it was like. It made me understand. But it’s not for me.
Brian Smith 11:01
So I do want to ask you about this is a little bit off subject, but I read a book called Lost connections. Ever familiar with it, by a guy named Johann Hari, and he talks about basically, you know, a lot of not psychotherapist with psychologist, psychiatrist, they’re like, everything’s about brain chemistry, you know, so all we got to do is fix your brain chemistry, you’ll be fine. So we’ll just give you these antidepressants, and you’ll be okay. What are your thoughts on that model? Where it’s like, you know, we’re like, our medical our mental health is pretty much like our physical health, we just fix it mechanically, then we’ll be okay.
Jerry Hyde 11:40
So really good question. I’m not a fan of the terminology, mind, body and spirit. I don’t hear it so much these days. Actually, I don’t know if people use it in the same way as they used to, you know, that when the kind of whole new age thing was really exploding, but mind body and spirit suggests to me that there’s three things that are kind of traveling in one vehicle somehow, I don’t say it like that. I think our mind is our body our body is our spirit. Our spirits are, you know, with we are one. And as far as far as kind of brain chemistry. I’m not a biologist, I don’t know enough about it. I just think that again, the splitting of these, you know, medical from psychological, even. I mean, I know very, very little, if anything at all about quantum physics, but when I’ve tried to understand it, I’ve thought this doesn’t seem very far from spirituality or religion. So I’m not very interested in splitting it out my explorations with plant medicines, which have been incredibly powerful and healing for me. If someone were to come to me and say, all of the spiritual stuff you experienced is merely a chemical reaction to this plant, and the alkaloids and, or whatever in this plant. And it’s giving you hallucinations, and it’s doing certain things to your neural pathways. Okay. Okay. And if someone comes to me and goes, no, that’s God. Okay. What’s the difference? Who cares? You know, it’s I’m not a fan of indiscriminate medication of people, especially you know, you mentioned it a DD or ADHD I’ve had a DD my whole life because that’s what you don’t get it just for a little bit. I was prescribed Ritalin when I was a kid. It’s not a medication that I feel did me any good at all. And I hear from some people that it helps them. Even that one, I’m a bit sketchy on because I’m thinking who’s helping here the kid or the teacher, the kid or the family, you know, who’s actually getting help. So I’m, I’m a bit more cautious around the way things these things are prescribed. You know, I know someone who was prescribed fairly hardcore medication about 25 years ago. For what I see is his sensitivity. I think if his sensitivity had been embraced a bit more rather than, no, you’re oversensitive. So we need to shut you down. That would be my approach. I understand that a psychiatrist approaches. We have these pills, and this will solve your problem. Yeah, who doesn’t want a pill that’s going to solve their problems, right? I mean, that just sounds great. Does it exist for some people if you if you’re going to go out and you’re gonna stab someone to death unless you’re medicated? I’m all in favor of that. You know, if it’s about safety, if it’s a bad extreme, even that, I think if you gave people a bit of love, probably You know, you might need to medicate Molly given the love but so yeah, yeah, well, you know, so much of this is cultural, so much of this is, is because of our culture that we inhabit that people don’t get the care that they need. And so they do develop mental health problems. And then I’m not sure that pills ultimately the answer to a cultural problem.
Brian Smith 15:20
And that’s kind of the point of the book that I was referring to. It’s like, you know, we have, I think we have a cultural problem in the West. And people are, that’s what the books titled lost connections, we feel lonely, we feel separate, we feel isolated. And, you know, I’m not a biologist, and I’m not a psychotherapist, even. But I think there’s, I think it’s a feedback loop. Right? So people look at the brain and say, Oh, it’s because you’re missing this chemical in your brain. And all we do is pump up this chemical, and you’ll feel fine. What if it’s the other way around? What if it’s that our thoughts and our emotions are driving our brain chemistry to a certain extent, and, and these, these drugs that we’re giving people aren’t very effective, they if they are effective for a few people, for a short period of time, but over a long period of time, they’re not really, you know, really helping. So that’s just my thought on I was just wondering, curious what you
Jerry Hyde 16:11
know, you know, the whole I mean, I remember going to see my doctor when I was 28. And being told the classic, you have an imbalance in your brain, and you need to be on antidepressants for the rest of your life. I think I tried them for about a year and then thought, this isn’t the way for me. But I always think of the chemical imbalance thing, again, as a lay person, I’m not a doctor. So maybe they could dismiss this analogy. But for me, I think about when we had to do sports, when I was a kid, and you’re, you’re all in a line, and you’re going to run 100 meters or whatever. And you gotta you got to try and be first and there’s some teacher though, with a pistol who fires it and you run as fast as you can. And I’m cranked in that moment. I’m full of fear, anxiety, adrenaline, cortisol, that because I’ve got to be the fastest in this race. Is that a chemical imbalance? Or am I responding to my environment, which is particularly stressful in that moment, and then I think about growing up in a domestic violence household with an alcoholic parent, mother who was medicating to deal with that situation, and the stress and anxiety that I lived with perpetually, is that a chemical imbalance? Well, at some point, it might because you’re, you know, again, very basic understanding of brain chemistry and that your brain starts to almost crave these, these these releases of cortisol and adrenaline so you can get hooked on on fear and anxiety, and maybe a short term burst of some kind of correcting medication can redress that. Personally, that never worked for me. As I’ve said, I’ve I’ve had Ritalin I’ve had SSRIs magic mushrooms and ayahuasca helped.
Brian Smith 17:54
Yeah, well, let’s talk about that one. It’s what I love, because I actually went on an SSRI for a while I actually did a couple of and I told my therapist, I would, as long as you know, my doctor prescribed him and she green, I need to be out. But I said, I want to plan to get off of them. So I looked for ways to get off of him. So I was having major panic attacks, which I very rarely if ever have anymore. And this was like 20 years ago. But I decided I went to work with my mind more than working with this, this chemical that made me feel basically like a zombie. It’s like, I wasn’t depressed anymore. I just didn’t care about anything. And I did not like that feeling. So how are plant medicines? How are they different from, say, the SSRIs and Ritalin and stuff like that?
Jerry Hyde 18:41
I mean, I don’t know. I guess if you go, you go see a doctor, you get a pill, you go away, you try and live your life. I guess if you gave people plant medicine in the same way it might be that might not be so effective. I think part of it is that it’s ceremonial. Or, or other times I’ve been involved, it’s been it’s been ceremonial, there’s been a ritual to it, there have been a group of carers there who will take care of you will guide you through the experience will help you integrate it. You know, that’s something that I’m involved in myself. I have occasionally run ceremonies with ayahuasca and I do a fair amount of preparation work and integration work with people to help them make sense of the experience, which is often very difficult to comprehend. You know, it’s a big download people is this kind of myth that iOS goes like 10 nights of therapy 1010 years of therapy in one night. I think there’s some truth to that. But if you imagine getting 10 years of therapy in one go, you can’t process that in process that immediately you need quite a while to, to digest that. But I think it’s the whole way that it’s administered that is, is much more profound and deep than giving someone some pills and saying here, this will make your anxiety go away. Whatever, you know.
Brian Smith 20:05
Yeah. Yeah, for minor See, I totally, completely agree, you know, and it’s interesting because I’ve looked into plant medicines and it’s funny to me many years ago, guys, I do a lot of reviews on Amazon. So guys, would you review my book, and he sent me a book and I’d never heard of ayahuasca and he had gotten an experience down in South America and gone through the ceremony and everything. And I thought, this is really cool. And I’m hearing more and more about it, and then looked into it a little bit. And I know people here in the US like, oh, yeah, I took magic mushrooms. I took psilocybin, you know, and the thing is, but it’s not the same as the experience that you talked about, like you said, you do the preparation, you’ve got a guide there to go with, you get someone to help you integrate it afterwards. So it’s kind of like both things, right? It’s the it’s the thing that opens up your mind, but also someone to guide you through it.
Jerry Hyde 20:56
Yeah, I’ve got some, a couple of ceremonies happening. middle of next year, I’m already talking to people, I’m really getting people ready. And I kind of used the analogy of running a marathon, it’s like, this is very challenging. And you and I could do it, but we couldn’t do it tomorrow. You know, we can’t say let’s get our running shoes and go out and run a marathon. But if you take x amount of time, and build up a program and prepare yourself, right, in three, four or five months time, we could probably run a marathon. So when you embark on a big, psychedelic experience like that, I would always recommend, you know, the only time I hear of real problems with these things is when again, people are indiscriminate with it when they don’t prepare. There was I’m laughing because not because of what happened. But a lot of people started sending me this awful story of a guy who stabbed someone to death in a retreat in South America. You know, I think if you look into the backs, background story of that those the ceremony wasn’t held very well, I did hear someone saying that. They these guys had been doing a lot of cocaine beforehand. So that’s really contraindicated. Yeah. But at the same time, you know, I don’t mean to be defensive, but people send me messages go see iOS is dangerous. Someone got stabbed to death on it. Yeah. How many times a day? In your country? In my country? Did someone get stabbed to death because they drank too much vodka. It never makes the papers, how many times because of crack, or cocaine, or meth? Is someone murdered? Everyday God knows how many people. So this is, you know, the events like that are phenomenally rare. And it’s when the whole situation is mismanaged. And you know, you alter your consciousness, there’s always risks. So it needs to be done with huge respect, a lot of humility.
Brian Smith 22:55
So how did you get into shamanic plant medicine? Was it versus I assume as experiencer? First?
Jerry Hyde 23:05
Yeah, I hit 50. I’m 57. Now I hit 50. And I recognize there were issues that even though I’d been in therapy as a client for most half of my life, at least, I couldn’t seem to get access to. And my instinct was, this is something so buried in my unconscious, that talking therapy isn’t going to get there. Or maybe it will, but I haven’t got another 25 years to, you know, hope. And I think, you know, we’ve got, we’ve all got offenses, we’ve all got blocks. talking therapy, which I practice is a fantastic tool, but it’s not the only one. And it’s not very good at dealing with pre verbal trauma. Because you don’t have language for pre verbal experiences. So I Alaska was something I’d known about for maybe 15 years or more. And always thought, yeah, maybe I’ll do that one day. And it just became clear that I needed to do something that would take me into my unconscious rather than talking about what might be in that, to actually have the what I was gonna say the courage that probably actually driven more by desperation than courage, but you know, I can’t keep living like this, I need to try something different. So with you know, all the respect, I really do have, you know, for talking, talking cures, if you want to call it that, they don’t do everything and sometimes you have to jump in and see what’s really down there, you know, in the abyss as Joseph Campbell and many other people have rightly put it is terrifying. You know, I’m not I got no bravado with this stuff. I find it very frightening. I’m a control freak. I want to cling on to my sanity and I find letting go and tumbling into that experience where I just don’t know what’s going to happen. I find it really frightening. And it’s been, you know, some of the most healing experiences of my life.
Brian Smith 25:11
Yeah, you know, I have a friend that did I did ayahuasca and I was telling her I’m, I’m a control freak. Son you already have. I’ve had panic attacks, you know, I’ve got anxiety and stuff. And I’m like, I’m scared of like, you know, letting go. I don’t know what I don’t know what’s gonna happen. It could be really bad. What if I have a bad trip? You know, one of those kind of things? And she tells me, yeah, I had a major, you know, panic attack where I did, I’m like, well, there we go. I’m not doing it. She said was the best thing that ever happened to me. And I’m like, wait a minute. So it’s interesting for us that are like, scared to like, go, we know what, what that experience would be like, or what what might happen, it’s, it can cause a great deal of fear.
Jerry Hyde 25:52
Again, I think there’s cultural beliefs that need to be navigated. I’m a nice, I had a panic attack two days ago, that’s still something I have on occasion, you know, it always takes me by surprise. I was with my family. I was with my children, I was in probably what you could call one of the safest places in the world. And I had a panic attack that came out of nowhere. And there are times when I’m running around, holding a high Wesker ceremony with 30 people or doing retreats with you know, 25 guys doing extreme anger work. I’m fine. I’m rock solid. So it’s a strange thing. But by reframing the cultural beliefs, I mean, you know, there’s certainly, I think it’s important to challenge the idea of a bad trip. You know, what is a bad trip? A bad trip is an unpleasant experience. Why is that bad? Like the title of your, your podcast, grief to growth, you know, we have a terrible, terrible relationship with grief and sadness, and pain and death in our culture. And I think that kind of quadruples for pain. If you say this is a bad thing, rather than no grief, Grief is a natural process. If you give people permission to grieve. I think they have. It’s hard to find language, it’s not an easier ride. But acceptance is hugely important. If you say to someone you shouldn’t be grieving, that’s not gonna help. Right? Right. So so if you if you if you allow someone to go through, and same with a bad trip, if you say this is a bad trip, bad experience, it’s gonna be bad. If you say, I’m in some really difficult, painful, scary stuff. Here. I’m confronting my control issues. And I’m panicking because my ego doesn’t want to die. And I’m being presented with an opportunity to really transcend my ego, but my ego is going no, whatever you do, don’t do that. Because I’m, I want to be in charge. Is that a bad term? So if you educate people and prepare people, and they still might have a really challenging time, but you take away the idea, this is a bad thing happening to you. And I think it helps like I worked with a Mexican Shaman. And he was always saying to us, because a lot of these medicines make you vomit. He was always saying, don’t talk about getting sick, talk about getting well, you’re purging, you’re releasing the things you don’t need. And I still throw up. But it helped because I didn’t feel like I was ill. Right. You know what I mean? So that’s the subtle or not so subtle things you can adjust. I think that help.
Brian Smith 28:31
Yeah, everything’s a matter of how we look at it. Everything’s a matter of perspective how we frame it. So I love what you just said about the about the throwing up, because none of us wants to wants to throw up, right? But if we say, well, this is a purging experience, this is this is the things that need to come out of you then it becomes a different, different way of looking at the same thing that makes it more palatable, more acceptable.
Jerry Hyde 28:53
And appreciate it appreciate the system, man, you know it no one, you’re right, no one none of us wants to throw up. But it’s an amazing an effective system. So you eat some bad food that’s gonna really poison you, your stomach will reject it as quickly as possible to make you safe. And if you go, okay, my body’s on my side, rather than oh my god, I’m so sick that I ate that oyster. And it made me really ill. Yeah, but your body? Got you through it.
Brian Smith 29:19
Right? Yeah, your body knows what you need. So in terms of the plant medicines, I’m just curious about your beliefs. I’ve heard people refer to ayahuasca for example, as Mother Ayahuasca and it’s, they think it’s a spiritual experience, and they’re actually experiencing another dimension. I know you as a psychotherapist, you talked about earlier about unlocking the unconscious. So is it either is it or is it both? When we were having these trips? Are we seeing real realms? Are we just going deeper within ourselves? Or is that the same thing?
Announcer 29:52
We’ll get back to grief to growth in just a few seconds. Did you know that Brian is an author and a life coach, if you’re grieving or know someone who is grieving his book grief to growth is a best selling easy to read book that might help you or someone you know, people work with Brian as a life coach to break through barriers and live their best lives. You can find out more about Brian and what he offers at WWW dot grief to growth.com www dot g ri E F, the number two gr o w th.com. If you’d like to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/grief to growth www.patren.com/grie F, the number two gr O W th to make a financial contribution. And now back to grief to growth.
Jerry Hyde 30:50
Like I said, if some neuroscientist explained it to me, I’d be like, Okay, I’m not opposed to that. All I can say is my experience, which is all I have to go on is that I encountered another higher intelligence that maybe gave me access to people talk about higher self in 12 Step programs. Maybe it gave me access to my higher self, but my personal experience was I met a feminine deity or feminine intelligence. And I’m really, I quite like all this questioning of gender and social conditioning. I accept a lot of that. But I tell you, what’s interesting is some of these plants have gender. And that’s not social conditioning. Maybe it is maybe I experienced that as a feminine because of my own social conditioning. So I could accept that. But I’ve taken a Boga which is from Gabon, in West Africa. Everyone says it’s a very male it’s, it’s what I had a disguise like meeting your stern stern father. Hmm, totally my experience. Very male, very direct. Not cold but but strict. I was kind of conformed to the stuff I know about Kali, you know, very wild, very, very powerful, feminine energy. And I think you know, anyone’s got any misogynistic issues they want to deal with Go and take Ayahuasca because you will come out with huge respect for that feminine, you know, presence and wildness.
Brian Smith 32:28
Yeah, that’s, that’s really fascinating. So, um, yeah, I asked the question, I realize I’m asking this my very, you know, I guess Western, maybe, perspective. You know, we talked about culture earlier. And I was I was interviewing a woman who’s done several plant medicines. And one thing about her experience that really jumped out to me, she said, they looked up and they were they saw these beings like coming down the mountain. And so but not only does she see it, but the people with her side. And the guide said, Yeah, that’s what people see when they do this. So I’m like, Oh, well, this is great. Because this makes it objective, right? Because multiple people saw it in different places and stuff. But and so we, we I am saying sometimes I judge that is more valuable, right? Then it just that just subjective experience, because people can just say, well, that’s just the best just the medicine messing with your head, you know, that’s just controlling your brain chemistry. So it’s not really real. But like your perspective, it’s like, what is the result? You know, what do you get out of it? So what can someone expect when they do something like a plant medicine, what what type of changes can do people see?
Jerry Hyde 33:38
I mean, I must have, let me let me just bracket this with saying I’m not an experienced plant medicine person. Compared with a lot of people I know, you know, I’ve taken iOS seven times I’ve taken a BOGO once I’ve taken peyote, once I’ve taken DMT a few times, I’ve taken both photos, which is five Meo DMT, one time, and, and quite a lot of psilocybin and LSD. So compared with people that I’m involved with, I’m very much an amateur and a lightweight. So I said, say with that kind of caveat, I’ve, as a psychotherapist, I must have guided, I got maybe 200 people through these experiences, maybe more. So there’s 200 Completely different responses from being operated on by alien cultures somewhere, you know, on the other side of Jupiter to people falling asleep and getting nothing. Hmm. I had a friend I went with a friend once she was a dancer, and we went into separate rooms. And we came out the next day and I was really excited to hear what her experience I was like wow, you know, that was amazing. I had all the anacondas and the vomiting gargoyles and all that kind of time. Travel, how was it for you and she went, I just fell asleep are really shit. Oh, I’m really sorry. She went no, I woke up this morning. And it’s literally the first time in years, I didn’t wake up in physical pain because as a dancer, she was constantly managing the pain of that. Like, I felt amazing this morning. So the old kind of cliche, if you don’t get what you expect to get what you need, I think it’s pretty valid. And the people who go to sleep probably just need a good night’s sleep and for it to work on their physicality. Personally, I, I do get a lot of time travel. And by time travel, I mean, what feels like, it’s not like a dream or a memory. It feels like talking to you now. And I’ve been taken back in time, which I know is quite common. I’ve heard other people have to the most mundane. I mean, honestly, this is one of my favorite iOS stories, because there’s no there’s no anacondas or dragons or anything. It’s the most mundane, boring Ayahuasca story I could possibly share with anyone. And definitely one of the most profound, which I was taken back to about probably 1969 1970, I was sitting in the bath as a child, nothing bad happened, no one came in and abused me or shouted at me or shamed me or anything like that, I was just sitting in the bath, and I saw the cracks in the tiles on the wall. And I saw the wooden boat and the rubber duck, and the carpet and the sink. Nothing happened. But it was amazingly transformative because I could feel the atmosphere in the house. I could. I knew my mother was downstairs doing the washing up crying, hiding from me and my sister that she was trying to hide that she was upset, I knew that my father was in a hotel with his secretary, you know, in bed with his secretary or some other lover. And the atmosphere in the house was so incredibly painful. And in being taken back there, I was told, this is what was going on. Between your parents, they were doing their best to protect you from it, but they couldn’t. The pain that you felt that you absorbed from that atmosphere, you know what it’s like, you walk in a room and someone’s been having an argument, they pretend that everything’s okay, you can feel that vibe, right? But this this atmosphere that you absorbed as a child and thought it was your fault was not your fault. You know, this had nothing to do with you the fact that you thought, oh, it’s because my mom’s upset. My dad’s not here. It’s because I’m a bad kid. That wasn’t the truth. And that was amazing. Because, you know, back to our conversation earlier about talking therapy. It’s very hard to remember an atmosphere from 45 years ago, 50 years ago. You can remember I lived in this house, this is what car we had, this is what we did, but to remember the feeling of being in that house is not so accessible. Sometimes I might get it I listen to a piece of music, you know, the Beatles comes on the radio and I’m back for a moment. But that kind of prolonged being taken back and and shown. This is how it was I never thought that would be the kind of thing you know, I would expect the alien abduction ship with with Ayahuasca, but sometimes it’s the really simple stuff. And that was that was a whole load off. You know, that really changed me.
Brian Smith 38:16
Yeah, I compare it from the little bit I know about it seems it’s kind of like a similar or similar to what I found about Indies. People have Indies and they’re all different. And I always say people, you don’t, you don’t get what you want. But I think you get what you need. And some people have we call negative Indies. And those they’ll say it’s the best thing that ever happened to me. And I’ve heard of people that have positive, what we call positive Indies. And then they come back and they have trouble integrating because they don’t want to be back here. And it’s like, This place sucks. And they just realize how bad how bad it does suck. Yeah. So there is I think there is something to you know, getting what you need from from the experience, there seem to be some parallels. And I want to talk about the integration that you talked about earlier. Because again, I’ve interviewed PMH Atwater, who’s the biggest researcher there is on near death experiences. And she says the average adult takes like seven to 14 years integrated into IE, they come back. They’ve got this download, and it’s like, what do I do with it? So it sounds like it’s a parallel maybe there with some with Ayahuasca trip.
Jerry Hyde 39:24
Yeah, I mean, I, I tried to be non judgmental, but when I see people going to iOS seminars, every weekend, I kind of, I questioned the value of that, because, for me, the amount of time that I’m older, when I was younger, I would be running around doing every therapy workshop, I could, you know, trying to get knowledge and, and healing and so I think that there’s, there’s advantage to getting older in that sense, and that I’ve slowed down and I really appreciate, like, just taking the time to digest a meal before you eat Another one you know it, that’s what it feels like to me and I have not drank ayahuasca for five and a half years now. kind of feeling like I might be ready next year. But I’ve taken that time to really posted, you know, the Dalai Lama was asked this, you know, are these new psychedelics? Do they offer instant enlightenment? Anyone? Yeah, they do. But unless you’ve done 1520 years of preparation, meditation therapy, whatever you do, you won’t be able to process that download. So there’s no bypassing, there’s no shortcut, really, you have to have done the work. And I certainly felt much more equipped as a 50 year old to manage the experience than when I used to mess around with LSD or mushrooms when I was a teenager. Or I just didn’t know what the hell was going on. So I think that to have the respect to really digest and process. To me, again, I’m veering into judgmental territory. But if if you keep going back, because you want that high, you want that intensity, that’s a little bit like being given a Christmas present, saying things and putting it to one side and asking for another one, before you’ve unwrap the first present in, take your time. Unwrap it slowly. Explore it before you go asking for another present. Otherwise, I’m not sure I think you’ll lose as much as you get. And, you know, I still have revelations from experiences I did 567 years ago.
Brian Smith 41:34
That sounds wise to me again, never having done it, it seems like something and I think even the and I’m most familiar with Ayahuasca, so I think about it, but even then they weren’t, they’re not doing it every day, you know, they’re not doing it every weekend. And it’s and it’s certainly not a recreational thing. And, you know, in America, we’ve got this this problem with drugs where, you know, we, we use the recreationally, so we look at something like plant medicine. And it’s, I think I’m young for the 60s and 70s. But I remember, you know, hearing about LSD and stuff, and people were, I think, reaching these levels where they could have been enlightened, but they were just doing it for fun. You know, they were just, they were just having trips. And I don’t think we’ve learned to respect the medicine yet. Hopefully, we’re going to get there.
Jerry Hyde 42:17
Yeah, I mean, you know, when I say I, I’m not sure that it’s good idea to do it all the time. If you’re from Peru, if you’re from the Amazon, if you’re, it’s your culture, and you’ve been raised in that, drink as much of that stuff as you want. Because you know that you know how to navigate that. And you know how to integrate that into your life. But I totally agree with you. Because as Westerners, we newbies with this, we don’t really know what we’re getting into this, as this has recently emerged into, you know, it’s not mainstream still. But it’s, it used to be, you know, when I first heard about it, you had to take a plane, all the way to Brazil, or Peru, then you had to get another plane to summon the jungle, then he had to take a boat for, you know, up to up the river, and then he had to walk for two days. Whereas now, you know, I can get on a train and go and do it this evening, you know, very, very easily from London. But it doesn’t mean we know how to navigate that those experiences. They aren’t ours. They’ve been gifted to us. You know, some people talk about cultural appropriation. I’m not sure that is actually cultural appropriation, I think indigenous people are going, you people are messing this world up really badly, and we’re gonna bring this shit. So it’s not a coincidence that I ask these different things are emerging as the world is kind of burning up, you know, around them, we’ve done it, they haven’t done it, we’ve done it. And we’re doing it to them. So I think it’s a last ditch gift from from them to us.
Brian Smith 43:45
Yeah, I don’t know how you feel about this, but I’m gonna put it out there. Because for me, I think that there’s a reality that we as especially Westerners are forgotten that we’re all connected, that we’re all one that we’re spiritual beings. And I view the plant medicines as kind of opening people’s minds to that and nature, like you know, and I love because this term plant medicine I just heard pretty recently and I love that term. It’s a it’s a it’s a medicine. It’s not it’s not something to be recreational, it’s something to help us heal. But it’s helping us heal our lack of connection with each other and with the land.
Jerry Hyde 44:25
Yeah, it’s an important distinction, I think, because I think it was Michael Pollan, the author Michael Pollan, I was listening to recently and he was saying, you know, back to ritual and ceremony when you use something with that kind of respect. With a degree of ritual or ceremony, you rarely get problems. It’s when you use plants or narcotics or anything recreationally, which I’m not against, I think I had great times. I think people, people can have great times but once you become comes avoidance, once it becomes shutting yourself down, once it becomes self medication, then you get into problem areas. And so we need a lot more education and a lot more support for people for not to be problematic. But plant medicines, potentially a very, very powerful healer is also really dangerous. So know what you’re doing. Don’t, don’t just rock up because you had something’s going on and you want to go and see if it’s, you know, if it’s gonna be fun, because it probably won’t be.
Brian Smith 45:31
Right. Right? Well, it’s kind of like the exact opposite of recreational drug use. That’s, that’s like you love it’s avoidance. It’s shutting down. And sometimes we need that right. Sometimes we need to numb out and shut down. So I’m not saying that I don’t I don’t just disagree with that. But that’s the opposite of what this is. This plant is about it’s about opening up, right. It’s about going inside and, and having revelations and, and confronting our stuff that we might not be able to confront. on a conscious level.
Jerry Hyde 46:00
Yeah, I always say I’m, I’m pro drugs, I’m anti drug abuse. So you know, you can you I’m not so sure about crack or meth. I’ve never, you know, I’ve never seen any great benefits that you can use a lot of things to heal yourself, but it’s about your attitude. And it’s about having respect for yourself and what you’re doing, you know, the whole set and setting thing. I think it’s very valid, that Timothy Leary, and people like that used to talk about, you know, be careful.
Brian Smith 46:30
Yeah, I do want to talk to you, I want to shift a little bit because I don’t get to talk to many men on the podcast, and in my world and work doing spiritual work and grief work. It’s like that it’s mostly women, I find that men tend not to open up my clients, very, very few men, mostly it’s women. So you being a male and leading the largest male group in the UK, what’s your experience been with the differences between men and women? And I know we’re getting into stereotypes and stuff here. But we’ve talked about some gender things before. So what’s, what’s your experience with that? And why do you think it is?
Jerry Hyde 47:08
I remember a Tantra teacher years ago saying Tantra is teaching men what women have always known. Like that. You know, there’s, you don’t need to I’m not very interested in gender, that’s not my thing. But I, I’m interested in culture, and like you say, I’m interested in those stereotypes. I’m interested in how we’re all stereotyped, I’m interested in the messages that were were given as children that form us and define us. And I would say that, you know, again, back to rule breaking my, my men’s groups feel quite rule breaking to me, because there are unspoken rules about what you can and cannot show as a man in our society. And in my groups, those rules don’t apply. So you can cry, you can ask for support, you can show your fidelity and your vulnerability without being shamed. And that’s not so easy in mainstream, and I do it because I’ve learned how to do it. But I understand it’s very risky, you know, for a lot of guys to do that. So they feel very limited in how they can connect. And that then has knock on effects in their relationships. So I have plenty of women clients, but my, my groups are men, because I think there’s more urgency with needing to address some of these things, you know, women have all that shit that they have to deal with. But I think they’re better on the whole, like getting, you know, exploring that asking for help men, because of the rules we live with are told to man up, man up and manage it on your own and, you know, suck it up, push those feelings down. And that’s dangerous, right? That’s if there’s such I don’t believe in that masculinity is toxic. But I do believe in toxic masculinity as much as if you squash those feelings down. Men will become dangerous, and they will act out in toxic ways. And it’s really fucking simple. Just give them permission to talk and share their feelings. You know, you could say that, whatever I’m doing is offering a feminine space for men to inhabit because men will get in this mode. This might be I don’t know, I think it’s probably social conditioning. But men will tend to isolate women will tend to commune. So I’m encouraging men to commune in order to change their behavior. There’s no program. There’s no structure, just we get together. I’ve got four groups that meet every two weeks for an evening every other week. It sit down and we talk and we talk about the things that are touching us and things we’re struggling with, which is mostly relationships. So most most guys are struggling with how do I be in a relationship that’s healthy and fruitful? I think for all of us,
Brian Smith 50:01
yeah. So why do you think it is that men? Because you’ve, you’re running this this large group, why do you think men are attracted to, to your group or to you?
Jerry Hyde 50:09
Devon got a lot of competition. You know, it’s not much of this in the UK, very, very little men’s, it’s growing. People hear about me, I mean, I’ve got a film about my work that’s out that people can check out, I can give you the link to that later. So that that alerts people to what we do. But I don’t think that’s the source of it. I think word of mouth in, I appeal to a certain kind of person as another therapist will appeal to a different kind of person. You know, I come from music and film business background, and I work with a lot of people in the arts. And in that sense, I guess I stand out compared with, you know, more conventional therapists. But yeah, you know, there’s just so much of it.
Brian Smith 50:56
Yeah. I think for my experience, you know, the differences between men and women or their culture, I don’t, I don’t, I mean, there’s, obviously their biological differences, too. And we could talk about the effect of testosterone versus estrogen. But also men are not given permission to show their feelings or even have feelings. And I’ve, you know, I find talking a lot of times in men, you’ve asked them how they feel, and they’re like, hot, cold, and it’s like, you’re talking about you got first you have to kind of frame the question for them. So I think is really needed. And in our, in our culture, I don’t know how different it is there, I think it’s similar to how it is in the US to just give men permission to open up and even calling it that calling that feminine is going to trigger a lot of men because they’re like, feminine is bad. You know, I can’t I can’t be feminine, I can’t have a feminine side.
Jerry Hyde 51:47
You know, I mean, I don’t want to go back to plant medicine. But I’m going to just remember I smoked before Toad venom. And that took me most people that I talked to, they have, it’s kind of like a near death experience, very, very similar by the sound of it. I’ve not had a near death experience, but sounds pretty close. And most of the people I’ve spoken to go to a kind of state of oneness with the universe and a very blissed out experience I didn’t, I went to an incredibly painful, very, very, very dark place where I experienced my emotional pain at its most acute, and voice said to me, you are very fragile, you are very delicate, you are very sensitive. These are not feminine traits, even though even though that’s what culturally, we will say, if you’re sensitive, you’re very feminine, if you’re delicate, it’s very feminine thing is actually quite a misogynistic way of labeling those things. They said to me, these are not feminine. These are the qualities that the men have denied for millennia, and these need to be reclaimed as masculine qualities, also. So I think there’s something to that. And that was really good, because I was raised with a very kind of John Wayne macho image of what a man was that I instinctively knew I wasn’t and didn’t want to be. And therefore, I felt like I didn’t really qualify as a man. So I just accepted Well, I’m not a real man, but, and felt ashamed of my fragility of felt ashamed that I can have panic attacks of my the level of sensitivity that actually is very useful in my job. So I think, you know, reframing of that is really, really important. And to we have to learn to celebrate these things and honor these qualities in us otherwise, we will keep pretending to be Rambo or Tommy, you know, even if it’s on the outside.
Brian Smith 53:44
Yeah. And that’s, that’s toxic, not only from a personal view, but also culturally, I mean, we’re destroying the planet because of because of that, that view that we can control everything, and we need to conquer everything. So I we’re running out of time, but what there’s a few questions that you had, I just had to ask you, because you asked me for some questions earlier. I just want to hear your answers to them. So you talked about the misogyny of climate change, what is what does that mean?
Jerry Hyde 54:11
If you go with the idea that, you know, we are if you accept that Mother Nature, you know, this planet we inhabit we have gendered by calling her mother nature fact that we’re raping the shit out of her abusing her, you know, being her. Surely that comes from a misogyny our cultural massagin ism, misogyny. I mean, you know, that that’s a no brainer to me that that attitude that we can just take what we want, and not give back and not consider the impact. I’m making an argument that that comes from a misogynistic attitude within us. I’m fine if people would disagree with that, but it was just an interesting, you know, the Add mindset, I can go off on kind of a little, you know, kind of jazz improvs in my Brain. I thought that that works for me. That makes sense. I think it’s a very masculine thing or male thing. Maybe masculine is, is tripping into the, you know, man shaming thing, but it’s that destructiveness that violence we’re doing. I think it’s coming from that place within us.
Brian Smith 55:21
Yeah, I would not argue with that at all. So you also mentioned that the agricultural revolution and what a mistake you think that was, what’s your What are your thoughts on that?
Jerry Hyde 55:34
I was listening to do you know, Gabor, matta is work. I was listening to him yesterday. And he was saying, put it very, very beautifully said the minute that we started to farm and moved away from kind of egalitarian hunter gatherer existence, which we have, you know, the agricultural revolution happened 1000 years ago, and we’ve been around in some kind of human form for about 2 million years. So it’s a very small amount of our existence. He said that we essentially became like zoo animals, we became caged. And the guy who wrote Sapiens, I can never pronounce his name. He said, We didn’t. We didn’t domesticate animals, they domesticated us, suddenly, we had to be that attended, we thought, oh, this will be easy. If we put some cows in a pen, we can get free milk every day, rather than have to chase them around the desert to try and catch them. But then you got to get up at four o’clock in the morning to milk them, and you got to feed them, and you got to look after them. And you got to make sure that the fence is intact, so they don’t escape, and you got to make sure that your neighbors don’t come and steal a cow. So that that changed the world. And then you got you had four cows, then he had eight cows then he had, then you had a whole lot of cash, and he had a lot of wealth. So suddenly, people had more than other people, you know, suddenly needed police forces to catch the people who stole from the people who didn’t have so much. And then you had cities to, you know, spend all our wealth. And I think it’s really it’s not reversible, unless, unless that’s what climate change is for.
Brian Smith 57:11
Reset.
Jerry Hyde 57:13
But we we have lost an awful lot. You know, we’ve caused massive protests, you know, hunter gatherers have massive problems in live very long. And it was an incredibly hard life. I’m not romanticizing it. But I think with every major change, you have to look at what is the impact on us? And have we really use this change? You know, in the best way for us? You know, there was a million people on this planet 8000 years ago, is now seven and a half billion, right? That’s the fuckup of the agricultural revolution, we have flourished because of this. So very few people would see that as a negative. We have flourished, we have blossomed as a species. But it’s not sustainable. A million human beings on this planet. Yeah, we’re gonna get on fine with the other species. Seven and a half billion.
Brian Smith 58:06
Yeah. Yeah, I would say sometimes we’re almost like a cancer on this planet. We’re growing out of control. And, you know, and I was reading about capitalism. And you know, the whole, the whole model is built on growth. And they’re like, We have to keep growing, we have to keep growing. And even like the United States, they’re upset because our birth rates are down. And we need more. I’m like, why do we need more people? I don’t understand why we think we need more people on the planet.
Jerry Hyde 58:32
Capitalism is a direct consequence of the agricultural revolution, you know, and we are consuming this planet. Bill Hicks, the comedian Bill Hicks had we’re a virus with shoes.
Brian Smith 58:43
Yeah, yeah, in a very real way. So I have to ask you, I love the title of your upcoming book, empathy for the devil. So what’s that about?
Jerry Hyde 58:52
I, you know, to put it simply, it’s, it’s self compassion, because we all have dark sides. So if you demonize your dark side, chances are you’re not going to want to look at it. And until you look at you know, we’re back to talking about toxic masculinity unless you’re willing to look at your own toxic, toxic behavior. You’re not going to change. But if you’re committed to the idea, you’re a nice guy, which most of us want to be a nice guy, then how you gonna look at your darkness and I think to be a whole human being is a fantastic quote. It’s actually written on my wall in chalk cover at the end of this room that Carl Jung quote, he said, Do you want to be good or whole? Huh? So I think it’s, you know, the, you know, mostly riffing on the Rolling Stones song but for me, it’s having that empathy empathic view of your own darkness and developing curiosity and befriending your demons. So you know, I like to be the boss. And so if I have a demon that let’s say the demon of obsessive compulsiveness, that can take me into addictive behaviors that are very self destructive, I can also harness that demon. And I can write a book with it. Because you can’t write a book unless you got an obsessive drive, you can’t, you know, you must know this with your podcast, there’ll be days when you don’t really don’t want to do it, but you do it because it’s easy to have that drive to create and produce. Right, I’m just using that motif of a demon, it doesn’t really matter what you call it, you could call it a sub personality, if you like, you can call it a side of yourself. I’m just using that image because I find it quite a, you know, a vivid image to work with. And I think of my I think we’re all again, I think it was Michael Pollan’s new book. He He’s, it’s called symphony of selves. And he explores, or he dismisses, which I also do the idea of the true self and says, We’re all a cast of characters. And within those characters, they’re going to be ones that are going to be more attractive and appealing to us. And they’re going to be ones that you go, I really don’t want to look at that guy. You know. But you need to know yourself in order to be safe, in order to be hold. So if you do have a murderer in in you, which most of us have the capacity to kill, I think it’s better if you know that part of yourself and other must have that part of yourself rather than go, No, I want to be a nice guy. And then you flip out in some kind of road rage thing, because that part of you has been denied. Hmm.
Brian Smith 1:01:30
So this is what just what people mean, when I talk about doing Shadow Work is is facing these internal parts of ourselves that exact rather, say don’t exist.
Jerry Hyde 1:01:41
Yeah, but you know, that there’s another book called sex at dawn, where base a couple of anthropologists and they make a brilliant point in the first paragraph, I think they say, We are not descended from apes. I mean, what is an incredibly arrogant thing to say we’re not descended from apes, we are apes. We are one of the seven ape species. And we’re very kind of pleased with ourselves that we’re so much better than the all the other, you know, animals on this planet. But if we stop being so fucking smug and accepted, we have some very dark sides. And most of that is because it’s denied. If we can just accept it a little bit, you know, and go, Yeah, on a bad day, I can be positively dangerous. Certainly mean or cruel, or nasty or selfish. That doesn’t make me the worst person that ever lived. Just means I need to look at that. And by acceptance, I don’t mean go, Oh, it’s okay to be selfish. I mean, accept yourself enough to have the willingness and the courage to look at your selfishness and what might that might, you know, be driven by what life experiences have created that how you might become a little bit more generous in yourself?
Brian Smith 1:02:58
Yeah. Well, it’s kind of brings us right back around to the beginning with you know, I think this is one of the things we can do in psychotherapy, we can figure out who we are, why we are the way we are, which I always talk about, and people who listen to the podcasts are going to get sick of hearing this. But I took a course many, many years ago called Who you are is where you were when. And the guy talks about the fact that we’re all product of our environment, his sense. And this was 35 years ago, I took this and I look at people now I’m like, Okay, who was a guy? What happened to him? I don’t see someone as a 50 year old man or a six year amount. What happened when they when they were six years old? You know what happened to them when they were 20 years old? Because we’re all composites of all those things that happened to us, we have to look at ourselves to and say, Yeah, I’m like this, and I don’t like this about myself. But maybe it’s because I was taught this as a child. Or maybe it’s reaction. It’s something that happened to me, and then I can accept that it’s there. But it doesn’t mean I have to give into it. Right? I don’t have to just go with it. I’m just an angry guy. So I’m gonna go run around and yell at people.
Jerry Hyde 1:04:03
Yeah, I mean, I think this is very pertinent, especially with, you know, the kind of work movement that’s happening at the moment, which, you know, is good sides and bad sides to everything. I think if you get work to the point where people are frightened to talk about their darkness in case they get cancelled, it’s almost collapsed in on itself. So in most of my writing, certainly this new book and the book of sin, which was the one before I do a fair amount of exploring my own misogyny, my own racism and sexism, you know, the hatred that I’ve absorbed, and, you know, part of this was, I was woken up to by a brilliant friend of mine, who’s was raised in the bosom of feminism, and she said to me, because women are really misogynistic. I was like, whoa, whoa, we’re back up, man. What the hell yeah. I mean, if I said that, you know, I’d
Brian Smith 1:04:53
be Yeah, he’d be canceled. Yeah. She’s like, well, the
Jerry Hyde 1:04:57
minute a woman says to a man, man up You’re so sensitive anything like that. That’s a massage Nick view, misogynistic attack on his feminine what we see as feminine, right? So, I was like, Ah, okay, so okay, that makes sense because I remember when I started working as a psychotherapist being shocked at how homophobic the gay guys I worked with were, and then I was like, but of course they’ve grown up in a homophobic world, it’s just their homophobia tends to be turned in on themselves rather than outwards, but they’re still homophobic. Why wouldn’t a woman who’s been raised in a misogynistic world have internalized that? And I think to have the courage like I, in the last book, I was, I was sitting on this couch writing one day, I was really, really getting into, I was on quite a rant about Nazis and what, what had happened in Nazi Germany. And then I got in my car, and I drove down the road to go and get some lunch through a very, very Jewish area. I’m not sure which is the Hasidic Jews, they were quite flamboyant hats and robes. And I remember driving through going, you look fucking weird. And it’s like, Oh, my God. 10 minutes ago, I was writing about the Nazis. And I just found my Nazi who’s alive and well, in me, you know, so. It’s
Brian Smith 1:06:25
I’m sorry, your sound just cut off. It just came back. I’m sorry. Go ahead.
Jerry Hyde 1:06:28
Um, yeah, we have to somehow find, you know, ways that we can talk about these things. Otherwise, they get buried, and then they get acted out.
Brian Smith 1:06:36
Yeah, I’m so glad you said that. You know, it’s interesting, because being a black person in America, you know, we I deal with racism all the time. And there there are times when I find myself saying and doing, you know, racist things, and I hate that about myself. But I have to face it. You know, I have to, I have to admit that that that is that’s in me, you know, and that’s the only way I can overcome it. And that’s, and that’s the difference between, you know, someone that just goes with it. And someone that says, I don’t like this about myself, I’ve got to find a way to work on this.
Jerry Hyde 1:07:08
Yeah, no, it’s you know, I’m very good at pointing out the problem. And I have no idea how we bring about these changes. But I guess the first thing is to highlight the issues and try and work together to come up with for my groups are bad. And these are the kind of discussions I’m trying to have. Yeah, someone’s going in audio.
Brian Smith 1:07:33
Can you hear me? You still there?
Jerry Hyde 1:07:34
Yes. Good. Yeah.
Brian Smith 1:07:36
All right. Cool. All right. Well, Jerry, we’re coming to the end of our time anyway. But I want to tell you, I have really, really enjoyed our conversation. It’s been great meeting with meeting you. You’re fascinating, man. So tell people where they can find out more about you about your books about your work? Where can people contact you?
Jerry Hyde 1:07:54
Yeah, I mean, yeah, just cherry Hi, my name, which is Jerry with the J high. That’s been Dr. Jekyll, H Y. D. It’s quite a good name for a shrink really, absolutely works with Shadow stuff, Jerry hyde.co.uk. and links to films and books and things are all on that site.
Brian Smith 1:08:14
Okay. And I will I will link to that in the show notes. And you can send me a link to one of your films, I believe, so I’ll put that in there. It’s awesome. Yeah.
Jerry Hyde 1:08:20
Yeah. Lovely. Thank you, Brian. I
Brian Smith 1:08:22
really enjoyed that was good. Thanks for being here. Enjoy the rest of your day. Thanks, man. See you again. But that’s it for another episode of grief to growth. I sure hope you got something out of it. Please stay in contact with me by reaching out at www dot grief to growth calm. That’s grief the number two growth.com or you can text the word growth to 31996. That’s simply text growth gr o WT H 231996. So if you’re watching this on YouTube, please make sure you subscribe. So hit the subscribe button and then hit the little bell here and it’ll notify you when I have new content. Always please share the information if you enjoy it. That helps me to get more views and to get the message out to more people. Thanks a lot and have a wonderful day.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
