Below is an interview with Bernie Siegel, MD and Charlie Siegel, authors of When Your Realize How Perfect Everything Is: A Conversation About Life Between Grandfather and Grandson

1. Why did you write When You Realize How Perfect Everything Is and can you tell us what it is about? 

Bernie Siegel, MD:

It is about the experience of life and the truth about it and about re-parenting and empowering people as their CD = Chosen Dad.

1. Why did you write When You Realize How Perfect Everything Is and can you tell us what it is about? 

Charlie Siegel: When You Realize How Perfect Everything Is is a spiritual, uplifting collection of both mine and my grandfather’s inspirational poetic writings, gathered into a conversation format as we share our insights about life through its chapters. We both wrote our poems years apart, but when we shared our work with each other, we found so many amazing instances where we had both written about the same topics, with similar healing messages and metaphoric language, without ever knowing we were sharing in a sort of subconscious conversation through our work. The book came into being as we started to organize our poems into sections, alternating our work back and forth across the pages, and a flow of a beautiful conversation was witnessed. There are so many positive perspectives and empowering views shared in our book, we share it with the purpose to help and inspire as many people as possible. My fine art nature photography illustrates it to help to connect us all with the beauty and wisdom that surrounds us in the world.

2. (For Bernie) What was it like to write a book with your grandson?

Bernie Siegel, MD:

Exciting to share and create with family and learn from each other’s experiences in life. We are all unique.

What were some of the joys and challenges? 

Being proud of him and his parents who created this amazing, insightful young man who has done so much in the time most people need to just wake up to the labor pains of life.

3. (For Charlie) What was it like to write a book with your grandfather?

What were some of the joys and challenges?

It is an honor to get to share in writing a book with my grandfather, whose work has touched so many lives around the world. I remember being a little kid at his lectures and selling his works on the bookshelf in my mom’s spiritual store all my life. 

I am a spiritual fiction author also. I published my first novel in 2017 and I’m now at work on my next. I look up to my grandfather for inspiration in the way his written works have touched so many. I look forward to continuing on that path of helping to heal and share spiritual lessons through my books. 

Our works share a common theme of spirituality and helping people to live their lives as their best, more wonderful selves. We both also agree that our work seems to come from somewhere else when we write, with inspirations coming to us and flowing through us into poetic form. It’s nice to share this with my grandfather and our works so easily aligned into the conversation format throughout our book that it was really a joy to create. My photography speaks to the messages contained within the conversations so he was happy to have my work illustrate it, as well.

4. You write about relationships in your book, how can we cultivate good relationships with our extended family (grandparents, siblings, parents, cousins), when we are pulled in so many directions by our own immediate family (husband, wife, children) as well as our work responsibilities? 

Bernie Siegel, MD:

We can decide how we spend our time and empower ourselves and not lose our lives to the desires of others. Saying No is vital when it is not what you want to do. That is survival behavior. Also we all need to become LOVE WARRIORS. Literally when people are driving you nuts just respond with I LOVE YOU. It stops them cold. I know from experience. A young sexually abused man I was helping called to tell me he was going to commit suicide. I said, “Tony. why don’t we kill your parents?” He answered, “No, I never want to be like them.” The subway train he was going to jump in front of was late. No coincidence. So he called the suicide hot line and wrote a book about his life and experience to help others. We all keep writing books because the world needs an education and for us to become the Chosen Parents of the unloved. Those who grow up feeling unloved have a 98% illness rate by middle age and 24% if they felt loved. That’s why we write our books to help the unloved and wounded.

4. You write about relationships in your book, how can we cultivate good relationships with our extended family (grandparents, siblings, parents, cousins), when we are pulled in so many directions by our own immediate family (husband, wife, children) as well as our work responsibilities? 

Charlie Siegel:

There are so many ways we can connect with our extended family. For example, my grandfather and I do not see each other all that often, and we have not had an extremely close relationship in day to day life, but we have shared so many things with each other by sharing our writings and art. When my grandfather wrote his two children’s books, I was a kid and I was his book reviewer. He sent his work-in-progress children’s books to my parents to have me read and give him an honest review from a kid’s perspective. As I grew up, he shared more of his work with me over emails. I would send him new fine art nature photographs I was releasing for sale, just to send him a smile and say hello. We talked about how we both see the beauty and the healing lessons in nature. I would also send him new poems and short stories I was writing. As we passed our works back and forth, we saw that even when we are not together in a day to day aspect, there are similar interests or abilities that we share, and similar views of the world. 

I grew up spending a lot of time in my mom’s spiritual store, Wisdom of the Ages, in Simsbury, CT, which I now manage alongside her. Learning spiritual concepts and teachings as a way of life from as far back as I can remember made me who I am and makes me who I continue to be. Then when I reach out to my grandfather, I see that we share a similar spiritual outlook on life, which we arrived to with different teachers and different experiences, but that we still share all the same.

Even when we are busy, or different, or far away from each other, we may share beautiful similar traits on the inside that we can expand on and enjoy together. And who knows, they may become an inspirational book like they did for us. 🙂

5. How about our relationship with nature, how can being in nature facilitate inner growth? 

Bernie Siegel, MD:

Nature knows how to survive and absorb the pain and utilize its wisdom. Seeds sense gravity and grow up pushing aside all kinds of problems from pavement to rocks. Trees grow around nails and we can all learn from nature that with hope we can accomplish amazing things and survive all kinds of afflictions with self-induced healing built into us all by our Creator.

5. How about our relationship with nature, how can being in nature facilitate inner growth?

Charlie Siegel:

We are all one with nature. Sometimes it is difficult to remember that when we are out and about in our busy daily lives. But when you place your hand down on the soft grass, or hear the rush of the mountain streams pumping like the blood through your veins, you hear a little whispering that says maybe your breath is a part of that wind or maybe your strength is a part of that mountain. When we are in nature, we can remember who we are and where we come from. We remember we are all a part of the beautiful web of life. When we look at our fellow man, we can realize that we are all a part of nature. 

My nature and wildlife photography exists as a window for others to see the beauty of nature through. That they may witness it, bring it inside, hang it up on their wall and meditate on it, and remember the peace it gives them and the peace they can share. By noticing the beauty in nature, we can notice the beauty in ourselves and all those around us. In the Native American Lakota way of saying it, All my relations.

6. The title implies that everything is perfect, how can you suggest that everything is perfect when so many people are experiencing serious health problems and death, financial loss and unemployment, and emotional distress due to COVID 19?

Bernie Siegel, MD:

When COVID-19 reduces the earth’s population and pollution and teaches us that staying home is about preserving our planet which is the home of all the Earth’s residents are sharing the curse will become a blessing. We are all one family the same color inside. Death is not a failure it is inevitable. We need to learn to live and have faith and hope and then amazing things happen and it is what i preach to my patients; survival behavior and we all need coaches to guide us. Thus this book.

6. The title implies that everything is perfect, how can you suggest that everything is perfect when so many people are experiencing serious health problems and death, financial loss and unemployment, and emotional distress due to COVID 19?

Charlie Siegel:

The anonymous quote that the title of our book is based on, “When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky” deals with a very spiritual concept and way of looking at the world. 

When I was arranging all of our poems into the conversational flow of the book, I realized that overall, that concept was what we were sharing through the many varying, healing messages of our work. The idea that when we look at our lives as if gazing at them from above, looking down on the years we are living as if looking at a path we have traversed and continue to travel, wherever there have been difficulties, or “imperfections,” we can see that there was a beautiful opportunity for us to grow from that tragedy, or loss, or hardship. There is always a way that we can turn to each other and to ourselves and say, “What can I learn from this?” “How can this make me into the best possible version of myself?” “How can I grow from this?” and in some cases, “What am I gonna do about it?”. And when we can learn to live our lives looking through these eyes of love, seeing that the difficulties that can be given to us can be blessings when we learn to use them to grow and evolve, we can see that really everything is perfect.

My first novel, “Conversations with an Angel: A story of healing through the passageways of grief” (published 2017) shares a spiritual story to help anyone who is going through grief or loss. It talks through the process of experiencing grief in a healthy manner and also teaches from a soul’s perspective, how those who must leave us behind and pass onto the Other Side are still connected to us through love as a bridge.

There are definitely times in our lives that are darker than others, especially for many at this time of the COVID19 pandemic. Not everything is good, or perfect in the simple sense. But even when we have loss or hardship in our lives, we can realize that God is still with us, and the perfection comes in when we learn to respond to these difficult situations by evolving into the next best versions of ourselves. And by seeing that when we are surrounded by darkness, perhaps the presence of God we are seeking is inside ourselves, and it can be our daily task to spread that Light through our actions, our ways and our energies. A burning candle can be the most beautiful when it is in a darkened room.

Falling in love is never a straight line to “happily ever after.” Relationships go through seasons of change, renewal, darkness, and light.

So promises long-time therapist and couple’s coach Linda Carroll in Love Skills: The Key to Unlocking Lasting, Wholehearted Love, which offers specific, effective solutions to the most common struggles that couples face. 

We hope you’ll enjoy this interview with Linda about the book.

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Tell us what you mean when you say in Love Skills that, “Love is an inside job.”   

Many of the troubles we experience in relationships emerge from conflicts to which we ourselves contribute, behaviors we simply tolerate that cause silent resentment to build, and unexamined parts of our own psyches. The health of our intimate connections depends on how we deal with our own lingering demons and on our own motivation to grow and change.

What is the difference between love and loving?

Love is a feeling. Loving is a skill set that depends less on how we feel and more on what we do.

You say that a key message of many of the lessons in Love Skills is that “The wave is not the ocean.” What do you mean by that? 

The times that feel the most perfect or intolerable between you and your partner will pass. There will always be another wave, another change. The ocean is made up of millions of individual waves, and a long-term relationship is made up of millions of moments, seasons, and times that are both delightful and painful. None of it is permanent; there will always be another wave.

The heart of Love Skills comes from the Love Cycles model you shared in your previous book, which explains that relationships develop in predictable stages, each of which presents its own challenges. What are the five stages of lasting love? 

The first stage, fueled by a powerful love potion and marked by brain chemistry changes, causes us to become obsessed with the wonder and delight of our new partner. In this stage, we tend to see only the good, the similarities, and the possibilities.

The seductive power of this stage may also cause us to fall in love with an inappropriate partner. With consciousness and effort, we can choose what to do with our feelings. Do we fan the flames of a potentially dangerous fire, or do we control our passion and turn our attention elsewhere?

If we choose to move with our partner into Stage Two, Doubt and Denial, we wake up from the infatuation and begin to wonder whether this relationship is really the best choice. We find that our feelings of love are becoming more conditional, and power struggles are arising. We wonder whether our partner has changed.

During this stage, the spotlight shines on our beloved’s flaws. We now invest a lot of energy into getting our lover to become the partner we thought they would be. We are forced to give up our dream of perfect, unconditional love in which our partner always sees the best in us, says the right thing, never embarrasses us, and reads our mind so that they can please us in every way possible.

As our disappointment escalates, so do our biological responses to stress; we prepare for war, retreat, or don camouflage. Welcome to the third stage: Disillusionment. As differences continue to emerge, our proclivities to defend and preserve ourselves may grow even stronger; we may believe that we’re always in the right. Alternatively, those of us who cannot bear conflict shut our ears to every dissonant chord and pretend that everything is wonderful — or at least tolerable.

The point is that we choose how to respond. In this stage, it is particularly vital to move from reactivity to rationality. When we are calmly present, we are free to act for the good of the relationship rather than out of fear or neediness.

Of course, because we’re thoroughly human, we won’t always respond to our lover from our highest selves. Then what? Can we apologize, make amends, and take responsibility for how we’ve behaved, despite what our partner has done? We have the power to make that choice.

Let’s say that when we reach the fourth stage — Decision — we part ways. Can we wish our former partner the best? If that’s too hard, can we at least not wish them the worst?

If we remain together, we have the opportunity to learn lessons that will help to make us the best person we can be while also giving our relationship the chance to grow and deepen. This is where we enter the fifth stage: Wholehearted Loving. No longer two halves trying to make a whole, we are two complete people learning about love. Passion, safety, and generosity return to the relationship, along with humor and empathy.

You say that there are three magic words when it comes to communicating with our partner. What are they?

We often equate the expression “three magic words” with “I love you.” But there are three other magic words that can allow you to discover important things about your partner (and others) that you’d never have imagined. Just as important, these words will help your partner to feel deeply cared about and seen — and to want to respond to you in kind. The words are, “Tell me more.”

“Tell me more” is a powerful phrase when backed by a genuine willingness to pay attention to the answers. Listening with true presence — that is, taking in what the other is saying without judging, suggesting, or trying to fix — is a gift that we can offer another person.

You encourage couples to pay attention to four transition times throughout their day. What are they, and why are they important?  

It actually takes very little time to feed and nourish a relationship if we do it consistently. Big trips away and long weekends are great, but research clearly shows that it is steady, consistent, and frequent nurturing that makes a real difference. The four transition times are waking up, parting for the day, coming back together at the day’s end, and going to sleep. If we put three minutes’ worth of connection into each of those times, we can have a huge impact on our relationship. 

What is the main message you hope readers will take away from Love Skills? 

Love is a feeling. We call it “FALLING IN LOVE”; it takes no skills, decisions, or mindfulness. Loving is a skill set, and we can all get better at it. I have spent my lifetime teaching the skills to hundreds — actually, thousands — of students. I have studied with the smartest people I could find to learn them; but, most importantly, I have practiced them in my own life — in my relationships with the people who matter most, especially my partner of 35 years. We can all get better at loving, and Love Skills offers a tried and true roadmap for how to do that.

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Linda Carroll is the author of Love Skills and Love Cycles. While she has worked as a therapist and couple’s coach for over three decades and has acquired numerous certificates and degrees along the way, she says that her own thirty-five-year marriage is the primary source of her knowledge when it comes to the cycles of love. Visit her online at https://lindaacarroll.com/.

1. What is a conscious relationship?

A relationship where both parties understand that the primary purpose of their relationship is to identify, illuminate and transform everything that is NOT love within themselves.  As fear, trauma and unhelpful beliefs are transformed then each individual becomes more complete unto themselves. They are then more able to unconditionally love each other more deeply and purely rather than splashing around in the shallows of the largely accepted co-dependent relationship that is currently the norm in our society.

2. What are the challenges and gifts of conscious relationship?

The key gift is that there is potential to come home to yourself by transcending the ego and evolve from a fragmented egoic personality to a whole, loving being who is at peace with the beauty and pain of this human experience.  Conscious relationship can be a tool for spiritual awakening. The key challenges (especially if you have a history of trauma) are remembering that whatever the other triggers in us is ultimately not about what they have said or done in the moment but what meaning we attach to their words or actions.  The ego always wants to make it about the other but the higher view is that the other has simply activated some old unexpressed emotions that were trapped in the body from a time when one was not able to fully express and feel the emotions. For example when my partner shuts down and refuses to communicate this triggers emotions of fear connected to my mother dying and feeling abandoned when I was an infant. The challenge is to stay with the feeling that has been elicited while knowing that this has nothing to do with the current scenario but rather it is purging an old emotional wound. Instead of blaming the other we thank them and take full responsibility for what we are feeling.

3. Why do you think so many struggle with relationships?

Fundamentally because we are taught very little about the truth of relationships in our society.  It seems that popular romantic movies, songs and books suggest that the purpose of relationship with another is to complete us.  We are always taught to look outside of ourselves for the keys to peace and love and contentment when actually we need to give primacy to our relationship with ourselves.  In this way a ‘successful’ relationship becomes an added bonus to one who is already having a loving relationship with themselves. Also our avoidance and denial of many emotions has a huge detrimental effect on our ability to communicate and relate authentically and vulnerably.

4. What is one of the most important thing to be aware of to have a successful relationship?

That the success of a relationship is not dependent on its longevity but how much each individual learnt, grew, healed and enhanced their relationship with themselves through the course of the relationship with another.

5. What advice would you give to someone who struggles with relationships?

Stop looking externally for another to save you etc.  We can only love another to the extent that we love ourselves.  Work on your relationship to yourself primarily. Learn to look within and heal your own wounds which will invariably have their roots in your childhood and will be associated with your relationship to your mother and father as you were growing up. And schedule a Sacred Masculine Healing session with me and I will cast some light to help you find your way home!!

6. What role do children and being parents play in the challenges and gifts of a conscious relationship?

Well, as a parent a prime motivation for me to learn to love and honour myself is so that I pass this on to my children because our children learn from us through absorption.  I have made a decision not to pass on the ancestral wounding that I inherited on to my sons, as best I can.  Being a parent is the prime motivation for doing our own inner work because we are here for such a short time but we live on through our children and loving parents only want the best for their children.  Everything I do is for my children and all children because I believe that this is how I put love into action and contribute to making a more beautiful world for the generations to come.  Relationships are the foundations of life.  When children are born from loving conscious parents the world will be transformed and there will be heaven on earth.

7. Did you experience any serendipity or synchronicity in writing the book?

When the idea to write the book found me I knew that I did not have a choice.  I could not, not write it!  I knew that the world was ready for such a book and that it would play an important part in humanities journey back to love.  Also, I follow and honour the Celtic seasonal celebrations and began writing on Winter Solstice and many key landmarks in the books birthing coincided with other Celtic celebrations of the seasons.  Also the book was responsible for my twin flame and I reuniting a couple of times after we had parted company and many synchronicities and serendipitous events are recorded in the story.

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You can read an excerpt of Bring Him Home here:
https://www.migueldean.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Bring-Him-Home-Excerpt.pdf

For your paperback or EBook from Amazon-
The U.S. link is:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1945026545/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=bring+him+
home+miguel+dean&qid=1556842828&s=books&sr=1-1-fkmrnull

The U.K. link is:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1945026545/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_2?keywords=bring+hi
m+home+miguel+dean&qid=1556843003&s=gateway&sr=8-2-fkmrnull

Author’s website:  https://www.migueldean.net

Or connect on Face Book here:

https://www.facebook.com/migueldeanauthor/?modal=admin_todo_tour

If you are interested in a consolation with the author you can visit:
https://calendly.com/loveinaction/30min

1. How did your work helping victims of tragedies, such as 9/11 and the Columbine and Sandy Hook school shootings, lead you to study how we grapple with aging?

Having worked directly with bereaved individuals, families, and communities on the front lines and in the trenches over the past 40 plus years; having written, lectured, trained, taught Grief Literacy across the US (including the Harvard School of Public Health, Navy Seals Foundation, etc.); and having lost my 21-year-old daughter in an accident while studying abroad, I understand a great deal about loss. Much like healing, healthy aging is affected by the manner and extent to which we grieve the loss of our younger selves. A person who is looking backward at their past lives misses out on their present and future life.

2. Your new book is called “Raising an Aging Parent.” Why did you use the word “raising” rather than “caring for”?

Many adult children become increasingly involved in the support, caregiving, and lifestyle management of their mothers and fathers as they get older. Much as it’s their job to raise rather than diminish their children as they grow up, it’s their job to raise up rather than diminish their parents as they grow older.

3. We usually think of family as what happens in the first half of life with our family of origin. How is that changing dramatically today?

As our population ages, there are equally important changes, challenges, and opportunities that exist in the second half of life. How and whether we address them has a lasting and profound effect on the quality and character of our lives and the lives of our families.

4. Some of us are caring for aging parents while raising a family of our own. What are the biggest challenges facing the “Sandwich Generation”?

Being “squeezed” between caregiving for aging parents and growing children, the biggest challenges are maintaining some semblance of balance in our own lives and preventing burnout. Most SanGens, as I refer to them, have yet to acquire the self-care skills necessary to manage this level of stress. Along with recognizing the dangers of burning the candle at both ends and working ourselves into a state of depletion, we need to acquire the self-care skills to prevent it.

5. You have a “Self-Care Checklist” for those of us who are caring for an aging parent. What is your advice to

Three essentials that need to be on your Self-Care Checklist are:

1. Taking time to come up for air and do things that replenish your energy.

2. Surrounding yourself with support from other caregivers.

3. Communicating in loving, respectful tones with your parents and eliciting their cooperation (to whatever extent this is possible).

6. Your book contains a lot of practical advice for adult sons and daughters caring for aging parents, as well as how to face their first holidays without an aging parent. What do you say to them?

I am so sorry for your loss. Grieving is as natural as bleeding when you’re cut. Allow the sorrow that comes with losing a beloved parent. Give yourself permission to go through a period of mourning. Rising up out of the ashes of a loss of this magnitude will probably take newfound strength, courage, faith, and self-compassion. Be kind, patient, and accepting of your condition.

7. Caring for and coping with the challenges of aging parents brings out a lot of feelings about our own lives. What are some of those feelings, and how should we deal with them?

Watching our parents get older can afford us a sneak preview into the future of our own lives, and force us to face the inevitable. What we do with all this is up to us — whether we live in fear and dread; shrivel up and get smaller; or live in adventure, curiosity, and gratitude, expanding our horizons and making peace.

8. We live in a culture that is obsessed with youth, dreads aging, and avoids discussions of mortality. Do you see that changing and if so how?

Outgrowing our obsession with youth, summoning newfound courage to counter fear and avoidance as we get older, and making peace with our impermanence are tall orders. The opportunities for us, individually and as a society, to become the better version of ourselves and grow spiritually have never been better. And the benefits are limitless.

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Author BIO: Dr. Ken Druck is an international authority on healthy aging and author of the new book “Raising an Aging Parent.” He has spent four decades helping people grow into the more courageous, compassionate, and resilient version of themselves by transforming adversities and losses of every kind into opportunities. Learn more at www.kendruck.com.