Barti Bourgault

Bill: Welcome to another episode of the True You Podcast. We have a special guest today, Michael Gurian. welcome.

Michael: Hey, thanks for having me.

Bill: And I'm gonna call you Mike.

Michael: Great.

Bill: that Michael is the professional reference to you and, and personally, it'd be Mike. Let's keep this personal

Michael: Great.

Bill: keep casual. And I'm here, of course, with my co-host, Dr. Martin Kettle Hut. Marty keeping it personally. And, uh, we're very excited about having you on, on the episode here with us today, Mike. Um, I'm gonna read your bio, we'll ask you a couple of questions and then I really would, I, I really wanna indulge myself in, in telling the story about

Michael: Right.

Bill: I mean to ask you onto the podcast in the first place.

Michael: Great.

Bill: Great. Okay, so here we go. Dr. Michael Gian, married and family counselor, is a New York Times bestseller author of 32 books, translated into 23 languages, A pioneer in applying brain research to education, parenting, and leadership. He co-founded the Gurian Institute, which trains professionals worldwide recognized as a leader, gender expert. He has spoken for the UN briefed Congress and advised the White House known for his dynamic presentations using case studies and brain imaging, Michael helps audiences understand gender differences and effectively support children and adults. His influential books include The Wonder of Boys, the Wonder of Girls, and Boys and Girls Learn Differently. Welcome, Mike.

Michael: Hey, thanks. Thanks for having me. And that was fun. Beforehand, we were using AI to see what AI would say about me

Bill: Yeah,

Michael: you know, that was pretty solid. They, they said, advise the White House, which isn't really true. I provided information to the White House, but it's still kinda like, oh, that's not bad.

Bill: yeah. Yeah. Well, what I did was I just took the bio from your website and I Hey, ai, take this and condense it into less than 100 words, and that's what happened.

Michael: Yeah. It's just fascinating. It's moving so fast. Well, thank you. Glad to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

Bill: Absolutely. you and I have the same Mike. Is that the, uh, the blue, uh, what's it

Michael: Blue Yeti,

Bill: Yeah.

Michael: right? We, I use this for my podcast too. It's, it sounds good, right? Sounds good to you. Yeah. Yeah. I love it.

Bill: What's the, what's the name of your podcast?

Michael: The Wonder of Parenting podcast.

Bill: The Wonder Parenting? Yeah. Before I launch into this story about how I know Mike. Marty, do you have any, anything you wanted to say or any questions you wanna ask to before I jump into that?

Marty: I know nothing yet.

Bill: I know nothing. Okay. Alright. So we're gonna have to wind back the clock. You know, here we are in, in August of 2025. This was about 2000, the year 2000. So again, we're gonna go back 25 years and uh, unity Church on the South Hill of Spokane, Washington. I showed up one day I was seeking, boy was I seeking and searching. I was in a lot of pain. I was doing a lot of suffering. pretty fresh. The, the divorce wasn't final yet. I'd left my second wife. Um, it, for me, it was a tortuous, uh, uh, marriage. um, I was afraid I was gonna kill her. And so I left, was afraid I'd kill her. And I, I knew that I needed to do some work because I was terrified. If I didn't do some inner work, I was going to find somebody else like her and, and do it all over again. And so was seeking some answers, plop myself down in a pew and at, at, uh, unity Church. And we had a special speaker that day. Michael Gian never had heard of you before Michael, you, you did a, an amazing talk and one of the things that you said in that talk was. That if you don't have a spiritual guide, get one. If you don't have a spiritual leader, get one. Do you, do you remember that theme maybe about 25 years ago? Yeah.

Michael: Yep. Yep.

Bill: So I left and I thought about it all the way home. I, I lived on the north side at that time, about 15, 20 minute drive. And I thought, I guess, I guess I need to get a spiritual guide, a spiritual leader. Three or four days later, I drove back on a Wednesday morning to Unity Church because I had the idea, well, where do you find a spiritual leader? Maybe on the bulletin board at Unity Church. So that's what I did. I drove back there and sure enough, there's a bulletin board and there's a poster on there that says you're looking for a spiritual guide. It's me. so I called this guy and the rest is history. But, uh, anyhow, that's how I first met you. And your name has never escaped my mind. I've always thought of you and been so grateful for that message, and I thought, what a great way to think Mike, but to bring him onto the web, onto the podcast and, and

Michael: Thank you.

Bill: with him.

Michael: Oh man. Thank you. I'm so glad. And, and you know, it's obviously meant to be 25 years later. Here we are together.

Bill: Yeah.

Michael: That that's awesome. Yeah, I remember that. In that time I was, uh, 2000, my kids were like, and we lived two blocks from the Unity Church and we still do. Um, my kids, and were born in 90, so they were 10 and seven. I'm doing the math. They were 10 and seven and I was on the road speaking and all that, consulting all that a lot, and. I would on um, Sundays, I would go sweat with my sweat community. Um, uh, about an hour north above Deer Lake, there was a sweat lodge. And so a big part of my spiritual process was sweat lodge. Um, and, and I was involved in sweat lodge since I was a kid because my. Part of my upbringing was on a reservation that my dad worked on. Um, but then as an adult, um, all the way until I ended up getting rashes and health problems and I had to stop sweating. Uh, but that, that was a big part of my spiritual process. And so, so to speak, at Unity, I did not go to my Sunday sweat,

Bill: Yeah.

Michael: you know, that was like, it's a big deal 'cause I just loved Sweat Lodge worked so well for me. Um, anyway, so thank you for telling that story. Great to re reunite with you.

Bill: Yeah. Great. Great. So, um. I, some things caught my attention that of course I didn't know about you until I looked at your bio and, and one of 'em is research. How did you get into that and to write about it?

Michael: So, um, I, uh. I'm gonna go all the way back, back to childhood because parents moved around a lot. Academic, foreign service, et cetera. So I lived in a lot of places when I was a little kid. I lived in India. Um, we lived in India and I remembered back when I was in college and grad school, I remembered back to the way that boys, without having language, you know, would immediately play with each other as boys and girls, uh, you know, would play with each other as girls. And when I was in college and grad school. So I'm 67, so I was in college, uh, you know, um, 76 to 80, and then grad school sort of 80 to 85, um, in that era. Everything was socialization, right? It's all social constructivism. We're all we are is, is what we're socialized to be in, in our patriarchal culture or, or, you know, oppressor, oppressed or whatever people do. That was it. So we're what we are socialized. But as I was going in classes, I was like, no, no, it's gotta be, it's gotta be something nature here. Because no matter where I, and I had lived in Turkey, I'd lived all over no matter what. There are these patterns. So, um, so I started, so in the late eighties. Brain scans started becoming available. Uh, and so I was getting a hold of every brain scan I could from, uh, academic institutions, and I was teaching by then at one Gonzaga and trying to figure out what was going on between male female in nature. Gradually. So out of that developed the kind of gian thing, which is nature, nurture, and culture, that there are actually three influences, but everything starts in nature. So we all have to start with nature, then we move to nurture, then we go to culture. So that's a flip, obviously. 'cause social constructivism is everything's culture. Culture is what forms you. And nature is probably dangerous to talk about, right? So I'm just the opposite. Nature is what we gotta talk about. And then we talk about nurture and culture and add them in. So that's kind of how it started. And by the nineties, lot of brain scans available. So my first trade book, you know, New York published book we call a trade book, came out in 90, it was on the father son relationship. Um, and that was actually a Jungian. My first three books were Jungian and then the Wonder Boys in 96 came out, and by then I had integrated the brain research. So the Wonder of Boys was, uh, kind of the launch of a lot of the other stuff because. Uh, well in part because it was rejected by every single publisher. So there were 26 publishers at that time. There's only, you know, five now, but there were 26 publishers, major publishers at that time. They all rejected it. They said, can't talk about boys. No one wants to hear about boys. It's, you know, it's only girls. And by the way, I had two daughters, so it was not like I was, and I was a feminist, so you know, I was all pro everything. But their concept was anything male bad, can't talk about it, et cetera. But one publisher who had published the Prince and the King, I went back to him and I said, look, publish it and don't gimme an advance. You gotta realize this is gonna be very popular because half of the world has boys, you know? And um, and he did, he gave me a $25,000 advance, uh, which was very kind and um. He did publish it and then it exploded. So since then that, um, you know, that kind of guian neuroscience theory, applying male female brain difference that spread throughout, even to corporate leadership in the Sexes was a book in corporate about it. And so it's, I've sort of done it in all those fields. I've applied it early childhood, all the way through adulthood as a way of helping people understand boys, girls, men, women, et cetera. And that includes the gender spectrum. It's all included.

Bill: So what is the, what is the core idea of, uh, behind the brain science? What, what, what'd you learn and what are you teaching?

Michael: Oh well. So, um, all the way back in the eighties, um, you know, people understood academics could see based on scans and,

Bill: Um.

Michael: um, early gene research, they could see that. That it, it, it all gets formed in utero. So it comes in the, on the chromosomes and gets formed in utero. And it was gradually in the late eighties and nineties, it became clear how male female occurs. Um, and that's from the hormonal surges that occur in utero so that by the time. The fetus is six months. It's now immune to the cross-sex hormones. So it has formed a female brain, the template for a female brain and a male brain by six months in utero. Um, now we all have to remember there's 8 billion people on earth. So there's 4 billion ways to be male and 4 billion ways to be female, right? So it isn't a stereotype of a male or a female, and that's the brain spectrum. Um, uh, but there are certain things that once. The baby gets to eight or nine months in utero now, not in, not in 1989, but now as of 2019, MRIs can be used and now can see that the male female brain difference already exists at eight and nine months in utero. Scanning a fetus. So, um, that's the nature part. And the hormones, um, are flooding the system while mom's carrying the baby and males, right. We have 10 to 10, 20 times more testosterone and, um. All brains sort of default female. They start out female, but by about four to six weeks in utero, the, um, the male, so the, the Y chromosome tells the mom to, um, spurt this little bit of androgenic hormone into the sac, the womb, and, um, that triggers the testes to drop. And when the testes drop. They flood the system with testosterone and that's what differentiates, uh, not just the male body, uh, which has different muscle mass and calcium and all that than the female body, but also differentiates the male brain. And, um, so then you have male, female brain, and then kids come out, right, uh, when they're born and those brains. Are templated already. Male, female. So for instance, the male brain, and this is the reason. This is nature. And the reason that I talk about nature first, then nurture, then culture is because all cultures everywhere, brain scans everywhere, show the exact same thing. So culture doesn't matter if it's India or Turkey or Africa or, uh, China, or you name it. Uh, the brain scans show the same thing, uh, male, female brain difference. So for instance, males do language mainly on the left. Females do language on both sides of the brain. So females have connectivity on both sides of the brain. To the midbrain where emotions are, right, and where sensorials are and where memory is. So females are connecting on both sides. Males are mainly doing it on the left, um, which mitigates somewhat male connectivity. You know, and when you study males and females all over the world, it's very clear that, uh, there's always exceptions. We always say there's a one in five exception rate just to be safe. But, um, you know. Females produce more words for feelings and they do it all over the world. And males produce fewer words for feelings and they do it all over the world. Well, makes sense. We just, you know, we have less access and takes us longer. Uh, so, you know, and other gray matter difference, white matter difference, like everywhere we go, there are differences between male and female brain. So I just decided to apply that to every potential community. From corporations. That's where I started applying. It was corporate and then schools, parents, um, uh, everywhere. So now I just, I and my team, I have the Green Institute team. We have a hundred trainers and we just, anyone asks us and we apply it and we give strategies and, and it all, but it all started back there in the late eighties.

Bill: That's a great foundation for the rest of this conversation, and I wanna invite Marty. Marty, I'm noticing that you're taking some notes.

Marty: I'm interested in learning more about the nature nurture culture. Um, I come to this conversation having been educated by those people. Back in, I think you said it was the sixties. I forget exactly when, where nurture was

Michael: Right.

Marty: And um, and so I'm prompted to think, well, aren't those. Things that you pointed to that distinguished male versus female Bria, aren't they a product of culture? so that's just, you know, my training is to ask that question.

Michael: Right. Well there, um. Okay. It's nature, nurture, and culture. Some of the manifestations of what males do and females do are gonna be affected by culture for sure. Uh, but the brain differences, um, are, they're evolutionary, right? So unless you define culture as a million years ago, when we moved from cross the, you know, and we came in and we started forming our brain. Uh, but that's not what people generally mean for, for about culture. So, so nature would come first and then evolution. And, and what, what we think about is culture, for instance. Um, I get in this discussion quite a bit about, okay, but didn't patriarchal culture, right? That's what we were all trained in, right? Back in our day. We all have white hair. Um, didn't patriarchal culture form. Male, female and no patriarchal culture can, uh, help help us or harm us by helping us develop social constructs. So like masculinity. Could be a social construct and you could say masculinity, uh, and whatever we wanna say masculinity is, we'd have to talk about that, that patriarchal culture helped to create masculine stereotypes, let's say. Okay. You could certainly have that argument, uh, because that is, um, just like the gender spectrum. Gender is a social construct, right?

Marty: Hmm.

Michael: So you could definitely say, well, what, what is gender? That's a social con. What are gender roles? Social construct, but not male, female. Male. Female is biological. And that's a million years old, so yeah.

Marty: my own. Personal journey through this. you know, uh, I, I'm born male of course, but, um, then I, I, I believe I was nurtured in a cultured to be homosexual. I don't believe that that, that my gender is male. But the sexuality, as you said, that's cultural and I'm, I'm not in agreement with most other people in the gay community about that.

Michael: Well, wait a sec. Uh, homo gay homosexuality is wired in. That's nature. There's a nucleus in the brain, the sexually dimorphic nucleus, um, uh, anterior hypothalamus. So kind of right there in the middle. That is wired for sexual orientation. And, um, this is true not just of us, but mammals and around 95%, 93 to 95% of human beings and mammals. Um. Are wired for heterosexuality, but five to 7% are wired for homosexuality or what we now call same sex orientation. And that's wired in and you can see that part of the brain and it's different. So in a gay, so I'm a straight man, you're a gay man. If, if we could scan your brain right now. When you and I pass away and they do an autopsy, they'll, they'll look at that nucleus and go, oh yeah, this person's gay. Or they'll look at that nucleus and say, oh yeah, this person's heterosexual. Sorry, was heterosexual. So actually, um, that's hardwired and that's been a confusion about Lgbtqiaa Plus, right? Where it all got grouped. Um, over the last, say, five years, especially for advocacy purposes, it all got grouped. But LGB really should be separated, uh, because that is hardwired. And then anything that's gender, that's soft wired, but homosexuality isn't gender, homosexuality is hardwired. So I'm, I'm just giving you the science. I certainly don't wanna change your mind, but I'm just giving you the science.

Marty: That's good information. Thank you. I didn't, I wasn't aware of that. Um, because it's the. The conversations about this that I've been in were not as informed, and, and so it was either nature or nurtured.

Michael: Right.

Marty: And uh, in my own experience was, well, I'm, I know that I was born male, but it felt historically like I developed this preference for people of the same sex.

Michael: Would, would it have developed in between 10 and 20 years old or did it come later?

Marty: No. Between those years? Yes.

Michael: Right, because those, the genetics of that, right? Um, uh, there are also gene markers for homosexuality. So, but the testosterone flow, um, and for women, the estrogen flow, you know, it pre puberty and puberty, that's then when, um, it gets triggered because it's, it, the brain isn't gonna trigger it yet. Like at seven, although, although people will look back and they'll say, oh, I knew I was gay at four. And that's absolutely valid. Absolutely. And the, the hormones are triggering it between 10 and 20. Right. Puberty. And then that triggers. And then, um, because you're getting that wash of stuff for romance, right? We're all, everyone gay, straight, everyone, trans, everyone gets that wash. And then that's when it's appropriate for the brain, you know, to trigger who are you gonna be attracted to. So, I, I'm gonna guess that you were hardwired for it, even though I have not met you, except online.

Marty: thank, thank you for all that. I just wanna ask one last

Michael: please, of course.

Marty: and then I'll let Bill go ahead. Um,

Bill: Don't, don't feel like you have to limit yourself to One last thing, Marty, please continue. I'm really, really getting a lot from this conversation.

Marty: Well, I, I just wanna understand like the, the science that tells us what's nature that had to be developed like. It is, we don't, we're not car descartes just going, oh, I have a clear and distinct idea of what it means to be a brain or a body. we, those are those terms we're using, you know, a connectivity feelings. Those are cultured terms. And so my question is how do we get, how do we know when we're like the cultural veil and can see what's natural?

Michael: Oh, well, brain scans are what I do. What, I'm sorry. What I rely on is brain scans probably for the very reason that what I think I'm getting what you're getting at is, um, a number of back then 89, 90, 91, I, I. I realized I wanted to base what I did on science,

Marty: Yeah.

Michael: And of course science has a cultural aspect, but we have so much technology now. Um, and we already did by then and, and I was just like. I, that's where I'm going. I'm gonna go to brain scans and, and then these brain brain scans, I'm gonna go to brain scans that are being replicated worldwide. So it's transcultural, they're replicated worldwide. Anyone who has the equipent equipment sees the same thing. So then, you know, and then I'm gonna go to scan data that where people are doing 50,000 scans or a hundred thousand scans, you know, um, and so that's what I base, then later genetics came, right? 2003, the genome was mapped, so then we could go, oh, okay, now we know why. Look at the genes, you know? But before that, it was brain scans and that's what I work with. Right.

Marty: I just want you to know that I appreciate the scientific approach, even though you know, my training is the question, what, how much of science itself is a acculturated? I, I, I myself, appreciate the scientific, in fact, my book on leadership takes a scientific approach as opposed to an opinionated approach or something like that. Um, to leadership itself, so thank you for answering those questions. Very helpful.

Michael: Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you.

Bill: So there's, there's probably 30 different or more directions we could go here given what we've talked about so far. So I'm going to, if it's okay, I'm gonna indulge in my, what I'm interested in here that conversation, so that we've had so far, and that is this is the True You podcast.

Michael: Right.

Bill: We're talking about gender, we're talking about sexuality, we're talking about a lot of different things, brain scans. What, how does, there a way to tie all this in, like, for example. Someone who's questioning, am I gay or am I straight? who am I? What is, what is true about me? How does that all play? And can, I'd kinda like to start swimming in that pool a little bit. who, who, let me just ask you personally then, Mike, um, were you ever confused about who you were? And I'm not talking about specifically sexually, but I'm just sexuality. who your true self is and was.

Michael: You know, I, I, I think it's a great question, and I think to some extent, to some extent my personal experiences and also as a clinician, is that we are always in a way confused about who we are. Even at six, I'm 67, you know, even at 67, but at the same time that that confusion or inner conflict or. Asking two questions at once, or, you know, talking to my men's group about, you know, am I this, am I that, or, you know, getting it reflected back and all the processes of studying oneself of self-awareness. Um, we make the decision based on the confusion, and then we pull something out of it and go, okay, this is, this is who I am. Okay. And then, you know, and then maybe a month later or a year later or whatever it is, the confusion is back. And then we are like, okay, yeah, but this is who I am. And so I, so I think it is a process, or my experience has been, it's a process where it's, it's um, it's just like healing from trauma, you know? There isn't a stop date. Um, one is always in a process. Uh, and that said, uh, we attach to who we are as we swing back to it. And so when I was a kid, I did not know, you know, who I was. Yet, looking back, I kind of guess I did, but no I did not. Right. I mean, searching childhood adolescence and then I had, I personally, we had a lot of trauma, so I score a seven out of 10 on ACEs. So lot of trauma, mental illness, violence, sexual abuse, just a lot of trauma. So I was in therapy from basically 16 to 26, pretty much on and off. Um, and you know, trying to figure out. Like the true you like your podcast, um, and still too young really to fully know, but working it through and trying to work through the trauma. And so trauma, of course, as you all know, like massive trauma is gonna completely affect true you. The ability to say, okay, this is who I am. I'm gonna pursue this. Um, by the time I married my wife Gail, um. I met her at 26 and we married at 28. And we were married. We were married together 40 years. Married, 37. She passed away from pancreatic cancer two years ago. Um, so by the time I married her, I, I would not have said I know who I was, but, or I know who I am, but I kind of did. Um, I was a writer, you know, I could label it with stuff. I was a writer. I wanted to be of service. I was really brought up for that and really was, have always been very service oriented. I wanted to have children, I wanted to nurture children. I wanted to be a good husband, you know, so there were various tentacles of who I was, that I think I sort of knew. And then as she and I built a marriage right, and then had children, um, uh, I thought I knew, but then all this stuff happened. The public life, you know, all of it talk shows, the whole fame thing. And, and then I was like, okay, wait a minute. What am I, am I a, am I a writer? Am I a, am I a gender expert? Am I, I mean, I'm still of service. I still love my family, but, so that was clear. But I, uh, am I a consultant? Like I, I still didn't know. 'cause then I, I was doing this and I was doing that. So that's why I kind of think we don't. Maybe ever fully know. Um, but we can, we can find a, a thread and I, and, and follow the thread,

Bill: As you're answering my question, I'm hearing your, the way that you orient to the question, who am I as, what do I do are my preferences So I'm not sure where I got this, this concept it. It probably had something to do with the metaphysical teachings that I was studying around the same time I was at the Unity Church. But the idea is that who we are is not this body and who we are is not what we do. Who we are is who we were when we were born, and who we will be when we depart. And that is whole. and complete. Lemme start there. How does that land for you?

Michael: Oh yes. Beautiful. Um, I'm, uh, a number of my books have been in spiritual and I'm definitely absolutely with you that, um, uh, the soul. We are a piece of infinitude. That soul, that light has gone on forever and our particles of light are part of what has gone on forever. So then we're born into a body, you know, and all this stuff happens in a body. Um, but that, that light is eternal. And then we die. You know, I just watched my wife, I helped her die. I watched her die. Her, her light definitely continues, but not in this dimension with the body. So I'm absolutely. Clear on what you're saying and, and you're getting at the being and doing maybe difference

Bill: Yeah,

Michael: spiritual versus material.

Bill: yes, but because I believe that who we are is, is that spirit we are of, of spiritual nature, and we have these bodies, and as you say, we were before we had the bodies, and we will be after. We have, after we're done with them. That's what I believe. So if that's true, and I don't know, I can't prove it, I won't be able to prove it until I've lost this body. but if it's true, then, and, and I was born as whole, perfectly incomplete for me. By the way, my ACE score is also seven out of 10. ACE stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences, and it was a study, that Kaiser put put on in the nineties,

Michael: Mm-hmm.

Bill: And I think that continued to expand and broaden and deepen that, that research. but it's an indicator of how much trauma we've experienced and then what's predictable in our lives given that we've had that trauma. Uh, so me too, seven outta 10. And, uh, uh, so I, I believe trauma. One of the immediate and long and then long lasting impacts of trauma is what we make it mean about ourselves. That, that, that whatever happened, happened, and, and the moment that I got the idea and attached to it as and validated it for myself, that there was something about me that caused that trauma. In that moment, I, I began to believe that who I was was anything less than whole perfect, incomplete in that moment. I, I created what I called the shame identity.

Michael: Right.

Bill: How's that land for you? As I, as I say that, share that

Michael: Oh, I understand. Oh, totally. I, I understand. Yeah. I'm thinking back to Unity, which I think their phrase was, you are loved, special, and important.

Bill: Exactly.

Michael: Wasn't that the phrase? And we always, our kids when we were, we'd go there, we always say, you are love, special, important. There's a piece of you, a part of you who you are, the true you that is, um, love, special and important. And you just said whole. Perfect. And what was the other?

Bill: Complete.

Michael: And complete. Yeah.

Bill: Yeah.

Michael: Yeah. I understand. I understand what you're saying.

Bill: The next layer to that is if, if I have decided that who I am is less than whole, perfect and complete, that, that now has to be a secret because if I let the rest of the world know what I've just figured out about myself, I'm screwed. Who would want anything to do with me and as, especially as a child and the younger I am, when I make that decision about who I am, the more urgent it seems that I keep that a secret because I'm completely dependent for my very survival on those who have an opinion about me. So now I have to form what I call the false identity, is what I show the world so that I'm not kicked out of it. So the confusion for me about who I truly am has been caused by my confusion about, about the, what it was. I decided about myself, that there's something about me that I need to be ashamed of, and therefore there's something about me I need to create to hide that. That became so overwhelmingly. Oh, it, it became all encompassing for when I would think of myself. I am what I now call my false identity. I am am afraid that I am what I now call my shame identity then lost in all of that is who I really am. And I think that kids before they have trauma, they make decisions like that swim in the reality of who they A actually are. And that's why we see them as so joyful, undefended. Thanks for the opportunity just to spin my, my ideas about true self.

Michael: Beautiful.

Bill: if we, if we bring in, uh, sweat lodges uh, our beliefs, other beliefs about spirituality and, and brain scans, um, the challenge still remains as we live our lives, boots on the ground. How can I be true to who I truly am? That, that's the challenge that I think that we, that we really wanna be talking about here.

Michael: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Marty, you were gonna say something.

Marty: Um, I'm curious about this, the, the what you. Said there, unity way back when the, about getting a spiritual guide, was that the word? Um, and that was so impressive to Bill. how does that work? How do you go about that? What, um, why not do it yourself? Uh, can, what are the, you know, things to look out for there? Uh. I would be interested 'cause I know a lot of people. I was just to quick preface, I didn't realize that my spirituality was gonna be so essential to my life. Sorry. I just got moved, um, as I was, you know, graduating and thinking about jobs and all this stuff and, um, I, I was. To my mind about par chance an introduced to a spiritual leader, a spiritual guide, and was it altered, my nervous system,

Michael: Right.

Marty: I received Shakti pot and I didn't even know what this was yet. And so to me it was like, wow, I was chosen, or I've had so many lifetimes that I've been prepared for this moment. Something along those lines. I can't explain it. And so, you know. When people say, oh gosh, I want that. How did you get that? Well, I want that. I, I hesitate to say, well, just get yourself a spiritual guide because I don't know how to tell them to do that, because that's not the way it happened for me.

Michael: Ready. Oh, beautiful. Yeah. Well, a lot. so my sense of it of things is that we have a be, this is gonna all just be language, right? But that we have a being identity and we have a doing identity and there's, we carry multitudes in us. So of course our doing identity can have multitudes. Like I have three or four various jobs, so do you, et cetera. The being identity, let's say. That's the, you know, more spiritual and the, we get mentors for our doing identity. Like I'm trying to mix our languages together. Hope, help, you know, I hope it works.

Marty: That's

Michael: We get mentors, right? And that's how we get better peer mentors and then elders. Um, and for our being identity, let's say we also get mentors. Um, and I. So I come, I come up through just about every religion. My parents, every few years changed religions.

Marty: Wow.

Michael: Hinduism. I'm born Jewish, but the other side is Catholic, so I've got Jewish and Catholic. And then, um, then a lot of Jewish and then, but Hinduism. Bahai for 10 years. Um, uh, Buddhism. So I, as I was coming up, and now, now I'm then when my kids wanted bat mitzvah, Gil and I, you know, signed up for Temple again. And so I'm a practicing Jew now, but again, but my spirituality has always been, um, uh, me developing that being identity or soul, let's say by, um, taking in. Wisdom and taking in process. And the, and I've had many spiritual guides. I mean sweat lodge, native guides, um, Hindu, Jewish rabbis. So I've had various, um, and in any of them, I'm always taking in something that is feeding my, my soul.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Michael: I'm not, tend to be very religious. I'm more spiritual. We might say, I call it infinite. I do a whole bunch of writing about this on Substack, the spiritual side. Um, and so the guide could be for a while, the guide could be mystical poetry, like the poetry of Rumi or poetry of Rabia and Kabi. And, um, I and I, and my argument to people argument, if it's an argument is if you just have a spiritual practice daily. Force somewhere around a half hour to an hour have a spiritual practice. That's the key. Have a spiritual practice. That means for an hour you are in total contact with God soul again. The language might get in the way, but we all would know what we mean. Um, the being identity, uh, have that spiritual practice and the guides will come to you that like. By accident. A lot of serendipity, spirituality's, a lot like science, a lot of serendipity. Um, and they'll come and also go there, go to Unity Church. I mean, I'm always saying to people go like I go to Temple, um, uh, go. Uh, if you don't find the guide there, the guide's gonna come and the guide's gonna come. I think because we're in a spiritual practice. Um, uh, and that could include psilocybin, it could include. You know, I mean it really, a spiritual practice can include a lot, but gotta pray, you know, gotta meditate, gotta do some spiritual practice.

Marty: Got it. Yeah. Yeah. I have a friend who would say that her, um, guide dog, her dog actually is her guide.

Michael: Oh, okay.

Marty: That's he, the dog taught her most of what she would say she's learned about spirituality. And so yeah, the guide could be, like you say, poetry a dog, you know, or Jesus the Christ. They could be any of those.

Michael: Yeah. And a year from now, it may be a different guide. Someone converts to Christianity and then 10 years later they fall away from Christianity. But they, so it's not Jesus anymore, but it, it's, if they're in a spiritual practice,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Michael: they're getting it. It's, it's happening for them.

Marty: Like Bill was in the right place to hear what you had to say that evening, and you know, that changed the course of his life.

Bill: And I was introduced at that time to a guy that that renamed himself Garda and, and taught me about breath and important breath is.

Michael: Oh.

Bill: Then the next year I was introduced to a woman by the name of Byron Katie that taught me how to take responsibility for everything that I felt and thought and did. And then 15 years later I was introduced to Internal Family Systems and Dr. Ri Richard Schwartz, who taught me that I have parts of myself that influence how I think, feel, and act. So for me, that's been my

Michael: Right.

Bill: journey

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Michael: Yeah, me too. Me too. I haven't had one person for 67 years. Yeah.

Marty: Me neither. Me

Michael: I don't think anyone does really.

Marty: Right.

Bill: Mike, we, uh, we could go on and on yet. We do need to begin to wrap up. I wanted

Michael: Okay.

Bill: you a couple things about, I'm, I'm thinking of our listeners and as they're listening to this conversation, that they, they might've gotten so many different things, ideas triggered, uh, about what they might might wanna do with the information they've heard here. There's several books that you've written. Let's start there. You, the ones that we mentioned in your bio were the wonder of boys. And the wonder of girls and boys and girls learn differently. I'm, I'm assuming that anybody that wants to read your your works would find that on Amazon. Do you have a preferred provider for that?

Michael: No, Amazon's fine. If people type in my name on Amazon, you know, 30 some books are gonna come up. Um, it's, I write in a bunch of different fields and for the more spiritual. Um, my substack, I'm gonna start publishing these infinite books. It's again, a word that I use to capture, um, but I'm already publishing essays on it in on Substack. So my substack is Michael gury and substack.com. So if people are interested in getting more into this spiritual side that we were talking about, so Substack would be good. My memoir is on Substack and it kind of. Deals with this stuff. Um, I have also published novels. There's a lot of spiritual poetry. All of that's on Amazon, so, um, but you gotta dig for some of that deeply. The books you mentioned are child development and education, right? So that's a particular field. Um, so people could get that brain science stuff in particular fields. Um. More substack for the more spiritual, um, and people will find that I actually take a scientific approach to the spiritual too, so

Bill: Great.

Michael: kind of blending 'em. Um, so, uh, so Amazon, yeah, that's a great place to start and then if you want more of this particular thing hit Substack.

Bill: You also mentioned that you have a men's group. Can you say more about that?

Michael: Yeah. I've been in, um, okay, so back, back when I was primarily a Jungian, um, therapist. So early nineties and late eighties, I, um, Robert Bly, John Lee, you know, men's movement. Um. I got to know them in 88 and then, uh, 88, 89. We, my wife and I were in Turkey for a couple years teaching there. Came back 88, immediately got into that. And then, um, in Spokane between like 90 and 90. Four, somewhere in that range. I started 12 different men's groups because I service, I, I was a, a therapist, so some of them started out of my practice, but a lot of them started out of, of like unitarian church, various, um, uh, started men's groups and um, all of them actually are still in existence, but some people have died and so they. Bring in new people. And I started my own. I said to my people, my guys that I wanted in my group, I said, I want a men's group. You know? And so four of us are still alive. And, um, and we've added some other, but basically we're the four core. And we meet, um, uh, now, now 35 years later. We, some of it is by having lunch together. Some of it is, um, by playing poker together. Some of it is, um, we as individuals take walks once a week with each other. Um, and sometimes we take group walks so we're not just sitting in a room. We used to just sit, you know, and talk. But now it's evolved. And I, I, if I didn't have my men's group, like the grief process with losing Gail, my men's group was so, so helpful, you know, to, um. One of 'em had lost their spouse. So, you know, that helped. Uh, so I'm a big believer in men's group, so if anyone's listening, there are women or men, especially men since men don't tend to form groups as well, form a men's group, you know, with people you admire and, and stick with it. 'cause it, it's life changing to me.

Bill: Hmm. Wow. That's great. That's really great. Uh, parting messages, um, thoughts that you'd like to share? Marty, I wanna include you in on this as well.

Marty: you came up in the algorithm, knew that you and I need to meet because your substack has come up in my feed.

Michael: Oh, okay.

Marty: Yeah. I read pieces. It's very interesting. I, yeah, I wanna be in your men's group. I wanna spend more time with you.

Michael: Hey, let's do it and have me on anytime you want. I mean, have me back to the podcast and.

Marty: Thank you. You have such a breadth of experience and, and wisdom and knowledge and facts

Michael: Thank you.

Marty: and spirit. I appreciate you a lot.

Michael: Thank you. Well, I just met you, but I really appreciate you and, and I've just remit Bill, so I'm, I'm fans of you guys now, so

Bill: In a

Michael: we'll connect

Bill: in, in a way it really just feels like I just met you though, Mike, even though we have that, that

Michael: right.

Bill: Uh, I didn't know all of that about you. Uh, after that talk at, at Unity Church in, in 2000 I think it was, or 2001. Um, you know, I just went on my way, taking your advice and, and finding my way to, to this point. And, and, and back, back here again today. So may, you mentioned earlier, we should have a cup of coffee. I'd love to do that. You know, we, it sounds like we're about 10 miles apart, so let's, let's find a place in between and do that.

Michael: Absolutely. That'd be great.

Bill: Alright? And if someone wants to learn more about you, they can go to your website, which is.

Michael: michael.com.

Bill: Michael Guan, GURA.

Michael: IAN.

Bill: yeah. G-U-R-I-A-N. Great, Mike, thanks so much for joining

Michael: You bet. Thanks guys.

Bill: Take

Michael: See you later.