Revolutionary Optimism and Divine Spirituality: A Peaceful Revolution with Dr. Paul Zeitz

In a world brimming with challenges and uncertainty, the concepts of divine spirituality and a peaceful revolution offer a beacon of hope. These ideas form the cornerstone of a transformative journey that promises to reshape our society. The latest episode of Happy Hour for the Spiritually Curious Podcast  dives deep into these themes with Dr. Paul Zeitz, an expert in epidemiology and a champion of revolutionary optimism, shares his profound insights on how spirituality can inspire a peaceful revolution and bring about global peace.

Divine spirituality is the key to unlocking a deeper connection with ourselves and the world around us. In this episode, Dr. Paul Zeitz discusses how embracing spirituality can lead to a peaceful revolution in our consciousness and society. This revolution is fueled by revolutionary optimism, a mindset that empowers us to envision and create a more peaceful world.

Key Insights from the Episode:

• Divine Spirituality: Explore the essence of divine spirituality and its role in fostering a peaceful revolution.
• Revolutionary Optimism: Understand how revolutionary optimism can transform challenges into opportunities for growth and peace.
• Peaceful Revolution: Learn how a peaceful revolution driven by spirituality can lead to global harmony and peace.
• Practical Applications: Dr. Zeitz shares practical tips on incorporating divine spirituality into daily life to cultivate revolutionary optimism.
• Personal Journey: Hear Dr. Zeitz’s inspiring journey and how spirituality and revolutionary optimism have shaped his path.

Statistics to Ponder:

• Studies show that 75% of people believe that increased spirituality can lead to a more peaceful world.
• A study published in the Journal of Positive Psychology found that 82% of participants who incorporated spirituality into their daily routine experienced greater resilience during stressful times.
• Over 60% of individuals practicing divine spirituality report a higher sense of inner peace and life satisfaction.
• Research indicates that 70% of people who engage in spiritual practices are more likely to participate in community service and social activism.

These statistics highlight the profound impact that divine spirituality and revolutionary optimism can have on individual well-being and societal harmony, reinforcing the importance of integrating these principles into our lives for a peaceful revolution.

For more information about Dr. Paul Zeitz, visit his website here.

For more information about Dr. Sandra Marie, visit her website here.

Transcript

Dr. Sandra Marie (00:03.084)
Enjoy this Wild Soul gathering production. I'm Dr. Sandra Marie. Pour yourself a really tall glass of spiritual curiosity and join me for the happy hour for the Spiritually Curious podcast. In the spirit of happy hour, cheers to some new insights, peace, revitalization, and perhaps an aha moment that may change your life. Welcome, everyone. Our show today is going to focus on activating revolutionary optimism to catalyze

movements for a better world. Today our guest is Dr. Paul Zeitz, a preventative medicine physician, epidemiologist, author, and award-winning champion for global justice and human rights. His latest book, Revolutionary Optimism, Seven Steps for Living, a life-centered activist, truly is perfectly timed for a world to navigate this world that's in crisis. Welcome to the happy hour for the spiritually curious.

podcast, Dr. Paul. Hey, Dr. Sandra, great to be here. You're really interesting. You have truly spent 35 years committed to advocacy, holding some pretty impressive positions in the US government, global organizations. You recently also just became a rabbi, I understand. And a lot of your work has addressed this global AIDS epidemic that's been going on for a long time. You put a lot out of

a lot of energy out there to combat the exploitation of children and focusing on equity. When did your passion for advocacy start and was there a defining moment that led you to this path? Yes, thank you for that question. There was a moment in, I was living in Sub-Saharan Africa in Zambia in late 90s. think it was, we moved there in 96. So this moment happened sometime in

the first part of our time there, like 1997. I was there doing public health. I was a public health physician. I was working on child health and child survival. And HIV AIDS was like something we knew about, but we had got the first epidemiological studies showing that one out of four Zambian adults, men and women, were infected with the HIV virus and they were likely to die. And I just went on with my public health days and we did what we could.

Dr. Sandra Marie (02:25.9)
And then one day I was driving past the university teaching hospital, which was the main hospital in Lusaka. Back in those days, they called it the departure lounge because people just went there to die. was, the services had collapsed basically. The hospitals were overrun with patients. didn't have IV fluids. They didn't have basic antibiotics. It was, and I had gone in there and met, you know, toured and saw the state of that. But actually what happened on this day, I was driving and I approached an intersection.

And in front of me, there was a Christian aid youth project, Christian aid youth project. And I had driven by this intersection hundreds of times, right? And what were they doing? They were selling coffins and they were selling little coffins for little children and coffins for adults. And something happened in that moment where I actually saw what was in front of me and pieced together the fact that we were actually living in an AIDS Holocaust.

that these people were dying at large scale at a time where we had life-saving AIDS medicines in the United States, Europe, Japan, and they were not available where I was at in Zambia. So I realized I had a awakening or a breakthrough or a meltdown or all of that combined. I just said, had a, and I shipped it out of working within the bureaucracies of the U S government and the government of Zambia. And I realized

that you can have greater impact by putting pressure on policymakers and to achieve the kind of real change. Wow. What a powerful moment. You know, I was gifted to do some volunteer work and the Rohingya reservations in Bangladesh, you know, working in those dirt hospitals. And even back in the United States, I ended up on Navajo Nation, unbeknownst to me, that the

COVID epidemic was going to hit. was an area that got hit very hard. And exactly what you said, I'm in the U S and we don't have the resources to treat these people. And it's a level of poverty in our own country that I think, you know, people are unaware with, of, lack of water, lack of electricity, you know, you dig a hole to put your insulin vials to keep it cool. And, yeah, I don't think it's quite to the extent of what you saw, but it was.

Dr. Sandra Marie (04:49.134)
pretty powerful and it's life-changing. Yeah, I mean, there's great inequity, as you say, on indigenous populations, Navajo and other indigenous tribes, but also lower economic, racially marginalized populations. The inner cities where mostly black people live, their access to health care, their health outcomes are all much worse. It's a horrible situation in the United States because we actually spend more money per capita

than any other country in the world and we're not getting the positive impact. We're not getting the bang for our buck and our system is not designed to get the best outcomes for the people. It's actually designed to make the most money for the insurance companies. So they're driving the policies that unfortunately are leaving this health and equity unchecked, even with Obamacare, which was a step forward, but it's woefully inadequate.

And I believe as Americans, as people living in our country right now, we can and must and should do better. Absolutely. It's interesting. just had this conversation with someone last week, uh, back when I wrote a study and this was a number of years ago, but not that long ago, just what you said, we spend more per capita than anyone else. And I believe out of the 24 Western countries, our outcomes are 22. Yeah, it's ridiculous. At the bottom of it, even though we spent all that money.

And then I said, you know, I read this Becker's report and it listed the top 20 influential companies or people on healthcare. And at the top of the list was insurance company and pharmacy. was, you know, no Mayo clinic, no Cleveland clinic, no individual physicians. was all big dollar companies. But so that being said, this is going to sort of shift us. We talked a little bit about.

the demographic for the podcast. And, you know, I've even talked on other shows about what certain situations the old Dr. Sander Murray would be jumping, you know, in a car with a protest sign heading down to Washington, DC to have my voice heard. And sort of as I've been growing consciously and spiritually, a lot of that has shifted in how I advocate.

Dr. Sandra Marie (07:09.774)
looks little different. a number of people that I've had on the show were definitely, definitely women cut up that cloth were very active, you know, out there wanting to make a difference, but how they're making a difference really has shifted. And, you know, we talked about the craziness of the world. So your approach to activism is a little different. I know in your first book, Waging Justice, A Doctor's Journey to Speak Truth,

and be bold, you share a personal perspective on how one's deep individual healing is intricately connected with how we can repair this broken world. That's a pretty big statement. Can you share a little bit more about that and what that looks like? Yeah, so I published my memoir, Wage and Justice, thanks for mentioning that, in 2018. And it was a really retrospective review from birth till I was 53 years old.

I'm almost 62 now, so nine years have passed since then. And what I realized that I wrote the book, you know, to share my story, I felt like I had an opportunity and a responsibility, especially for my five sons. I wanted them to know what their dad had been up to. They had no idea. Also, it became, I became aware of my own journey. Like I learned about myself. Like I couldn't really figure out myself. And what I learned was that the path of self

healing and self-repair. had childhood trauma that I shared about in my book. had, I'm a survivor of childhood sexual violence at the hands of my father. I had an amnesiac barrier for 40 years. I didn't find out till my late forties. That was really kind of why I wrote that book to get that out of me and heal from that. And then what I learned, and this is also comes from Jewish spiritual teachings. There's this concept of

Tikkun Ha-Nefesh or healing of the soul or Tikkun Ha-Lev, healing of the heart, which is our inner work, our work of taking care of ourselves and self-liberation. And that is like interlinked and directly related to our collective healing, which is called Tikkun Olam. And so the reality is that we can solve the climate emergency.

Dr. Sandra Marie (09:33.922)
we could create authentic participatory, deliberatory democracy and create a healthcare system that was fair, equitable, and the money was being used for prevention and wellness as well as curative, not just all curatives because everyone's making money off of the curative side. We have to rejig everything. But if we're not healing ourselves internally, then we won't have the critical mass of people that is, I believe, to...

get to a tipping point and get to the point where we can transform everything. Because right now the entire social, economic and political systems, our government, our business environment, our whole society, and this is true globally, is all based on extractive and greed and anger and division and separation. And it's taking us very fast to on a path of further suffering.

despair and destruction. We're on that. That's what's happening now. And at the same time, there's millions, maybe billions of us that see the possibility of a love centered path of repair, healing, transformation. And I'm just trying to like rev up that side. Like you're all those folks that are on that path. Like we have to rise up, speak out, be bolder.

And, and it doesn't mean going out on the streets for everyone. No, the book is very clear about that. Activism is done in many different ways by every person figuring out what works for them in the right moment and the right phase of their life. So there's no right or wrong about it. Every action counts, including self care. will say I'll stop there, but I actually say throughout the book, self care is number one priority because that work of making sure that we're.

our highest self, that we can deploy our energy with wisdom and grace and compassion. Not saying we don't take a firm stand, but we have to be taking care of ourself along the way. That's really nicely said. So one of the things that I have promoted with Wild Souls Gathering Happy Hour for the Spiritually Curious is I follow a lady, Pam Gregory, she's an astrologer over in England, and she does a lot of higher consciousness work.

Dr. Sandra Marie (11:59.338)
And she created this 15 minute meditation every Sunday at seven o'clock UK time. So for us in Eastern Standard Time, it's two o'clock and people as a globally come together and they just meditate as one connecting consciously. And she's really, she shares a lot of the outcomes and reports that people get back. This has been going on for a couple of months and the focus of the medication, the meditation is to

elevate the consciousness of the world, humanity, and create equity and love and peace everywhere. So that is one avenue that's been put out there. So when I connected with you, it's like you said, it looks a little bit different for everyone else. I know that we're gonna get into this a little deeper and that you're gonna provide some other options for people as they're using your inside approach, your inside out approach to heal and

create self-liberation and transform and ignite this optimism. So in your latest book, you describe seven steps for living a love-centered activist. Can you talk about those seven steps? Yeah, thanks. So what I felt was I had the opportunity to kind of pull together a book, a handbook actually, Revolutionary Optimism. And it's the book that I wished I had when I was 15 and 20 and 25 and 30.

You know, even into my fifties, I wish I would have had this book because it's a synthesis. It's a handbook for two, for several things. One is self optimization, self liberation. The first three steps are about, it's go time, like waking up and figuring out how you want to serve that day, you know, energizing yourself into action mode. step two is really diving into self liberation. And as you know, this is not easy work.

This is work that's ongoing, it's never ending. And so I offer some wisdom about that and some tools and practices. I call them RXs, you putting on my Dr. Paul Zeitz hat. And then step three, I think is really important because it really links to your listener's interest, which is it's about accessing what I call unified consciousness. For me and for many people, I don't think people understand.

Dr. Sandra Marie (14:25.186)
that we can access unified consciousness, like during that meditation that you described. There's many, many ways, and there's no one right way. All the ways that people access that are appreciated. People all experience it when they go into nature or at the time of a funeral or the time of the birth of a new baby, for example, you have this like sense of our interconnectedness. So the point of step three is that you can access it and that you can then

practice, you can build your muscles like going to the gym. You can work at accessing it, like doing these meditations repeatedly over time. You know, you get, it gets easier for you to access that state. And I think it's essential for us to be able to access that state just for our daily life. but also in the sense of how we want to co-create our world together. last thing is, like, once you know you have it and then you practice it,

then you get, then it's like you can deploy it. Like you can bring it into circumstances, what you're up to, you know, suppose you're having a fight with someone or you're in a battle or, know, you're feeling really down and hopeless, you know, then if you, if you have this practice, you can access that unified consciousness. It's unity consciousness, Jesus consciousness, messianic consciousness. People call it a million different things.

It doesn't matter. all that experience. And I think it's essential for being an effective revolutionary optimist. Then step four is peace crafting. And that's really about the relationship between me and you, like the space between us right now. And also with any person, a partner, children, relatives, or in the workplace, or if you're a nurse and you're out there serving people.

It's an opportunity to do peace crafting and there's a site, a four part cycle, which I can go in if you want the second half of the book steps, five, six, and seven, or the last three parts of the book are really about our collective liberation. And so step five, it's taking all that foundation that we did in first four steps and bringing it into, okay, now let's, what do we have to do to create the world that we want to see to align our inner truth with our outer reality?

Dr. Sandra Marie (16:50.7)
And that's been something that I've been struggling with my whole life. Like I have this sense and I feel like I'm disconnected from what's going on. So the step five is imagineering and it's about unlocking our radical imagination, our visions. Like what do we want to see the world to be? Like what do you want the healthcare system to look like? Let's open it up and imagine it. You know, I, me and my wife lay in bed and imagine, you know, a wellness centered.

American healthcare system rather than an end stage curative design system as one example. And then it's about building movements because none of this can happen by us alone, even within an organization that we're operating in. That's all important and nice. But to have the collective impact that I think many of us seek, we have to work in movements. So I have a lot of information in there about the 10 best practices for love centered movements and

How do you position yourself? How do you determine your role? It's all like things that you have to figure out. It's hard work. And then step six is sparking peaceful revolutions. And that is really focused on those of us that, like me, who want to go out and do direct action. I feel like there, I don't know what else to do to wake up the public and the policymakers to the opportunities that we have before us. And non-cooperation or resistance can happen from your desk.

from your house. You could stop buying certain products. You could stop supporting certain things. And for those people that are doing direct action, I lay out a whole series of steps about how anyone can help them with emotional support, with money, with housing, a bed, all kinds of ways of helping. And we need that because as peaceful revolutions accelerate, like what we're starting to see on college campuses this last couple of weeks.

I expect that to continue to escalate and expand rapidly over the next 18 months because people are fed up with the status quo. So then everyone has an opportunity to help all those people. Not everyone has to be out there, but you know, everyone can help. Then finally, the last step is unifying, unifying within like unifying that sense of our soul's purpose that we've that we're always discerning and shape shifting and clarifying and.

Dr. Sandra Marie (19:15.198)
unifying with others and like finding ways to break down the silos, break down the separation, break down the caste systems, the systems of power that work at putting one group on top of another, trying to dominate them. And so that's, that's what unifying is all about. those are great steps. It's interesting. The very first show that I launched for 2024 was called Evolution and Revolution.

a 2024 one for the history books. From an astrology standpoint, I'm not an astrologist, but I follow Pam Gregory a lot and a couple other people. And there's been a lot of talk with this within the spiritual community. As you look at the science of the planets and everything, they're all aligning in a way that supports revolution. It's all about revolution. And a lot of it actually mirrors back in the 1700s when the French Revolution took place.

So you're saying astrologically, the way that the alignments are happening is similar to back then? Yep. And it's supporting everything that we're seeing. like if it's not a surprise, one of the differences is the consciousness on the planet has elevated significantly and it's elevating astronomically, you know, day by day as we're moving forward. And I love that you say we're co-creating this new world. So this really is a shift out of the old.

and into the new. For those of us who are gifted to be on the planet at this time, we are influencing and making a difference with this co-creation of what this is going to look like. In creation, one of the important components of that, as you said, is imagination. It's work. I work with this fellow, Jim Self. He always says, some assembly required. It's just not going to...

It magically happens, but it doesn't just magically happen. have to be active participants in this and our imagination is a critical element in us successfully moving forward with what we see this being. So I think that it's great that you spend time every day putting energy that you set aside that time to put energy to imagineering your co-creation. step four. Yeah, now I've started to do

Dr. Sandra Marie (21:37.07)
put that on agendas and meetings, like have a segment of time, you know, in a one hour meeting, have a 15 or 20 minute segment to open up a Maggeneering so that it's not, so that we have collective group of Maggeneering happening. Cause people love that. It's super fun, right? And what I have found is that I always thought I had these wild visions of a peaceful world and everyone has them. I'm not unique. And,

That was a, that's a recent revelation. And, but we're all afraid to share our visions, creating safe spaces for us to do that is really important and it's super fun. guarantee it. And just a quick comment on evolutionary versus revolutionary. Look, things are always evolving evolutionarily. I would argue that there are phases of human history like, that where you have revolutionary paradigm transformation.

And I hope, I believe that we're in one. I believe that we already have a violent revolution already unfolding. And it's, like I said, it's leading us down this path of destruction and suffering. And we can't end all suffering. We can't end all the destruction because the old systems are collapsing and failing. And I do believe what we can do is commit ourselves and see ourselves as part of this

peaceful revolutions that are bringing forward healing and repair and to expand that so that we can shift the directionality of where we're going. Bend the arc, as Martin Luther King said, towards healing, repair, justice and love. like we have to rise right now. And revolutions that actually happen, now we know you only need about 3.5 to 5 % of the population on the streets. So that's about 36 million people.

It really has to be an 18 month to two year intensive mobilization. So I think that is starting already. I mean, I think, you know, I don't know what the start date is exactly, but you know, we don't always have to be in a revolutionary phase. want to just reassure your listeners. We have to prepare ourselves. Like we're going to go through something. We want to make it have the best possible outcome. So we have to rise. We have to step out of our status quo. We have to disrupt ourselves a bit.

Dr. Sandra Marie (24:01.59)
And it's like, it's, you know, people get scared about it. It's not clear exactly how it's going to unfold. And that's true. but if we don't do it, we're going to have fascism and climate destruction and all kinds of bad outcomes. And we'll have to be in community to deal with all that anyway. I agree with you. think that it honestly, from my perspective, it all started last year. Globally, you saw, you know, protests throughout the world in countries that you would have never expected seeing it.

And even when you talk about war, it's really one or 2 % of the people who benefit from it and want it, like the rest of the people don't want to have anything to do with it. But as you said, passively sitting back, we have to put some kind of energy and action to it, however that energy and action looks like. So your step number four, peace crafting, it's sort of intrigued me a little bit.

Can you share a little bit more insights on step four, the peace crafting and how would that actually translate to an actionable steps in the real world? Like what would that look like? Yeah, thank you for asking. Actually, I feel like I need to say something now. As a physician, I had an opportunity and a responsibility to define revolutionary optimism, create these seven steps. There's 23 practices and I want to let you and your listeners know

It's highly contagious and there is no known cure and there's no vaccine. it's like I have, you know, revolutionary optimism has its own life and peace crafting, uh, is an example of that. So I've been struggling myself with hopelessness and despair and like, you know, how do I communicate with my family who have different political views than me? And so I.

In writing this book, I defined peace crafting as four steps, a four part cycle. The first part is being a listening friend. So practice being a listening friend, active listening. And that's hard to do, you know, because I like to talk, everyone likes to talk. And I'm getting better and better at being a really active listener and really hearing people. And then the second part of it is

Dr. Sandra Marie (26:24.96)
embracing multiple perspectives. Because frequently, like sometimes myself, I think I have the right perspective or I'm right and you're wrong, or I know and you don't. So getting away from the binaries there and the this versus that, and just like really opening up, embracing the idea that there are multiple perspectives. And I actually believe there's 8 billion people on the planet and there's about 8 billion perspectives, you know, because we have

different genes, have different life experience, we have different information that we access and so, and it's not static. Our perspectives are always changing. I'm frequently encountering people now who are telling me what I think. And I'm like, you don't know what I'm thinking. I am different than I was yesterday. And by the way, I debate myself. can't, know, I'm always like trying to figure out what perspective I have, you know, it's it's not a static thing. Then the third thing is reacting and using love speech.

This is a hard one. You're having, you're in a peace crafting situation and someone says something to be provocative or to intentionally trigger you. So you get triggered and then you want to like smash them down or you want to shame them or whatever, whatever way you might react. If your lizard brain is running the show, that's, I described the lizard brain in step two under self liberation. That's that inner dragon that paralyzes me and makes me a jerk. So.

I have learned to practice love speech, real recognizing that my words matter. My words have an impact on my, on me and on the other people that I'm around. I, and using speech that is what I call counter shaming. No, cause everyone is dealing with shame. So if I say something a certain way, I might induce shaming. So I have to really be mindful of that. The last part of it is building trust. So once you're a good listening friend,

you're understanding multiple perspectives, you're using love speech, you still have your point of view and your position. And then how do you build trust with people who agree or don't agree so that you can continue being in a dialogue? Frequently in my life at times, and I've observed in other people, they think of trust as being an on and off switch. Like I trust you now and then you broke my trust and goodbye, thank you and goodbye, I'm never gonna trust you again.

Dr. Sandra Marie (28:50.51)
And this also happens with organizations. This organization did something that I didn't like, so they're off my radar. What I've created, me and my friends created many years ago in advocacy, we've created a trust-o-meter so that you can go up or down on the trust-o-meter. I started from the position of I love everyone, literally, unconditionally, at the soul level. But then I don't trust you, I don't trust everyone.

So you have to build my trust, you know, and it's dynamic. Like I might not trust you today, but tomorrow I could. I stand for the possibility that I can build trust with anyone over time. That's the way the trust meter works. So it's been amazing since I created it last year and I've been living into it. It's like it's circling in my head. So I'm like, with my wife, we're in a discussion or we're in a battle over something ridiculous.

And I'm, being a jerk and I'm like, damn, what happened to that peace? What happened in my peace crafting capabilities? You know, then last week I went to Israel, Palestine on a personal, on a pilgrimage, on a peace pilgrimage to really like be a listening friend and listen to multiple perspectives. my God. I was like, I put it, I put peace crafting through a stress test, you know, to be able to like get through a very difficult environment with very different points of view.

a lot of dehumanizing of the other, a lot of hatred, a lot of anger, a lot of fear, lot of traumatized people. I had to hold myself in peace crafting. So that wheel that I just described, that cycle, those four steps, those four parts rather, of peace crafting, very much alive in me and I'm learning about it. I walk around with the book. I mean, I'm doing the practices in my life. I'm living as a revolutionary optimist.

each of them become part of what I have to continue growing with and learning from. Can you give me an example of love language? What that may sound like in the anti shaming language, what that might sound like? Yeah. So for example, I'm sitting with someone who I, you know, kind of vehemently disagree with and they're even offending me with language about talking down and dehumanizing the other.

Dr. Sandra Marie (31:11.534)
You know, and I can get, I'm really angry and sad and grief stricken about the fact that this person is communicating this way. And then I say, I hear you. I listened, I hear what you're saying. And I start with the question of, you open to exploring the possibility of different multiple perspectives? And I, that takes a while because people that have a rigid fix narrative or rigid fixed idea of their truth being

the only truth, they're not even open to exploring the possibility of other perspectives. So then once you get through the barrier of, okay, yeah, I'm willing to explore other perspectives in a loving, peaceful way, then it's like, they think, sometimes people think their truth is the only truth. So then you can, then I say, are you open to the possibility that there might be multiple truths?

And then I give my line about, I think there's a billion truths. And I say, my truth is not static. It's evolving, you know? So I try to open up a truth as being dynamic. It's not, it's not fixed and rigid, you know, it's evolving. We're all evolving with that. So counter-shaming is like an example. I was a supervisor over an employee. tell the story in the book and this employee was saying something to me like, I got the contract done two weeks ahead of schedule.

And then I was being like, obsessively wanting to improve efficiency. I said, well, couldn't we have done it faster? And the person got really upset and I could see that they got upset and I should have said, person, I forget their name, Sally. I recognize that you did great work and I apologize for questioning that at this moment. And I was just thinking about future.

Efficiency opportunities. So please accept my forgiveness. know, so instead I just moved on and ignored her reaction. So like that was shaming. Like she thought she had performed well. I was her supervisor. I kind of dissed Just her performance in front of other colleagues. She went in. I saw her close down and you know, it triggered something in her and I just ignored it and just went on with the meeting. You know, so that is shame inducing and

Dr. Sandra Marie (33:38.432)
I learned a lot from that. appreciate your vulnerability in that and sharing those examples because that makes it more tangible, I think, for people as they're listening to it. So thank you very much for that. And I also want to say kudos to you for putting yourself physically in an area of conflict that the whole world's looking at and walking the talk, trying to make a difference to bring peace and understanding and bring ideology together.

and create a better. So thank you for doing that. With a quick little shift, do you think that people can be overly optimistic? Is there like two sides to that coin? Yeah, I mean, I think there can be something called delusional optimism where you're like just delusionally optimistic. I try to be a revolutionary optimist with unbridled radical imagination and imagineering, but pragmatism and real world

approaches to manifesting our visions through movement building and revolutionary action. I think, you know, I'm not sure. think all imaginations are welcomed. The question is what, what ideas are generated, what visions that we generate can we manifest? That's what my book is about. Step five, imagineering is really, it gets really detailed and grounded in, okay, you have a vision. How do we get it to happen? That's the work.

I think the concept, and I know I spoke about it a little earlier of imagineering and creating our new world, like it's there, it's real, it's not really been talked about. So I love that you're putting it out there like concretely and having discussions about it. I've heard of a few other people introduce that concept and just how important it is. So I'm excited to see that grow because I think it's like an aha moment where people will go, you know, I guess I just never thought of it that way.

before. Yeah, I mean, we're so trained in our culture, so passive in accepting our reality. For example, we look at the presidential campaign and we say, OK, we have to pick within the lesser of these two evils. I have had to do that my whole life, I have felt that way. And it's actually not it's like it's part of the oppression systems that live in our mind, you know, that stop us from imagining.

Dr. Sandra Marie (36:06.582)
and then manifesting a different social, economic and political system where we could have an open debate of possible candidates and we could really listen and learn and debate and deliberate about the future of our country, not carnation ceremonies for two people in their near eighties who should be really spending time with their grandkids, in my opinion. Well, many people.

feel or have had moments where they think that their choices and actions don't honestly make a difference. You know, there's that feeling of powerlessness. You know, this is so big. How can I make a difference? What would you say to them? My book is for them because I find that when I'm talking to people, people are always, not always, some people diminish what they're actually doing and they don't think and then what they do do, they say it's not having an impact.

That's a very common inner dragon story that goes on. I'm not good enough. My, I'm not having an impact. You know, that's your inner dragon saying all that. That's my inner dragon. I'll speak for myself when I hear that those messages and I do hear them, you know, I have heard them a lot over the years. So I have to like discern like, okay, could I be doing more or am I doing enough? Maybe I should just acknowledge that.

I am doing is a lot and it matters. And this is where every action counts. Culture really counts. So if I'm taking a break for self care and I'm getting a massage and I'm going on a hike or I'm doing a meditation, that's an action. That's a love centered action. So you're a love centered activist. If you're caring for your, an elderly person or your children or your partner or your neighbor, and you're helping them in a love centered way.

then that's a love-centered action. Every action counts. Then you're part of the revolution, you know? So I just want to invite people to like open up and recognize their own power and receive the praise that they deserve from the great mystery for the beauty of what people are up to. It's amazing what people cope with in their lives, the resilience and the...

Dr. Sandra Marie (38:26.506)
But they don't, they, their inner dragon is saying, you're not good enough. You're not good enough. I'm not having an impact. I'm not having an impact. it's like facing, like recognizing that that's not really the truth. It's like a false narrative in your own mind, in my own mind of what's going on. So I had to like identify that and say, Hey, thank you. I'm going to go with, I'm doing a lot and I'm going to say, keep going. You're doing pretty good for an old man like yourself.

Well, I agree. feel like we all have power and we are all able to influence. feel like power is honestly no more than the ability to influence, to make a difference. I, as you said, haven't always felt that way. And, you know, self-talk has been an issue and, you know, that issue is less and less, but it still pops up in there. you know, again, I'm going to say we just make a difference with sitting there and

and putting energy and love and thought and prayer or meditation or whatever you call that out there and imagining, looking, this is what's going to be different. You're making a difference when you do that. It may not feel like you're making a difference, but you're just, I'm going to go with you trust inside to know that you're making that difference with that. Beautiful, beautiful thing. Yeah, I do it as a game too. Like I,

Okay, I'm going to go food shopping, which I really don't like doing anymore. or going shopping for clothes, which I really hate doing. but, you know, I kind of like prepare myself and I say, okay, I'm going to be a secret heart. I'm going to be like a loving, I'm just going to walk through these environments that I really don't want to be in. And I'm just going to be love a love field. I'm just going to be in a, I'm going to be loving everything I see. I'm going to be appreciating it as a.

journey of exploration and it just, what changes is me. Like, so I'm not putting out all that negative energy, you know? And then I don't know what all the ripples are, but I agree with you, there are ripples of that, you know? So I'm smiling at someone, I'm saying hi to someone, or there's a person that is like dropping their bags because they're old or whatever and I go and help them. When I'm in that, when I'm in the secret heart or I'm pretending I'm a love force, then I, what I, how I act is different.

Dr. Sandra Marie (40:52.162)
That makes so much sense. So when I get out of my head and I go into my heart and I come from my heart, it's a total shift within myself, but you do see the ripple effects. You see how that like smile and gosh, someone said hello to me or even just nodded at me. You don't know the impact and the influence that it has on it. And we're so geared to looking at the outside as our validation for everything. And as if that's where the truth comes from.

And this whole everything comes from the inside. There's such a foreign concept to many people, but it's definitely an awakening for a lot of people that it's coming from the inner work really affects everything externally. And I think that's the crux. those are core elements of everything that you're putting out there, your work, your personal work, and then your global work. Yeah. Well said.

An optimism expert from Australia gave me this like really pragmatic practice. You know how we walk around in the United States, we say, Hey, how are you? And then it's like, you either say I'm fine when you're really not fine. It's like, it's, it's like superficial. You're not really, or if you really answer it, it's like, well, the other person really want to listen to how I'm really doing. You know, so you go through, I go through all that kind of like story in my head. So this person at Victor Purton, advised me to create a new way of interacting.

You say, Hey, what was the greatest thing that happened to you today? And then the person has to like, think about like, what happened today? I got to meet Dr. Sandra on a podcast, you know, so I can say, you know, so it's like, it gets my brain into thinking about what is good that's happening rather than all the whatever bad is happening. You know what mean? So it's like, it's a fun experiment to go around and say, what was the greatest thing that happened to you today? Instead of how are you?

That's great and it puts it in a more tangible way of what you're going to answer, right? So it's more focused versus that broad stroke kind of thing. I actually have a gratitude partner that I've had for a number of years. We actually met when I was living in the Middle East and till this day we still share, you you shouldn't have rules, but our rule is three or more gratitudes a day. But you know, some days you could be doing things and thinking,

Dr. Sandra Marie (43:19.084)
You you start to do your gratitudes and I'm, you know, like, I'm having a hard time coming up with the gratitude. And then when you pause and you really think about it, there's a lot of things to be grateful for. It's just not where my energy or where I focused my attention at that time. So doing this, doing these gratitude really is a reset and it refocuses my attention, which then shifts my energy and shifts how I'm viewing whatever activity.

that I was in. It's so simple and it's got an amazing effect. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. It's a good example of the kind of practices that I share in revolutionary optimism. I don't share that particular one. So I only shared like 23 best practices. of course, there's many more that are aligned and related, like what you're describing, gratitude practice.

You know, I, what I would say is also it's good to experiment like, okay, let's experiment with three times a day. That's not good or bad. It's just an experiment and maybe I need five times on a day where I've lost it. Or if I'm really in a state of gratitude, like just organically, then maybe I I don't even have to have an intentional practice. I'm already there, you know? So I just, I think it's a beautiful practice that I do. I have a very strong gratitude practice. I, you know, I work on.

Because I'm like grateful to be alive. I'm grateful to see the blue sky or the wind blowing or hearing the birds or whatever, you know, little things that are happening. The taste of my coffee. You know, you can be grateful for the small little things that we all are experiencing. Yeah, those are all great examples. Like, I'm excited to be part of this revolution and co-creation of the new and the breaking down of the old. Does it always feel so good? Not always, but...

What a gift. What a gift we are to be here at this time on the planet. I agree. Yeah. In 2023, you launched a initiative called Unify USA Movement to create 2.0, the United States 2.0, I think. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, thanks for asking. So.

Dr. Sandra Marie (45:41.63)
I am an unbridled revolutionary optimist, you know, in writing this book and now launching it today, May 1st, getting it out there, sharing it with the world. I'm so excited to offer it as a love offering really. I have done the book, so I have a mag engineering. I have built movements. I'm part of revolutionary movements that are happening right now. And what I have come to, and I'm in dialogue with many different stakeholders about this, is that

If you get, you have to look at the root cause of the problem. You know, as healthcare providers, I'm a doctor, you're a nurse. You know, we realize that we can treat the symptoms or if we have to get at the root cause of what's going on. So as I've tried to understand what is going on around us right now, I have concluded that as a doctor, my diagnosis is that we have what is called constitutional rot. Our constitution was written 237 years ago.

by white male oligarchs who created a system of caste where they were keeping themselves in power and control and they were oppressing women, indigenous people, black people were held as slaves and poor white people were also marginalized so that they would maintain their power and control. What's fascinating is that it works so well. Like 237 years later, they've globalized this approach.

and extractive capitalism and all the systems that we're living under are all emanating from that. So I believe that we need to go through what the legal experts say is that there are cycles of constitutional time. There's like a framework gets written and then it gets rotten and then it's transformed. that happened significantly after the civil war. There were a bunch of amendments that radically transformed the original document.

The next biggest time was in 1924 when the women got the right to vote. was 1920. Sorry. That was the last time there was really an expansion of rights and freedom. That's over a hundred years ago since we've had an upgrade to our founding order. And if you look at what's going on, like this whole battle between Trump and Biden, Democrats, Republican, that whole, I call it the racket, you know, one thing, just put that all over here, turn the volume down because it gives me a headache.

Dr. Sandra Marie (48:06.952)
And it makes me irritated, whole, all of it. And like then go over here and go to all this other space that exists. And that's the space in which we can co-create US 2.0. And that means a new framework, a new constitutional order or whatever you want to call it. People call it, think we need a new name, like a covenant or a compact or a contract, something about our relationship with each other and our relationship with the earth.

And there are people studying all kinds of approaches to this. A lot of people agree that we need to transform it. People are too afraid to do it. They think it will lose rights. And I'm not afraid because I believe 80 % of the people in the United States agree with the principle of equity, equality, human rights, love-centered, know, repair, justice and peace. That's what 80 % want. And the 20 % that don't want that or that want to use violence,

or that don't believe in the rule of law, that's not the people that we want running our government. So Paul, I come up to you and I say, hey Paul, I want to awaken my political imagination and manifest a better world. What would you say to me? I'm so glad to hear that. How can I support you? My role is as a, I'm here to support you and everyone. How can I support you in what you, what visions you see?

On Unified Movements, our website, unifiedmovements.org, we have identified 25 movements that work on the climate issue, on racial equity, on Israel-Palestine, on a whole range of issues as pathways of engagement. The other big thing that I believe, and the book just got launched today, so I don't know this as a fact yet, but the seven steps are things that can be done and the learning can be done in groups.

friend groups, family groups, neighbor groups, book clubs, church groups, synagogue groups, mosque groups, schools, workplaces, any group. And I think you could do a step a week over seven weeks or a step a month over seven months. And it's an opportunity to actually build friendships and deepen a relationship because I'm telling you, this is not easy. we shouldn't, the whole point of it is that we're not alone.

Dr. Sandra Marie (50:31.81)
A lot of the times when I'm feeling hopeless and anxious and despairing, my inner dragon is telling me I'm alone and you know, like it's over, it's hopeless, you know, and nothing I do matters and I'm alone. So I believe that revolutionary optimism is an opportunity for bringing people together and learning and experiencing, exploring the book and the practices together and sharing. You know, we talk about love speech, for example. So.

Like, okay, a group could like, okay, understand what it is, practice it on yourself. How do you do love speech to yourself? Then do it within your group. And then, okay, everyone, let's go home and try to do love speech with our family or in our workplace, and then come back and share what happened, you know? Or there's a practice called courageous conversations. We need to have difficult conversations with people. So there's like a step-by-step how to do that.

So I think it would be really fun to like, okay, understand what a courageous conversation is, practice it with a group, and then go out and do them, and then know that you have support to process it. you know, like, what did we learn about how, how does it go with courageous conversations? It can be very heart opening and healing, or walls can be, you know, can come down to from the other side, you know, so it's, it's, it's, these are games and experiments and.

opportunities for shared learning and shared exploration. Wow, thank you. That makes it sound very doable. It doesn't just sound like a concept that's out there. It sounds very actionable. Yeah, we have a journal and a workbook that's also being published on Amazon very soon for groups and for group leaders. And we have guiding questions for

you know, how the group can explore each of the practices. So I really think that would be the most fun and most exciting. And then those folks become so connected, then they're like, Hey, we got to fix our school or we got to fix our church or we got to fix our community or Hey, we want to take on the climate emergency. And, and then there's all kinds of pathways that we're going to offer. have a change makers companion kit kit that you can get access to at revolutionaryoptimism.com. It's all kinds of tools.

Dr. Sandra Marie (52:56.734)
and support things that you can have if you want to go deeper into this revolutionary optimism exploration. I love that you've moved it out of the theoretical. One of the things that you've repeatedly said that I think is really critically important and I do want to highlight it is when we're in separateness, it does lead us down that despair or it doesn't feel good when we move away from our separateness and realize that we really are one.

it shifts everything and it brings us together. it's just that I just wanted to highlight the importance of that. Yeah, it's a great thank you for your clarifying that so clearly. Yeah. And I think we're living in these strange times of technology. We're all like obsessed with our phones. You know, we were addicted, you know, they got our brains and they get us addicted to these apps and this information flow.

And that's very isolating, I've learned, or I experienced it as, but also COVID had a big impact of separating people. And even myself, I realized like I used to be more social and I'm like, hey, you know what? I'll just stay home tonight. know, we'll just order food in. I don't need to go out, you know? And I think that's had a big impact on younger people, especially, you know, it was a traumatic experience, a disruption in socialization and social connection. And some people called, you know, we have school and work and

family time, but there's this third space of friendship and beloved community that we are weak at or we're missing. And I'm hoping, you know, there's many things, many ways to access that. So I hope revolutionary optimism can contribute to that for some people somewhere. Nice. It's, I agree that it's very important. You have a podcast that you do, Revolutionary Optimism Podcasts. For those who are interested in your podcast, what might they expect?

from it? Yeah, as I was writing the book, Revolutionary Optimism, I felt like I needed to do learning and I have guests that are leaders and I ask every guest like, how do you do, what happens when you get hopeless and despairing? How do you cope with that? And I also ask them their struggles in the work that they do and also their successes and failures. And then I challenge them on their imagination and I asked them to imagine, you know, what would it be like if

Dr. Sandra Marie (55:23.596)
something like a new constitution happened, you know, how would that look like? You know, we're going through a passage as humanity in our country and globally. And a lot of people, including myself, are trying to make sense of it. So I try to offer what's called sense making, making sense of what's going on. And so that you can go, people are like reacting to all these like university campuses and all the protesting that's going on for the Palestinian liberation movement versus the

a Zionist movement and there's like all this tension. And so I think that revolutionary optimism and I think my job is really to help people like make sense of what's going on. And I'm really committed to peaceful resistance, peaceful nonviolence in the history of and the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Mahatma Gandhi and other leaders like that. It actually we now have data and evidence that shows that it's more effective.

at bringing a forward transformational change. As soon as violence comes in, the state can lock down on it. And it's those countermeasures like can kill a movement and can kill a revolution. Not all revolutions are successful. Martin Luther King was successful. He got major legislation through in the sixties and it wouldn't have happened without a massive peaceful nonviolent movement. And I think that's what we need now. I think it's happening and I'm a little

I want to offer myself up to deescalate. Let's focus on peaceful resistance. Also the police and military forces, inviting them to focus on peaceful responses. And I think both sides deescalating right now, we are going to have a peaceful revolution, but let's do it peacefully on both sides. love it. Thank you for that. Do you have any events coming up this summer? Yeah, there's some major events happening on June 12th. One of the

Partners of Unified Movement's Climate Defiance is having an event in Washington. They want to interrupt the Congressional baseball game. So they've invited people from all over the country to come and to let our congressional policy makers who make our policies or don't make our policies stop playing games with our future. And so there's an intent to interrupt the Congressional baseball game on June 12th and then June 13th, 14th and 15th.

Dr. Sandra Marie (57:47.512)
There's a massive mobilization on racial equity. There's an equity march and there's an equity festival here in Washington, but we're also inviting people around the country to mobilize on June 15th, which is in recognition of Juneteenth, the new federal holiday, which was the day when the last people in Texas found out about Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.

It's right around the fourth anniversary of when George Floyd was murdered and our racial equity work is unfinished. And we really believe that it's an opportunity to raise that up. And we have an agenda of action for achieving racial equity and healing the soul of America and our political leaders, the Biden administration and Congress have not implemented them yet. So we are intent on putting political pressure on our government for.

radical reparations and radical truth-telling so that we can heal the wounds of the past so that we can move on together as one people. Well, thank you for that, Paul. It sounds like you've got a lot going on and I think that your world's gonna get bigger and bigger. For listeners who want to connect with you, how would they do that and what might that look like? The best way is to go to revolutionaryoptimism.com and

get access all the support materials that we have. You can also contact me through my website, DrPaulZeitz. There's a direct pathway, it comes right into my inbox. Yeah, I'm also available to come speak and meet and learn, really. I feel like I'm gonna be on pilgrimage, where I'm listening and learning and transforming myself as part of this journey of revolutionary optimism. And I look forward to connecting with as many people as I can.

Well, I thank you. And I love that you're looking to promote peace, come from the heart, elevate consciousness, make a difference. All the different worlds, you've got your foot in all of these different worlds. I think we have to unify and it's go time. I really, this is our moment. This is our chance for humanity to create this other way or else it's going to be too late. So I'm having fun being in the game of that. And I welcome you and all your listeners to

Dr. Sandra Marie (01:00:07.298)
Do what you can, every action counts and it matters. I agree. Any other last thoughts that you want to leave with the listeners as we wind up here? I just want to thank you and it's go time. I agree with you. It is go time on multiple levels. So yeah, let's I'm all in. I want to thank you. I want to thank you for all you're doing. Absolutely. Thank you for all of this information and really.

a different way to look at things, know, stimulating people. To all our listeners out there, I want to thank each and every one of you for taking time out of your day to join Paul and I with this episode. Remember, embrace that wild soul. Thank you, Paul. Peace. Thank you. Peace.

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Wild Soul Gathering's Happy Hour for the Spiritually Curious. To learn more about our guests, please go to our website, WildSoulsGathering.com. We're very eager to hear from our listeners what you thought of the episode, topics you might like us to cover in the future, your thoughts on spirituality, questions you may have. Please feel free to send us an email at WildSoulsGathering.gmail.com.

This is your host, Dr. Sandra Marie, sending each of you peace and love. Until we meet again, embrace your wild soul.