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What if you could get more of what you want in life? But not through pushing, forcing, or pressure.
You can.
When it comes to money, time, and energy, no one’s gonna turn away more.
And Kate Northrup, Bestselling Author of Money: A Love Story and Do Less and host of Plenty, is here to help you expand your capacity to receive all of the best.
As a Money Empowerment OG who’s been at it for nearly 2 decades, Kate’s the abundance-oriented best friend you may not even know you’ve always needed.
Pull up a chair every week with top thought leaders, luminaries, and adventurers to learn how to have more abundance with ease.
I came to the place of being able to say, okay, this is her emotional response. I don't have to be I don't have to match it. You know, she slammed the doors repeatedly, yell at me. Right? There's all this energy coming out.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And, like, so you know, I'm doing similar behavior. Like Right. That's not a recipe for success.
Kate Northrup:Hi. I'm so excited to introduce you to today's guest. His name is doctor Brad Jacobs. And when I read about what he specializes in, when I watched his TED Talk, which we'll link in the show notes, I was like, I need to talk to this man about my daddy issues because he is an incredible precision medicine doctor. He has a really cool clinic in Sausalito, California called Blue Wave, and he is integrative and combines the best of western, eastern emotions, all sorts of things.
Kate Northrup:And he he did did this great TED Talk about toxic masculinity and really coming into balance as an integrated, emotionally, intelligent man. And so we got into so many questions about fathers and daughters, and then about men and women in marriage or long term partnership. And I was just really honest about some of my own hang ups with my dad, some of my own hang ups with my husband, and I kind of just like let Brad just stand in and
Dr. Brad Jacobs:help me out with some of those things.
Kate Northrup:So, he also talks a lot about longevity and health span and the way in which we have gone from having, you know, toxic masculinity to sometimes men over correcting and becoming what I referred to as floppy energetically, and and why neither of those states are actually helping you out as a man in terms of your health span. Now, knowing that the vast majority of our listeners are women, I framed my questions knowing that, knowing that it is likely that you will be passing along some of this wisdom to the men you love in your life. But if you are a man listening, welcome. I'm so happy you're here and I'm so excited for you to learn from the wise, loving, and wonderful doctor Brad Jacobs. Welcome to Plenty.
Kate Northrup:I'm your host Kate Northrup and together we are going on a journey to help you have an incredible relationship with money, time, and energy, and to have abundance on every possible level. Every week, we're gonna dive in with experts and insights to help you unlock a life of plenty. Let's go fill our cups.
[voiceover]:Please note that the opinions and perspectives of the guests on the Plenty podcast are not necessarily reflective of the opinions and perspectives of Kate Northrup or anyone who works within the Kate Northrup brand.
Kate Northrup:Hi. Welcome Thank you. To your home.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:It's great to be here and have you in our home.
Kate Northrup:Thank you for being on. I really appreciate it. So I wanna start off with what is precision medicine?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. Yeah. So there's lots of different people with lots of different definitions. But in my worldview, it's really bringing together the best of all of our technologies and also to bring in precision medicine with respect to traditional healing systems. So, you know, if you think about Chinese medicine, they put their hand on your wrists, check your pulse, they'll check your tongue, they check your abdomen even sometimes.
Kate Northrup:Mhmm.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And then they'll come up with a specific diagnosis for you. So it's really individualized care. And if you look at Western medicine technology, you can do genomic testing. We can do whole body MRI scans. So again, it's individualizing to you.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. And if you take a medication, how I receive that medication, how I metabolize it may be very different than how you metabolize it. Definitely.
Kate Northrup:For sure.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Now when you came up in your training, what was your original path Yeah. With your medical training?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. So my original medical training starts when I was eight years old. I started doing martial arts when I was eight. A friend of mine persuaded me. And I was like, alright.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And then he quit six months later, and I kept going. And that really brought me into the whole world of Chinese medicine.
Kate Northrup:Okay.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:So I didn't know I was gonna be a doctor, frankly, but I was fascinated by health flourishing through the lens of Chinese medicine and martial arts, which I've done all the way till now, fifty years I've done martial arts. And then I went into international health, which then brought me, gave me a view of all the different healing traditions of the world.
Kate Northrup:Okay.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And then went to medical school. And then I came in with the lens of there's multiple healing traditions out there, just many ways to view this. Health and medicine are about flourishing in addition to curing diseases. Mhmm. And I went to medical school to realize that people had a very different point of view.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Yeah. So you didn't so you went into medical school with a wider lens. Yeah. And then when you got there, you realized Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Not everyone does.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:I knew going in that I was in I was a salmon going upstream Yeah. And that people are focused on disease, food, organic matter, and drugs and surgery and procedures.
Kate Northrup:Did you do to bolster yourself in that environment given that from day one? Because I I speak with a lot of doctors who are like, oh, no. I was just like going along, and then much later, they had this awakening of, woah. There's so much more going on here, but it sounds like you went in with that. So how did you stay sane, resourced,
Dr. Brad Jacobs:and
Kate Northrup:all of that during such an intense training that didn't include your entire view?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. So I went in with the intention to change the medical
Kate Northrup:Okay.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:System. I said I was deciding between Chinese medicine school, acupuncture school from the background I had Mhmm. And medicine, conventional medicine. And I decided, okay, I'm gonna go through the medical system. I'm going into the belly of the beast.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Wow. And so I sort of brought that in, and then I trained or practiced my martial arts, like, every day. I mean, literally, I was in the hospital, the closed wings of the hospital at 3AM when I was on call practicing. And that kept me resilient and relatively sane.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Yeah. As sane as one could be in medical school.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Right.
Kate Northrup:What's your what is the martial art that you practice?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Kung Fu. So northern style Chinese
Kate Northrup:Uh-huh.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Martial arts. Amazing. So and I've done a range of different martial arts over the years, but that's the one that particularly as you get older, I'm doing more of the internal style. So tai chi, qigong, ba gua. Which are the internal style martial arts to keep the energy flowing through the system.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Mhmm. And, you know, I think of it as blockages that happen as we get older. Yeah. And people show up with shoulder pain and that's a blockage. Yeah.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Organ disease, liver problems.
Kate Northrup:Right.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And to keep that energy moving.
Kate Northrup:Speaking of energy
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Can you talk to me a little bit about your view of how our emotional lives and ways of thinking and ways of being in our lives and our relationships contribute to those energetic blockages in our shoulder or our gallbladder or wherever.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. Yeah. I think of breath as the really a beautiful barometer for how we're doing. And if you notice ourselves and others, people stop breathing. Like, they're shallow breathing or they get held up.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And, you know, we sit at the computer and our body position is closed. And we get folk our head is, you know, we're separated from our body. And then we noticed our breathing stops. And and when that happens, you can feel stuff build up and accumulate and not discharge. And I think, as we know, the world's turning faster and faster.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Right? There's more information going at a faster speed. Like Bob Johansson Johansson who runs Institute for the Future for the past forty years, he calls it VUCA, you know, v u c a, increasing volatility, uncertainty, chaos, ambiguity. He talked about it like a decade ago. And that's what's happening.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And so for us, how do we keep the system? I think of ourselves as like a sponge that we collect dirt. How do you get under the faucet and let it rinse through?
Kate Northrup:Right. So some of that dirt is chemicals. Some of that dirt is
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Information.
Kate Northrup:Information. The
Dr. Brad Jacobs:type of information we're reading.
Kate Northrup:Some of it's thoughts. Some of it's what we're eating. Some of it's whatever. Like, just general Yeah. Sludge.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:General sludge from all different dimensions.
Kate Northrup:From all different just sludge from all different dimensions. Totally. Ancestral sludge. Whatever it may be. Maybe past life sludge.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Maybe past life as well. Yeah. I think the emotional intensity of where we're at today is creating a really difficult time for us. And Yes. It is.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:We could talk about the fact that, you know, the soil has has been depleted by its nutrients and is filled with lots of toxins and glyphosate. Glyphosate. Yep. And the billions of pounds of glyphosate that's in the soil and all these things that are leading to mutations and poor resilience. But we can so yes.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yes. And more I think even more within our control, immediate control at an individual level is our own ability to manage our own emotions Yeah. And have agency over that. Yeah. I can't control how my partner behaves, but I can control how I react to how my partner Yes.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:You can.
Kate Northrup:And one of the things I know you think about a lot, specialize in, have done your own work around and research around and practice is looking at toxic masculinity and emotional intelligence and how maybe those traditional models that maybe you were raised with, certainly that I was raised with, my dad was raised with, just didn't model healthy behavior as men around feelings.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Right.
Kate Northrup:So you told a story in your TED talk about a way that that was showing up with your daughter. Do you mind sharing that and kind of like the before the before times?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. Yes.
Kate Northrup:When you were not not as emotionally aware maybe in that regard.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And frankly, yeah, the more sort of the part I'm even embarrassed about now, you know, feel shame around. It's like, have but owning that it's it's, you know, I did it. I do it. I have done it. And also, yes, it was taught to me.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:It was modeled. But there's ownership there too. I can't just outsource it. And when I when I was raised, I grew up doing martial arts and that's a very masculine
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Kung Fu is
Dr. Brad Jacobs:no joke. No joke. Right? So it's really focused on bravado Mhmm. Courage, straight talk.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Thankfully, there was humility in there as well, but there was really a lot of that classic old school masculinity. That combined with my father who was very beautiful human and also very dominating when he got upset. It was okay. It's like the light shut. There was no dimmer switch.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And so I brought that in to me as a model and so I would, you know, the first story frankly occurred when I was driving down the street and I had a road rage
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Incident. And someone was trying to cut off a whole bunch of people behind me. I said I'm gonna protect this situation and got in front of them. They started getting really upset with me, you know, egging me on, cussing at me. I got out of the car and said, come on out the car, let's do this, you know.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And, they didn't wanna get out of the car and ended up actually putting this guy in a choke hold Mhmm. To like stop him. And then he then calmed down. I calmed down. I went back in my car.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Three weeks later, I get a subpoena from the federal courts and I had to bias my first suit, get a proper haircut, hire an attorney. Wow. It turned out he confabulated the whole story and things were dropped but the intensity of that really shifted me. Mhmm. But then fast forward, it didn't stick, you know.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And when it came into my inner circle, my daughter, which I spoke about in the TED Talk, and she was to her credit, and she's going to become an attorney, she wants to be a social justice activist. To her credit is extremely smart, fierce, very articulate, and has her own opinions. And so Yeah. When I said no, it's gotta be this way, she'd say no, go left, no, I'm going right. And I wouldn't tolerate it.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And so I started really having exaggerated responses to the things, Right? Like speak of, know, the punishment far exceeded the crime. Mhmm. And so I take her phone away for a month, you know. I would raise my voice and ultimately, her mother called me out and said, you know, you've got some anger issues here.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Like, you've gotta manage this, which I didn't really see. And then my own daughter started speaking into it. And that really Mhmm. You know, there's a lot of shame around that Yeah. To really speak into.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And what I realized was I was feeling emasculated. You're right. Because I couldn't control my daughter.
Kate Northrup:Right. So you were amplifying the response.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. And at first, when they gave you that feedback, were you open to it? Were you defensive?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Heck no. What was the response like? It's all your fault. Right? It's never my fault.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Right. I was very shut down about it and didn't really wanna own it at all. Because a, I didn't view myself that way. God forbid, I act that way. Really?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:That's not me. Right? I'm a kind, nice person. Right. So then to really see it and have my daughter actually show it back up and put the mirror back up.
Kate Northrup:How old was she when she was giving you that feedback?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. She's she's about she was 12, 13.
Kate Northrup:Okay.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Pretty young. Yeah. But the you know, but a
Kate Northrup:mixture fiery time Yeah. To that transition, 11, 12 year old girls are so powerful.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. Super powerful. And she remains powerful. To her credit, it's it's beautiful to witness. She's 19 now.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:It but when she showed it up and and then I said, listen, I'm gonna do better. Mhmm. And she was like rolled her eyes in disbelief. And and then I would, you know, I thought I was doing better and she kept saying, rolling her eyes, rolling her eyes. Wow.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:But I really made conscious change. And I came to the place of being able to say, okay, this is her emotional response. Mhmm. I don't have to be I don't have to match it. You know, she slammed the doors repeatedly, yell at me, right?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:There's all this energy coming out. And like, you know, I'm doing similar behavior like Right. That's not a recipe for success.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. With anyone, but especially with a child.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Even a very mature child.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. Yeah. So I started being able to hold the space Mhmm. And let her do what she needs to do. And this new aspect of, okay, I'm gonna actually hold the line Yeah.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:But not necessarily react.
Kate Northrup:Right.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:I'm gonna hold the line, but let her do what she needs to do. Mhmm. It was a really new experience for me. Yeah. And beautiful, actually.
Kate Northrup:And so beautiful. And like, you know, kids and I think just the feminine in general whether, you know, craves a boundary.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And
Kate Northrup:that feeling of like, I know when my husband holds the line with me and also does not join me in my chaos, it's annoying, but I also love it. It makes me feel so safe and relaxed. It's the best. So what did it feel like inside you as you made that transition from reaction, know, accelerating reaction, that's not quite the word I'm looking for, but
Dr. Brad Jacobs:That reactivity.
Kate Northrup:Yeah, reactivity. Yeah. Escalation is the word I was looking for. To then holding still a boundary, but creating a container of safety. What did it feel like inside your body to do the second part?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:So it's a great question. I felt expansion. Like abundance and expansion rather than constriction. Yeah. You know?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:As like as when I escalating, it's like it's the mode of fight or flight or freeze or fawn. And that mode is, you know, you get locked. You energetically get locked, you get narrow, you get narrow viewed, your heartbreakers up, you get sweaty Right. Your jaw clenches, all that stuff that shows up unconsciously and that's not what was showing up anymore. It was this moment of almost like, oh, can sit back, I can allow this to happen.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Mhmm. I can watch it, I can witness it, I can observe it and not be in it. Right. You know, not be in the in in the mud with her. And this sense of expansion and sort of fullness, which was really different.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Amazing. And it changes you know, you become the as a parent, you become the thermostat in that environment as opposed to the thermometer. Yeah. Right?
Kate Northrup:Like, just reading her energy, then you become the thermostat. She gets to meet you there
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Which is such a gift, and I think really a gift of parenting in general, but, like, also the masculine, because actually mothering tends to feel pretty masculine to me as well just because it's, like, holding the container. Right. Being the executive function for my children. Right?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Okay. So I had an experience where my dad, who is a wonderful man, but we've, like, had our journey, he and because you talk about this invitation to have kind of a 360 review and actually ask for for feedback from the people who love you, like honest feedback, and what a courageous invitation. And so he had made a statement, like, if there's anything that you ever wanna talk to me about, or that I could do to make our relationship better, like, please let me know. And I found myself, I think because of history, because of whatever, I found myself not feeling like I actually was able to do that. And so I'm wondering for most of our listeners are women.
Kate Northrup:They may have a man in their life who they would wanna give that feedback to, but they don't feel like that's actually either he hasn't invited it, or they feel like maybe it won't be met with. Like it feels scary, I'll just be honest, it feels scary. What would you advise as a man who has received that and actually had a pretty profound transformation? Like, what do you think?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. Well, I have two comments on that. One is, in my experience, I've offered that to my daughter, and I don't get anything back either. Okay.
Kate Northrup:So it's not just me.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:So it's definitely I not just was like, it's probably mostly your audience as well. Yeah. And I'm like so disappointed and and
Kate Northrup:I was so touched by the offer. Yeah. It was really beautiful.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. Yeah. So, then I've played with trying to offer up suggestions in real time. Like a multiple choice. Yeah.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And that sometimes actually works and a lot of times it gets shut down. And then the other is I offer up mine back to her like, let me give you some feedback. Yeah. Because I'm hoping that'll fire up the engine Yeah. And get her a little feisty that then she'll offer me some
Kate Northrup:Okay. Some juice. That's kind of fun. Has that worked? Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Okay.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. I you know, I have to do is they're softballs, like, they're super, Yes. Like
Kate Northrup:Right. And it's done in total.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:It's sort of a bit of modeling, and like I'm I mean it. Let's let's go here. Mhmm. So I feel like that so It's great. If I could reach out to your dad, I would tell him to do that.
Kate Northrup:Okay. That's great. No. I mean, I think it's a really brave thing, especially in family systems where just telling the truth in real time has not been the norm. It really requires tremendous courage, and I think building up layers of internal safety first for whoever's gonna be the brave one to break the pattern.
Kate Northrup:And so I am curious for you, how, you know, you talked about the feeling of, oh, it felt abundant, it felt really spacious, but what did it take for you in terms of practices to build up your ability to not go into reactivity and a sympathetic dominant response where you were in fight with your daughter?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. Thank you for asking that. That's that's yeah. The step in between Right.
Kate Northrup:Was a
Dr. Brad Jacobs:hard one was I had to practice I had to go in with this in my mind which was if it gets too heated, I needed and actually I would talk about it in advance with Gabrielle. If we get in a firestorm again, I'm gonna ask for a break. I'm gonna ask to step away. Don't I still love you.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:But I need the break. Yeah. You know, something you've done. Yep. Although you probably did fire me up.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:But I'm gonna I'm gonna I need a break. I need a pause. I need a time out. And so that's what I would do. Because I wasn't able to manage it in real time a lot at the So I had to take a break.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:So I would say, I'm gonna go for a walk. I'm gonna come back and let's retalk.
Kate Northrup:And is that what you would do? Would take a break and walk?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. I'd go for a walk. I'd go another part of the room, the the house. Yeah. I'd just separate the time and distance Mhmm.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Time and space. Yeah. That separation is what I needed to then recalibrate. Mhmm. You know, jump and scream outside somewhere Yeah.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Or more likely, like, do some stretching and breathing and is actually what I would do. Yeah. And then come back in and maybe, okay, let's do this after dinner. Like, we need three hours. Yeah.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Not necessarily always in five minutes. And often it would take her longer. So I'd be ready because I'm older. I've done my whole life. I've practiced this thing.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. It would take her maybe another day. So but I said, listen. We need to talk about it. Mhmm.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:We need to come back to this. So let's make a commitment. We'll do that. So that we have to set I'll say all those ground rules in advance because there's no rational discussion in the heat of it.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Absolutely. And and so what I'm hearing you say is you would take a break, and you would do actual physiological things to metabolize the stress that your body was experiencing. Yes. And I think a lot of the mistakes that people the the biggest mistake that many people make, and I'm curious your thoughts on this, is that they think that the move is to talk themselves down and use their mind to change their response.
Kate Northrup:And my experience is we cannot talk our bodies out of the way they feel. So
Dr. Brad Jacobs:That's right.
Kate Northrup:Do you have any like more clinical scientific doctor evidence around that that
Dr. Brad Jacobs:you could So we know when we get agitated, whatever form that shows up in each of us, that our heart rate goes up, our right? Our sympathetic drive goes fully on. Our parasympathetic drive goes turns off. And so and then those moments, we know our rational thinking goes down. Yeah.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Our reactivity goes up, and we're acting on impulses. Mhmm. And so we're quick to respond. So the rational mind doesn't won't win. And what I call it top down versus bottom up.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Mhmm. So the top down doesn't work. You can't just it's trying to control a wild animal. Like, how are you gonna do that?
Kate Northrup:Right. But you're not gonna tell a gorilla that's angry like Yeah.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:You're not gonna wrestle him to the ground. Yeah. So, you needed so instead though, if you like all of a sudden change the terrain around the gorilla, you put beautiful gorillas around the gorilla, you have beautiful fauna and, you know, luscious bananas and a nice stream, they're gonna start regulating. And so that's your point, that's what you got one has to go do. So that's what I would do.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:I'd go out into nature. Yeah. I would start doing some breathing. I like doing yoga. I listen to music.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:There's so many ways to do it. Pick up the guitar, whatever it is that soothes me I know soothes me from a bottom up and bring that in from the bottom up.
Kate Northrup:How important is it to actually let that full emotion of anger or sadness or frustration or whatever it is that we're feeling that we do want to soothe, but how important is it to actually let ourselves stay with the emotional experience as well?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. Such good questions. Yeah. So I think the soothing is, important because people get out of control and they do things that they regret. Totally.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:So so if you're in that world, which we've all been at one point or another, we send the email we regret, you know?
Kate Northrup:That I'm that one. That one.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Right? I will It's like, stand up and walk away. I'm like, what?
Kate Northrup:My husband's like, babe, step away
Dr. Brad Jacobs:from the computer. So you know what I do? Someone taught me this, so I love it, which is I send the email to myself. So I start with sending it to myself. So the name sometimes you hit it by mistake, you know.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yes. Then you hit the send button, you get that feeling it's going right back to yourself. That's really smart. I'm gonna draft. I'm gonna
Kate Northrup:do that next time. Thank you.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:So but you're right. The other parts, what I call is mindfulness. So being noticing it, which is not distraction method, which you could argue that's a distraction method, you're gonna go calm yourself down. Mhmm. But to learn I think that's the next level though.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:So first is to learn to regulate.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Then the second level is then, and you can sometimes do them simultaneously, is to notice. Mhmm. And that requires you to be able to be separate from your thoughts and feelings so that you go to your larger self, the big ass larger self, your divine self, your sort of innate being, and be able to watch your thoughts. Yeah. Watch your emotions separate from yourself.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And in that moment, then you're the witness and so you're no longer attached. And that's a beautiful thing to be able to be. And often it's great to not be continued to be triggered while that's happening. So step away is important. And to your point, to be able to reflect and be to drop into that and notice it is a beautiful place to be.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Mhmm. And then you can notice, oh, this is actually a room. Because often, what's happening in the real moment is a reflection of what's happened in the past. Yes. It's an amplification of something that resonates from the past.
Kate Northrup:And I was gonna ask you, how important do you think it is for us to know the content of the past thing in order to heal in the present moment and and maybe interrupt those unconscious patterns. Yeah. Do you think the content matters?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:I do at the level of not at the analytical level Okay. Personally. So I've trained in something called Hakomi psychotherapy. And in in Hakomi, we sort of bring in what was the concept of a missing experience. So maybe as a child, I was not recognized, you know, that I'll tell you.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:So in my childhood Okay. There was a lot of drama in my parents and so I was the one always trying to calm things down. Got it. So I would wanna try and make everyone happy.
Kate Northrup:Mhmm.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:I was the pleaser. And so there's a missing experience there which is a, you you can be loved for just who you are. You don't have to do anything. Right. You can be loved for who are, which I'm still working on.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And, so if I know that general experience and to be able to then see, oh, I'm feeling I'm not being seen, I'm feeling I have to show off here because I'm not so that they love me, I have to please them so that they love me. I think in that point, that's how it matters, but not so much the exact mechanism
Kate Northrup:Great.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:By which it happened.
Kate Northrup:Okay. Cool. Yeah. I think there's something freeing about that because as someone who's been in and out of therapy in a variety of formats, you know, for many, many years, Sometimes the, like, thinking about it and talking about it, I'm like, bleh. Like, I've told this story.
Kate Northrup:I've thought about this story. You know, and and and there can be a cool experience of digesting it and moving on from the story, and I love how you're bringing in this piece of providing that missing experience. Can you tell me more about Hakomi?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Hakomi. Yeah. A k o m I.
Kate Northrup:Okay.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Hakomi Hakomi Institute. So it was created in, the late seventies by a guy named Ron Kurz, and it's a Hopi word. It was take used or taken by approval from the Mhmm. That, lineage. And what it means is standing in multiple realms.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:So so really being able to witness yourself and your evolution of yourself. And it's an assisted self study. So it's a self study, you know, that we do for ourself, but it's assisted. So I'm here as a therapist. And what I love about it is it's not talk therapy.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. It allows us to be like, okay, you come in, you're downloading your story, and then we have a theme. You know, I got an argument with my husband today and about the kids because he's always more lenient. And then we say, great. Let's just drop in and be mindful.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Close your eyes. Use your breath. Just notice in your body where that's showing up. So it's a somatic best base, somatic based mindfulness oriented psychotherapy. And you might say, what's in my throat?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. You know, there's a tension in my throat. And from that, it might be the quality of that. And next thing you know, it might show up as an old memory. Right.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:When I was a kid, I always tried to speak at the dinner table and I was shut down by my siblings or whatever the story might be. And so there's the amplification. Yeah. Like, and you didn't even realize it consciously. That's the beautiful stuff for me because it turns off the thinking brain, which is thought about a Yeah.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Thousand times and has told the story to yourself a thousand times.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Maybe even sort of changed the story somewhere along. Like, who even knows what happened?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And exactly. And also, puts that rut in your brain even more and more, so it's more fixed. I think it reinforces the story.
Kate Northrup:It does. I mean, I think we have the data to prove that like those neural patterns get myelinated, and then we're like just like thickening and deepening and Right. Okay. So what are some of your favorite ways to do that transformation work to pop us out of those old patterns? Because it can really feel insurmountable sometimes when it's like, I've been this way for decades, and maybe a lot of folks don't have examples of people doing transformation work in their immediate family, certainly, and sometimes not in their communities.
Kate Northrup:There's so much like, well, this just is the way it is. I just am the way
Dr. Brad Jacobs:I am. That's Which
Kate Northrup:you and I both know is completely not true, but it feels that way.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:It does.
Kate Northrup:And so I know you said you like to work with peak experiences to create somewhat dramatic change, and I'd love to hear more about that.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Transformation's hard. Inertia is Maybe maybe that's the title of this episode. Transformation's hard. I think there's it's a it's so much of our life is a perspective. I feel like so much of how we walk through the world is held in perspective because when you hold another perspective on it, you have a completely different point of view and you never saw it that way.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And then someone shows it to you, you're like, oh my god. And it's like those paintings that you can look at, and they're all of a sudden, it's a it's a woman one direction, and it's a, you know, dinosaur another direction. Totally. What? And once you see it, you can flip back and forth, and and all of a sudden, you realize, wow, how much of my life is illusion.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Right? And so I do find that peak experience, which I define as really the ability to get out of the forest and be above the forest, to be out of the trees and above looking down at the forest to get perspective. That's a peak experience. And people do it all sorts sorts of ways. You can be extreme and go water fasting for a month or on a hunger strike, or you could go in the wilderness for weeks at a time.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:You can go to a monastery or participate in a church or whatever it might be. And people do psychedelic medicine as well. So there's there's different rituals. There's different ways to get there. Hakomi is a way that we talked about psychotherapy is a way to use the non cognitive mind to start to see things and to see these underlying threads of what I describe as like you're in the ocean and there's a kelp.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:There's 18 different kelp heads bobbing in the water. And they're actually tied to four different kelp bottoms down below. Right? So and if you can get to the bottoms, you can do some big change.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And that's the goal. And that often requires perspective. You're on the surface, and all of a sudden you realize, oh, actually there's life below the surface of the ocean. Yeah. So using peak experience as a vehicle for transformation, one is to be able to think that it's possible.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And I think there's an initiation phase. I think of it as four parts. There's initiation, there's the actual peak experience, there's the insights you get, and then there's the habituation, to actually make it real in your life. Yeah. So the first part is this initiation, which requires some prep and I feel like requires really looking at your health and noticing all the things we talked about earlier.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:So what is my microbiome like? What is my daily practice of self care like? Do I have mold and Lyme, chronic Lyme disease? Do I have other problems in my system? Do I have food intolerances?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:How is my sleep? How can we get those all clear so that we can prepare ourselves to be more resilient, have more energy? So that's step one. Great. Step two, we talk about different peaks experience.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Different peak experiences could be psychedelic medicine, it could be prayer, it could be you and I are gonna do a one month cleanse, and we're gonna dry January. Mhmm. Right? Gluten free, no alcohol. And then ideally, we get then some insights.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:What unfortunately happens particularly with psychedelic medicine, people that use it in a way that's even with intention and ritual behind it, is they have these amazing insights and then they fade. And there's this neuroplasticity that happens that can last one day to thirty days where you're remapping the mind, and these new neural connections actually create new permanent connections. Yeah. We talked about sort of those old patterns. We can create new patterns.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And then we can see, oh my god. There is a different lens. And then then the question is how do you actually make it long lasting? How do you actually make it part of your new world order?
Kate Northrup:How do you?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. So like you said, unique community. Yeah. So, you know, there's lots of data showing that if you live with if your community friends are all thin people, you're more likely to become more thin. If they're with people that are overweight, people that smoke, people that drink, you do what your community does.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:So part of the challenge is how do you create new community? And does that mean I have to give up my friends or the friends that will do some of this with you? Yeah. So community's a big piece. I think doing having someone that's even a sponsor, a single person that's a sponsor is really helpful.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Journaling is really helpful. Setting goals and making them public, really helpful. And then setting yourself up like, okay, I know I'm gonna fall down. Like the old there's a Chinese proverb, I may fall down seven times but I stand up eight. So I know I'm gonna fall down and when I do, I'm gonna do this.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Or when I achieve this milestone, I've lost 10 pounds. When hit when they lose 10 pounds, I'm gonna treat myself to a massage, you know? Things like that really can support that.
Kate Northrup:Mhmm. Amazing. And what about like, my communities and folks, you know, I've been around this world for a very long time, and what I have found is less of like, oh, I'm not gonna do the transformational work and more and, of course, I see this pattern in myself as well, which is why I'm mentioning it, more of like, I'll do this thing, then I'll do this thing, and you and I share the joy of being an Enneagram seven, and then I'll do this thing, and then I'll do this thing, and then I'll do this thing. And so it's like one peak experience to the next, and I see that sometimes in the psychedelic world, sometimes in the all sorts of things. It becomes less available having young children, which has actually been so good for my transformation and healing.
Kate Northrup:It's just like, no, just gotta stay here and
Dr. Brad Jacobs:wash the dishes. That's right. But
Kate Northrup:what do you think about that, and how can we can we essentially find that majesty and those peak experiences also in the mundane in between? Mhmm.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:So there's a lot in that question. So for all the sevens out there like us, the practice of saying no, You know? Yeah. And the way I learned this is if it's not a resounding yes, it's a no. Yeah.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And that's that's been good for me. Yeah. Because there's so much like, yeah, that sounds good. Like, everything sounds good. Everything sounds And that's maybe, which will become a yes.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:I'm like, hard maybe. So that was been helpful.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. That's so
Dr. Brad Jacobs:To your point of like being not having choice, like when you have young kids, you have no choice. You don't have the time. Yeah. And so the other piece is back to accountability. Like, if you have someone to do it with that will hold you accountable Yeah.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Even if they're not doing it, I think really matters a lot. And then I'm a big fan of journaling. So if you come up with like, these are the goals I'm gonna do and this may sound like too long term, but at the New Year, every year, I write down the top five things that I'm hoping for that year. And I have to admit, so meditation and playing guitar had been on there for like a decade. Yeah.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:You know? I do my martial arts, I do my yoga, sitting meditation, hard for me. Moving meditation, yoga martial arts, I'm all in. Yeah. And just seeing that enough times you finally make make the shift.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:So I would say, and then back to your point, the shiny object, is to really try and find one thing that you're gonna stick with for the month and give yourself a timeline.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Right. It's that's so straightforward. It's so simple. What's your thing right now?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. Great question. My thing right now is getting up early
Kate Northrup:Okay.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:To actually exercise.
Kate Northrup:Great. First thing.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:First thing.
Kate Northrup:And how what what is early for you?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:For me, early is 06:30.
Kate Northrup:Okay. Yeah. Early is 06:30.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Because I prefer to,
Kate Northrup:like Which is right at sunrise right now in these days. Absolutely Yeah. Stunning.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:I mean, what a reward
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:For getting up at that time.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. And I know that, I think I it was actually, I think Mel Robbins recently was talking about that. She was walking, she's like, I know I don't like this, but I'm so glad that I'm finally here. Yeah. And that's the truth.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And and I for me, it's about you you gotta decide in advance. It's like we're talking about when you're in this feisty emotional dynamic, you have to make a decision before you walk in Mhmm. How you're gonna behave. Mhmm. If you're an alcoholic and you you have to decide you're not drinking today before you walk anywhere near anyone that has a cocktail or you're gonna drink.
Kate Northrup:And you kinda gotta decide in the morning because by the end of the day, you've lost all your decision power
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Right. For the most part. So you gotta and I say you gotta decide the night before.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Smart.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:So like, lay out
Kate Northrup:your workout decide like at 06:30AM I getting up Right. Better or
Dr. Brad Jacobs:So the alarm gets up, you have no choice.
Kate Northrup:That's it. Okay. Circling back to masculinity. Something I've noticed is that there are men who are doing amazing work on their emotional landscapes and healing, and it's like such beautiful work. And then there can be a tendency to then get floppy energetically.
Kate Northrup:Energetically, I don't know if you know what I'm talking about, and it's something I've talked about with my girlfriends a lot where it's like and, you know, excuse me if I'm oversimplifying and using stereotypes, but there is like this, like, you know, as women, we want men who are really in a strong masculine, like when I said about holding that boundary and being like, I'm not joining you in your drama. I'll be over here loving you from over here. Right? Versus like there can be almost a collapse of like an overcorrection. Do you see that?
Kate Northrup:What do you think that's about, and how can, again, mostly mostly women are listening to this, but like how can we support our men if we are partnered with them, or if we're raising them, or just our dads, or our brothers, whoever, how can we best support them? And there's a second part of this question, which is not really the same question, but I'm gonna ask it, and I'll trust you to go with it, which is that my husband Mike is like, you want me to be vulnerable, and you want me to be in, you know, tell me how you feel, I feel, not tell me how you feel, but then when I do, it freaks you out, and it makes you feel unsafe. And I'm like, shit. That's true. So I just threw a lot at you, but I just kinda wanna know what do you think?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. It's a messy It's messy. Beautiful swamp. Yeah. You know, I think, so I've lived this.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:So the part that part two of the story of so toxic masculinity, there I am trying to control what's not controllable. Yeah. Part two is, okay. Let me turn that particularly after the road rage story. Yeah.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:I was like, okay. I'm going to be a caring, soft, accommodating person. Right. And I married a woman, and we were married for twenty years, and I played in that role.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Accommodating.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. I will say, like, she may not have viewed it that way, but I ended up, which is part of the interesting match that I chose, and I ended up, you know, okay. Sure. Okay. Yes.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:I have very few preferences. I'm happy. Because the truth is, and it's true, you put me in any situation, I'm happy. I'll be happy. I lived in Africa for a year.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Put me anywhere. I'm good. And it's part of how I was raised. Right? I'll please.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Totally. And so so that floppy guy, that was me. And I would just not really stand up and speak my truth and be authentic. And I'd be emotionally wide open, but not really speak my truth, I'm emotionally available for you to be there and let you cry on my shoulder. I may be soft and floppy while you're crying on my shoulder, but and then I reached a point where I realized I'm getting older and this is not the life I wanna be living.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:I like I've lost my way. Yeah. And so that required me to enter part three of my life, which really is about both. How can you hold both? Yes.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:How can I be emotionally available and vulnerable and also be strong? Which is exactly what you're talking about that you do with with your husband. And and it's not always clean No. But it allows us for this beautiful polarity where you can it allows your feminine to really shine and his masculine to really show up. Yeah.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Because you you're both embodying both parts, But, you know, I can sit in my masculine and my strength. I can be authentic. I can voice my truth. You may not love it. Right.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And I'm here to hear that out also, and it's not gonna be fun necessarily. Right. But I'm here for that. And it's a beautiful balance where you can be resilient, authentic, emotionally available Mhmm. And strong.
Kate Northrup:Something that comes up for a lot of women in our community is what if I'm married to a man who really isn't into personal growth work, who doesn't really have a spiritual life, who's because the work that I lead is it goes deep, you know? On the outside, it's about money, but like ultimately, it's really not about money.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Right. And
Kate Northrup:we're going really deep around some stuff. And so women are like, I really wanna do this. I wanna lean into this. But what do I do if my partner's not on board? Yeah.
Kate Northrup:And I just I don't know what to tell them. Yeah. Because I'm, like, married to somebody who's totally on board. Yeah. Not a 100% of the time, which is healthy and normal and sexy, actually, but, like, what do you say in that situation?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Well, first of all, money is all about emotion. Right?
Kate Northrup:A 100%.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:We attribute, like, can you afford the house? Well, I mean, at one level, it's a no. But another level, it's what's emotionally what's important to you?
Kate Northrup:Exactly.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:What is important to you? Yeah. Can you buy those rings, you know, that with jewelry? What's important to you? It's so yes.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:So I think for three things to think about when talking to men that are shut down, emotionally shut down Yeah. Is one is they don't feel safe. Mhmm. And they're wrapped around shame. Mhmm.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:So there's you know, because they've been shamed. Yes. They're at some point in their life, they were emotionally available, and they're ashamed for it.
Kate Northrup:Totally. Because no little boy is not emotionally available. Tiny little boys are just right there.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Right. But at one point, you're made fun of when you're crying.
Kate Northrup:I know. So brutal.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. So to be able to feel safe and, you know, what I hear from my partner is, you know, I wanna love all you including the dark spots, including some of the broken pieces. Like, I'm here for all of it. Mhmm. And that for a guy, it's like, well, at one point, most guys were like, dude, whatever.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:What are you talking about? But the truth is if you're willing to go there Yeah. You know that there's some truth to what they're saying. So that would be that's great. The second is actually showing up and being present, which is really hard for us in this day and age to actually be present because we're multitasking.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:We're managing the kitchen, the kids, whatever's coming in The
Kate Northrup:money, the career.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:So that's the second. And the third is date night. I feel like, you know, having a date night, planning once a week date night if you can do that, really is a time where you can have quality conversation where the guard will come down. Do you have
Kate Northrup:any suggestions for, great questions to bring that out when if folks are feeling like they're out, right? They got a babysitter, no kids, right? But it's still like surface. What are some of your favorite questions to get in there and go deeper, even in a relationship that's like so beautiful and also relatively new, and I'm sure you're going below the surface all the time. But Mhmm.
Kate Northrup:You seem like a guy who asks good good questions.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. On a good day. The, well, first, I have to tout a friend's book. It's called eight dates
Kate Northrup:Oh. Great.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:By the Gottmans and Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Abrams I've heard of the Gottman Institute.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. So Doug and Rachel Abrams did it with Gottmans Great. Called eight dates. Super digestible.
Kate Northrup:Oh, I love that.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And you go on eight dates and each one's a different topic. Cool. That's a great one. And I think starting like with some softballs is great, right, which is, you know, what is the what are the highlights of your week? Yeah.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:What are the things that were sort of, like, super exciting for you? And then the second one is, what were the toughest parts of your week? Mhmm. I think that provides a little bit of a window because it forces the guy to to acknowledge that there may have been some things that weren't so great. Yeah.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:So that's that's, I would say, starting there.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Those are great.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Super doable.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:I think the next level is really about sometimes you can get into it around planning. So, you know Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Totally. Yeah. Right. So You can bring logistics to date night.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Right. So and I think you wanna avoid that. Totally. But you can go into more like larger view of like, what do we wanna do this year?
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Like big picture. Yeah. More Yeah. Dreaming.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Dreaming, I find very sexy, obviously, as a seven.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Exactly. Like, let's vision all day long.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Amazing.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And then then the follow-up to that again is similar was, okay, so what are some of the challenges that may show up for us in doing this? That might show up for you in doing this?
Kate Northrup:That's great.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And so it'll allow the guy to start to tap into some it provides the opportunity for them. And maybe the woman who can see some of the things that the guy's not saying Yeah. Which often happens Yeah. Can throw something up like, oh, what about this? Might this become an obstacle for us even though it's really about them?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Know? Subtle. Subtle. Yeah. I love We miss stuff all the time, thus guys.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:We're very primal. That's so good. It's very limited, but we can understand.
Kate Northrup:But I think that that's so helpful, and I think sometimes that, you know, because I'm seeing 35,000,000 different layers of reality at all times, and my husband is a, a super direct man, and then also he's just more straightforward, right? So out of all the straightforward people, he's also extra direct, and so I find it very relaxing to remember that he's not thinking about 35 layers of reality at all times, and he's actually just really there. It's lovely. Yeah. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. So it's like what a benefit.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. And we don't have the multidimensional perceptive organs in our body. Like, we can't see all the fidelity that women see. Vast majority of men at least. We're we're sort of we can handle three or four channels at a time, and women frankly can handle like 30 at a And that's a beautiful thing, and it creates chaos all
Kate Northrup:the It same really does. I it's yes. I know. It's really a lot.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. So sometimes the guys need to be directly served up the ball in front of their lens, and they're like, oh, I didn't even see that. Yes. Thank you so much.
Kate Northrup:Right. And to not make it a thing, to not be like, oh, that means he's not perceptive, or he's not listening to me, this that and the other. It's like, no. Yeah. No.
Kate Northrup:That's probably not happening if you have a wonderful, loving partner.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:That's right.
Kate Northrup:This has been great. Thank you for coming
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:To your house It's on my show. I just love getting to know you.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. I really appreciate our conversation.
Kate Northrup:And so if people wanna learn more, connect with you, learn more about your precision medicine work Yeah. Learn more about your Hakomi. Hakomi? Yeah. And and all the things you're doing with longevity and masculinity, all of it.
Kate Northrup:Where where can
Dr. Brad Jacobs:these go? Yeah. Come to Instagram. Great. I've got a presence on Instagram.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:And, also, there's some protocols on my website if they're interested, which is, doctorbradjacobs.com about behavior change we talked about Love it. Health health span protocols that Sarah and I did together Cool. And six pillars healthy living assessment. So all that's available. So
Kate Northrup:yeah. And is it doctor Brad Jacobs m d or not no. On Instagram?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:It's Doctor Brad Jacobs. It's Brad Jacobs m d.
Kate Northrup:On Instagram. On Instagram. But your website is doctor Brad Jacobs?
Dr. Brad Jacobs:That's right.
Kate Northrup:Okay. Got it. Thank you. We'll put it all in the show notes.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. It's great.
Kate Northrup:Thank you.
Dr. Brad Jacobs:Yeah. Thanks for asking. It's great great conversations.
Kate Northrup:Subscribe, leave a rating, leave a review. That's one of the best ways that you can ensure to spread the abundance of plenty with others. You can even text it to a friend and tell them to listen in. And if you want even more support to expand your abundance, head over to katenorthrup.com/breakthroughs where you can grab my free money breakthrough guide that details the biggest money breakthroughs from some of the top earning women I know, plus a mini lesson accompanying it with my own biggest money breakthroughs and a nervous system healing tool for you to expand your abundance. Again, that's over at katenorthward.com/breakthroughs.
Kate Northrup:See you next time.