Psychotherapist Barry Michels on Facing Mortality with an Open Heart
[0:00]Welcome to Totally Booked.
[0:02]I'm Zibi Owens.
[0:03]I've interviewed more than 2,000 authors on this show and learned endless amounts about
[0:09]storytelling, reinvention and life itself because when you talk about books, you're really
[0:13]talking about life.
[0:14]So get ready to hear from today's best authors, the best-selling and the not yet discovered.
[0:20]Come find your next great read and the story behind it.
[0:24]Enjoy!
[0:26]Oh my gosh, Barry, Michael's book, Head of All Parting on Learning to Live with an Open
[0:31]Heart.
[0:32]Wow, this was a grippier heart kind of a book.
[0:35]It was really beautiful.
[0:37]Barry Michael's is living with Louis Baddie Dementia and has written a really inspiring, beautiful
[0:44]book about life, about him, about disease, about relationships.
[0:49]Wow, here's more about him.
[0:51]Barry Michael's is a psychotherapist, writer and lecturer.
[0:54]With Phil Stutz, he co-authored The New York Times Bestseller The Tools and its
[0:58]Equal Coming Alive.
[0:59]He has published numerous articles in psychology today, in salon and on his sub-stack, and
[1:04]has lead workshops and given lectures at the In-Goup Health Summits, the Omega Institute
[1:09]talks at Google and the 92nd Street Y.
[1:12]He is a graduate of Harvard College, the University of California Berkeley School of Law,
[1:16]and the University of Southern California School of Social Work.
[1:19]He maintains a clinical practice in Los Angeles.
[1:23]I really hope you enjoy listening to him and I encourage you to read his book.
[1:27]Welcome, Barry.
[1:28]Thank you so much for coming on Totally Butte to talk about a head of all parting on Learning
[1:32]to Live with an Open Heart.
[1:34]Thank you so much for having me.
[1:36]Appreciate it.
[1:37]Oh, I was just saying, I feel like I know you.
[1:40]This is such an open, raw, beautiful meditation on life and family and friendship and the
[1:50]things that we need the tools as you coin to help us get through anything.
[1:56]And it's just such a gift that you've shared from such a vulnerable place.
[2:00]So thank you for that.
[2:01]Thank you.
[2:02]Thank you.
[2:03]I appreciate it.
[2:04]It wasn't always easy to be as open as I was, but I think it turned out really good.
[2:08]I was good for me.
[2:10]It was a really good exercise.
[2:12]Why don't you share with listeners a little bit about your diagnosis, where this trip
[2:16]came about, where it came from, and we'll go from there.
[2:21]Yeah.
[2:21]I mean, God, there's so much that went into it, but I've been a therapist for 40 years.
[2:27]I practice with a technique that was invented by my mentor Phil Stutz.
[2:32]And he and I wrote two books together called The Tools and Coming Alive.
[2:37]In my life was going along quite swimmingly until 2023 when I started to develop some strange
[2:43]symptoms.
[2:45]And they were finally got serious enough that I went to a neuropsychologist and had it
[2:49]evaluated and I had a disease called Louis Buddy Dementia.
[2:54]Now I had history with Louis Buddy Dementia because my father died of it.
[3:00]And so I knew the kind of wreckage that I was in for, you know, in advance.
[3:06]You know, gradually lose a lot of your functioning.
[3:10]It's very difficult to remember things.
[3:12]I mean, at this point, my memory is still pretty good.
[3:14]I can still practice.
[3:16]But eventually, you end up losing your entire identity.
[3:19]I mean, by the end, my father had no idea who he was or where he was.
[3:24]It's a devastating, shattering kind of disease.
[3:28]So and yet there were some silver linings that might not sound like silver linings to
[3:34]want it to your listeners.
[3:36]But for example, one thing that happened to me as soon as I was diagnosed was that never
[3:42]having written a stick of poetry my entire life, I just started writing poems.
[3:46]Like a poem a day.
[3:48]And I'm not saying they were all great, but some of them were staggering.
[3:52]They were so meaningful, at least to me.
[3:55]And that has continued, I think, I've written over 300 poems since I was diagnosed.
[3:59]And it's just been an incredible outpouring of creativity.
[4:04]There were a lot of other changes, though, that LBD induced in me.
[4:08]Probably the most important was I had always, I had a very, very intrusive mother.
[4:14]I write about her in the book.
[4:16]And so I learned to play everything very close to the chest.
[4:20]I never told her anything about my life.
[4:22]I never revealed anything to her.
[4:25]I kept my emotions to myself.
[4:28]And I really developed that as a style of living, not just the vis-a-vis my mother, but
[4:33]vis-a-vis everyone.
[4:35]Well, LBD made that impossible because I could not talk about it.
[4:39]And I could not reach out for support for people.
[4:43]And so what happened to me was that I broke through all of those inhibitions and
[4:50]began to forge relationships with people that were closer than any I had ever had in my life.
[4:56]And again, this is the weird silver lining of LBD.
[4:59]It's horrible.
[5:00]disease, but it forced me to make changes that were so positive and so expansive, for me, at least,
[5:09]as a person. I don't know if I've answered the question.
[5:12]It was great. I'm just going to sit back and listen to you all day. Your voice is so soothing.
[5:18]What you're saying is that it's like riveting and heartbreaking all at once. I'm very sorry that
[5:24]this is the straw you picked essentially that this is happening and that you have had a front
[5:29]row seat to it already and you're coming from place of deep knowledge about it and you know,
[5:34]you're in such a great headspace obviously from the book, but you show us that that was not where
[5:40]you were, which is the powerful, some of the more powerful pieces. I mean, some of the nights where
[5:46]you were just sobbing in your room and like listening to this crazy music and it just, oh my gosh,
[5:52]it's just so it's just so heartbreaking. I don't know what's to say. You just want to reach through
[5:57]the pages and hug you and tell you it's going to be okay, but it's like, you can't say that to
[6:02]anyone about anything really. But I think what your community clearly is doing is just keep saying
[6:08]that they're there for you. Every single person you turn to. And that's so amazing.
[6:13]It is amazing. And the most amazing thing about it for me is the two words, my community,
[6:20]because I never felt like I had a community. In fact, I spent most of my life avoiding community,
[6:26]again, because of the bad associations I had with people being, my mother being so intrusive and
[6:32]so over-involved in my life. So for me, I mean, one of the seminal events, one of the sort of most
[6:41]significant events was I think it was like the day or two after I was diagnosed. I found myself
[6:48]sitting in the couch in my office. And I just started calling people. And I called one person
[6:56]after another person to tell them what had happened that I had been diagnosed. And they gave
[7:03]me support. But what was significant about it was that I was choosing to come out of myself and
[7:10]share this publicly, which is just not the way I ever functioned in my life. If I had done it
[7:16]according to the old system, I never would have told anybody. And I just would have hunkered down
[7:21]and dealt with it by myself. And by the end of that spate of calls, I found myself wanting there
[7:29]to be more people to call, which was such an uncharacteristic feeling for me. It was like, I want to
[7:35]call more people. That's so strange for me. It was a real breakthrough. And I realized that that
[7:42]was not just about getting support. It was about changing the entire trajectory of my life
[7:49]from extreme secrecy and holding everything very close to the chest to being part of a community
[7:57]and giving and taking and receiving support and giving support. And it changed everything as far as
[8:03]I'm concerned. To this day, those people are very close to me, much closer than they would have
[8:09]been without the diagnosis. Well, let's talk about your mom for a minute because you tease
[8:16]throughout the book what happened or what she was like. And then you do discuss this one
[8:22]particularly powerful upsetting event where she crossed the line, that sort of where she crossed
[8:28]the line and from which I feel like you drew a line in the sand after that. Like, okay, like,
[8:35]I maybe I thought things were getting a little wonky, but now I have proof. And yes, it's like
[8:42]she declared herself. Yes, she declared herself. So here you are many years later after that moment
[8:49]and still sort of wrestling with that event in a way. I mean, I know you've obviously made
[8:54]peace with that and you're a therapist. You know what I do. But it's like the stuff with our
[8:58]parents just never goes away. Talk a little bit more about that and how her influence is still
[9:06]so vital and real when you're even dealing with the worst of things that you have to deal with.
[9:12]I mean, on one side of me actually feels for my mom because I think she was, I know she was a
[9:19]very deprived child. She had no attention from anybody. And so she was very, very needy for her entire
[9:26]life. But she was also very imperious and she was brilliant. So it wasn't easy to fend off her needs
[9:37]because she always had a very justifiable reason for needing whatever she wanted. And she put
[9:43]most of her needs on me. She wasn't, she didn't. I don't think she liked my father to be honest with
[9:49]you. She certainly never got anything from him emotionally. He tended to be kind of shut down for
[9:55]reasons of his own. She tried to get a lot from my sister but my sister.
[10:00]was more of a rebel than I was. And she just said, no, in much
[10:04]mean her terms than that. And so my mother kind of fixed on me as
[10:10]her kind of father confessor. And I remember night after night
[10:14]after night as Natalescent, she would come into my room. And
[10:18]she would just talk about her life and how miserable she was.
[10:21]Now miserable, she was with my father and how miserable she was
[10:24]with my sister and how I was the light of her life. And you
[10:28]know, I was the only reason she was that was kept her life
[10:32]worth living. And you know, just these horrible sort of
[10:36]idealizations and devaluations of other people in the in the
[10:40]family. And all of that was I suppose great training to be a
[10:46]shrink. But but also very burdensome because it felt like I
[10:51]carried the weight of my mother's unhappiness on my shoulders
[10:55]for most of my life. And then one night things got really,
[11:02]really sick and twisted. She came to my room. And she said,
[11:08]Barry, I think that I need to train you to reject the advances of
[11:13]an older woman because I know it's going to happen. I know
[11:16]older women are going to come on to you. And what proceeded was a
[11:21]role play where she played the part of a seductress older
[11:25]woman trying to seduce me and at a bar. And I was supposed to
[11:30]not have a drink that the woman offered me. And it was just it was
[11:35]I mean, it was I get sick to my stomach, even recounting it. It
[11:39]was so uncomfortable and so confusing for I think I was maybe
[11:46]15 years old. It was so confusing. And so I remember my mind was
[11:52]just working overtime trying to think, what do I do? What do I
[11:56]say? How do I get through this? And I just did the best to
[11:59]acting job I could. And then she finally left. And I was left
[12:03]with this feeling of, Oh my God, I am scarred for a life. I'll
[12:08]never get over this. And I did. I'm happily married. And you
[12:13]know, I've had other relationships with women before I got
[12:16]married. And they were okay. But it doesn't leave me. It's still
[12:21]there as kind of a twisted, uncomfortable, just uncomfortable
[12:27]isn't anywhere close to how extreme it feels. Just a very bad
[12:31]experience. How does it feel putting that out there? You know,
[12:37]strangely, I thought it would feel very uncomfortable and that I
[12:41]would feel really like almost a shame to put it out there. What
[12:44]happened instead was that it felt liberating. It felt like
[12:48]what do I have to hide? I didn't do anything wrong. You know, and
[12:54]people should know that that's not appropriate. You know, that's
[12:58]not that's not something you should do to a child. So no, I
[13:03]didn't feel embarrassed. I think in earlier years of this had
[13:07]happened, maybe 30 years ago, I would feel really awkward and
[13:11]embarrassed about it. But in this instance, I felt like, no, this is
[13:16]part of my story. It's part of what shaped me. And it explains
[13:21]why I was so, so closed and so distrustful of people and why
[13:26]didn't reach out for help to be like me. You couldn't trust
[13:31]the primary supportive of person in your life. So you don't trust
[13:36]anybody. So it was part of the story. And I thought it was
[13:39]important to tell it. Yeah, absolutely. I basically, you know, I
[13:43]knew that this was the last thing. I was going to write in the
[13:46]significant thing that was going to write in my life. And I
[13:49]made myself a promise, I'm just going to be entirely honest and
[13:53]authentic. Why not? But we have to lose. You know, you can, you
[13:58]can feel that as the reader. And I hope every reader just like
[14:01]receives it with grace and I'm sure they will. You know, in
[14:05]addition to all of your heartfelt experiences, you also give
[14:10]us a primer on how to use the tools that you and Phil have honed
[14:15]over many years in which are very, very popular. But it's great
[14:19]because for someone like me, I hadn't actually read those books.
[14:23]And I didn't know about the tools. I mean, some of them were
[14:26]more common than others, right? But, but take in here that you
[14:29]kind of hide one in each chapter a little bit, right? Maybe not
[14:33]exactly. But next thing you know, you're like, and then this is
[14:36]what this tool can be. And so then as a reader, I can take
[14:39]that away and think, Oh, well, how can I use this? I'll just
[14:42]store that away in the back of my mind. Yeah. When I have to
[14:45]confront this. So it is a story of, of you confronting illness,
[14:49]but you're showing us the tools you're using to get through
[14:52]something like that so that we can get through whatever's on
[14:54]our plates. And I wanted to convey to people that being a
[14:58]therapist doesn't.
[15:00]mean that you don't use tools. It doesn't mean that you just teach tools. You have to use
[15:05]tools yourself. They're beset problems. I certainly have problems. And I needed those tools and
[15:10]really depended on them. And I wanted to be really honest about that with people because otherwise
[15:15]I'm presenting myself in a false light as some sort of, you know, age or something,
[15:21]who doesn't like to know everything. I needed those tools and I really relied on them a lot
[15:27]to get myself through the depression, the anxiety, the fear and everything else.
[15:35]I keep a journal. I call it nightly review, even though I do it in the morning. Why I call it
[15:41]an earlier review. But and in it, each day, I keep track of the tools that I'm supposed to be using
[15:47]that day. And you'll see there are like almost all of the tools that are in the book are in that
[15:53]journal. These I use them daily and self. And it sounds like you're pretty known on
[15:58]sense therapist. Like you're not just sitting, listening and nodding. Like you know, actively
[16:03]engaging and you share about your experience with Drew Barrymore, which she has publicly come out
[16:08]and discussed and had you on the show. And you know, I have to go back and watch that episode now.
[16:12]I meant to do it beforehand. But now I'll have something look forward to you tonight. But you
[16:17]told her at one point like I'm just not going to treat you anymore. Like you have to deal with
[16:20]these issues. And I'm not and she ended up thanking you so much for that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,
[16:26]sometimes I think this is particularly true of alcoholism. The patient really needs to come up
[16:33]against a solid limit that just says, look, if you can't stop drinking, I can't treat you because
[16:39]the alcohol has more influence over you than I do. And that's not good for you. So it was it was
[16:47]great. And to her credit, she dealt with it in the best way possible. She stopped drinking and
[16:54]then came back to therapy. By the way, have you read Dad love me by Matthew quick? No, is that good?
[17:01]I feel like you too, because his book is a lot. Yes, it is good. But it's just that you have a lot
[17:08]of like young in analysis and deep diving into therapy and yourselves. And I feel like you would
[17:15]like it. Oh, that's great. And I feel like the two of you should be in conversation. It's
[17:19]so it would be it would be an interesting thing. Anyway, just it's not like you don't have enough
[17:22]to do right now. But there are some some similar, some similar themes as you look at the rest of
[17:29]your life right? So to speak. I mean, in the book, you're like, this is how old I am. I might not
[17:33]be here in 10 years. How do I make sense of this? And you're very open about it throughout the whole
[17:38]time. Right. And how you've reached this almost state of bliss, you have a moment at the end,
[17:43]which comes after, by the way, the throwaway line you have somewhere in the middle about how
[17:48]you wanted to be the first Jewish president of the United States at one point. And I was like,
[17:52]oh, you know, anyway, at the end, you have this moment listening to music, you're in synagogue.
[17:57]And it's this like almost not holy, but transcendent experience. Can you just like speak to that
[18:03]moment and how you are viewing life right now, essentially? Yeah, I strangely have a lot of those
[18:12]moments. They're almost always accompanied by and I think induced by music. Music has an
[18:20]otherworldly effect on me. It always has. One of the great things about my mother is that she was
[18:26]like a concert level pianist and she played Chopin every night. And so I grew up with the most
[18:35]beautiful melodious sounds, you know, to go to sleep by. And it's always the medium that has gotten
[18:42]deep inside of my soul. I mean, a piece of music can start me to crying at the drop of a hat. It
[18:49]doesn't, you know, it's just so powerfully beautiful for me. So I forget the question. What was that?
[18:55]Oh, the question is, it's just more like in facing the end of your life. Yeah. And you've reached
[19:02]this point of almost transcendence and beauty. How do we all get that beauty? Why is there
[19:09]it feels like beauty has replaced fear for you? Yeah. Yeah. Does that just happen? Is it because the
[19:15]work of your tools? I think it's the work of the tools. I think it's, you know, you can't when you
[19:22]feel fear. It's okay. It's natural human beings are fragile beings and we're subject to death at any
[19:29]moment. Of course we're afraid. But you can't just not do anything in the face of fear. You have
[19:37]to do something. You have to use a tool or shift your consciousness in some way. For me, there are
[19:44]many tools that I use in the face of fear. But I use music as a tool. Music has an instantly
[19:52]transformative effect on me. Not every piece of music, by the way, but you know, there's a certain
[19:57]piece of music that really appealed to me.
[20:00]But when I'm really having a hard time struggling to press
[20:04]or whatever it is, I can put on a piece of music
[20:07]and know that it will shift my consciousness immediately.
[20:11]So that's the way I use it.
[20:13]I also use it as an inducement to write.
[20:16]I do a tremendous amount of writing.
[20:19]And my writing is just always better
[20:21]when I'm listening to music while I'm writing.
[20:23]Just I don't know what it is.
[20:24]It just kind of pumped primes my unconscious, I think,
[20:28]and I have associations that come more easily with music.
[20:33]And just everything flows much faster.
[20:37]You also have a great relationship with the ocean and seawater
[20:41]and all of that.
[20:42]And I really felt for you this one time
[20:44]when you were there in a trip with your wife.
[20:46]And you were like, this is the one time
[20:47]like the ocean was not making things better.
[20:49]Like, is that the worst from like your go-to
[20:52]is not working?
[20:53]I know.
[20:54]I know.
[20:55]That was I just was so in the whole of LBD.
[21:00]And you know, it's you never know how you're going to react.
[21:04]But receiving a death sentence, like that's a really,
[21:11]it really shakes you up.
[21:13]And it really, if you're not careful,
[21:16]you can just become very morbid about life.
[21:19]And that's what happened to me for at least the first year
[21:22]or two after the diagnosis.
[21:24]I just got so depressed and felt like my life was essentially
[21:29]over.
[21:30]And it wasn't.
[21:31]It wasn't at all.
[21:32]I'm living a good life now, even though I still
[21:34]have the death sentence hanging over me.
[21:36]But it can, I talk about part X, which
[21:39]is the really negative part of the personality.
[21:42]Part X grabs a hold of a diagnosis and says,
[21:46]you're fucked.
[21:48]That is it for you.
[21:50]You might as well die now because nothing good
[21:53]is going to happen from this point forward.
[21:55]And it's really good at convincing you that that's the case.
[21:59]So you have to work really hard to overcome that.
[22:01]And there are tools that you can use and things
[22:03]that you can do.
[22:04]Creativity is really helpful in the face of part X.
[22:08]But it's a very powerful, you know,
[22:10]Jung called it the death force.
[22:13]And he said that every human being
[22:15]has a death force inside of them.
[22:17]It grabs a hold of death and really kind of
[22:20]wants to create a living nightmare where you're really dead,
[22:26]even though you're alive.
[22:28]You write in the book a lot about your wife
[22:30]and your relationship together and your trips.
[22:33]And she had a suspicion that you were sick before you
[22:37]did.
[22:37]She went through it with you.
[22:39]She's come along on the ride.
[22:41]How does she feel about the book?
[22:43]I think she loves it.
[22:44]She didn't at first.
[22:46]She didn't like the idea of me being so open about us
[22:50]and about her.
[22:52]But she's read it many times.
[22:55]And she's proofread it for me and fact-chet did for me.
[22:58]And I think she's really happy with it.
[23:02]And thank God she is because she's
[23:05]going to come with me on all these interviews.
[23:06]And I can't do it on my own.
[23:09]I'm a little more.
[23:12]So, well, please.
[23:13]I have to say one thing about her.
[23:15]Yes.
[23:16]I could never have survived this without her.
[23:19]I mean, she's the most supportive person in my life.
[23:22]And the way she's dealt with a lot with me,
[23:26]I'm not the easiest person in the world.
[23:28]And she's just steady and loving and incredible.
[23:35]Amazing.
[23:36]I hope at some point she hears that.
[23:39]Maybe when you're having a day, not perfect behavior,
[23:42]you can say.
[23:43]And then to real send her a link.
[23:45]You know?
[23:46]Then to real link.
[23:47]Do you have any advice for someone who
[23:50]is trying to write a memoir or a book like this
[23:52]where they really have to be open and share
[23:56]deep from their heart?
[23:57]Yeah.
[23:58]I mean, I work a lot with writers,
[24:01]with Hollywood writers.
[24:02]And one of the most important tools,
[24:04]I give them as a tool called arbitrary use of time.
[24:08]It is a commitment of a given amount of time
[24:12]to a particular activity, in this case writing.
[24:15]And you have to keep it up every single day.
[24:18]The time commitment doesn't have to be five hours.
[24:21]It can be 15 minutes if you're really, really busy.
[24:24]But you have to keep it up every day.
[24:27]And the reason I'm freakish about that
[24:29]is that what happens when you do that
[24:32]is that the unconscious, which is the part of you
[24:34]that actually does the writing, it just
[24:37]learns to show up at that time.
[24:39]And this has happened over and over again
[24:41]with writers who are blocked.
[24:43]If you get them to show up at the same time every day
[24:45]and write, even if it's just for 15 minutes,
[24:48]they get unblocked very quickly, actually.
[24:51]So that's really, and it's funny because writers are not
[24:56]the most disciplined people in the world.
[24:58]They tend to just write when they want.
[25:00]to and whatever. And it's hard for them to accept that they have to be disciplined about
[25:04]this. But once they are, they're really happy with it because they can count on good writing
[25:09]and merging during that time that they've committed.
[25:12]You would think your subconscious could just like pick up whenever you wanted it to.
[25:17]That it was a kind of a strange beast. It's on your side, but only if you're on its side.
[25:27]And I see arbitrary use of time as a way of saying to the unconscious,
[25:33]I count on you and I'm so committed to you that I'm going to commit this time to you,
[25:39]even if nothing comes out. And I'm going to show up tomorrow even though nothing came out
[25:44]today, you know, kind of thing. The unconscious really starts to honor that commitment because it's
[25:49]like, all right, the guy is showing up even though I'm not giving him anything. So it really
[25:54]works. It works incredibly well. Amazing. Well, Barry, thank you so much. The book was really fabulous
[26:02]and I'm excited to follow along on your journeys. And thank you for putting it all out there.
[26:09]Thank you so much. And thank you for the questions. It was really good.
[26:13]Thank you. Thank you. Take care. Okay. Bye bye.
[26:18]Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibi, formerly mom's don't have time to read books.
[26:23]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens
[26:29]and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and bye the books.