Straight Talk Radio

Ron and Mary Hulnick – University of Santa Monica – on Straight Talk Radio with Chuck Gallagher

By August 24, 2014 One Comment

Authors of Loyalty to Your Soul, Dr.s Ron and Mary Hulnick join me today to talk about issues that will most certainly connect with our listeners and reader alike.  Ron and Mary, with their work at the University of Santa Monica have brought light to many and that light continues to empower people world wide.  I am honored to have them as my guests on Straight Talk Radio.

To hear the show join us at: Straight Talk Radio for the podcast.

Ron and Mary HulnickTired of traditional talk? People pontificating about this or that? The left or the right? Sometimes the truth is just off lost in the noise. Having learned life lessons the hard way, Chuck Gallagher, international speaker and author, cuts through the noise to share truth through transparency!

Nationally-known guests talk about what’s important to you – your life, your concerns and your success. So tune in, turn on to Straight Talk with Chuck Gallagher.

Now, here’s your host, Chuck Gallagher.

CHUCK: And it is a wonderful day here on Straight Talk Radio. Hi, this is Chuck Gallagher and thanks for joining us on Transformation Talk Radio. We’re here to discuss issues and ideas that literally can transform your life and today, well, we have an awesome show lined up for you. Now, [chuckles] I’ve been called Dr. Choice by some people, although I am certainly not a doctor. I am not a Ph.D., but I speak often about choices and consequences. In fact, every presentation I give starts with the statement that every choice has a consequence. The challenge that often arises is when we’re thrust into situations that requires us to, well, let’s say, make choices we didn’t really want to make or situations we didn’t consciously choose to be in. Of course, the operative word is ‘consciously’,

For example, what if you’re told that you no longer needed at your job? That your employment is lost due to downsizing? I guess for those listening to the show, that’s something that a lot of people can identify with through the past five to six years. Or what if you find that your spouse surprises you with the I-want-a-divorce request? Or what happens when you find that you just got diagnosed with cancer and had no symptoms and no clue? Life sometimes hurls at us opportunities to make choices and I guess the big question is how do we deal with the situations we’re faced with on a daily basis? How do we make empowering choices for our life? Now, there is a really, really book entitled Loyalty to Your Soul: The Heart of Spiritual Psychology by Dr.’s Ron and Mary Hulnick, both Ph.D.’s.

I’ve got to start by saying there’s a little bit of a back story as to how we met. According to the book, the first chapter is talking about “light-bearers” and the quote says, “They are the ones who assist us along our path. They seem to show up randomly, but really there is nothing random about it.”

That said, through a friend who’s a graduate of the University of Santa Monica I was referred to Dr. Ron Hulnick. Ron was given a copy of my book, Second Chances, and through e-mail reached out to me for a possible meeting. It just so happened, as if by accident, that I was traveling to California and Ron suggested we meet. Ron, I’m going to say to you, I’ll never forget that meeting in such an interesting little restaurant on the back side of a beautiful mountain in California. It was just a priceless place.

We talked for some time and as the conversation unfolded, it occurred to me that since Dr. Ron and Dr. Mary, I’m going to say Ron and Mary, are both intricately a part of the University of Santa Monica that offers a program of Master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology, it just hit me that that is exactly what Debbie, my wife, was looking for. So, Ron, not only was our meeting a great beginning but now some two years later or so my wife is soon to be a graduate of your program and has been feverishly working on final homework and projects and all the preparations for the upcoming June session and ultimately graduation in August. I have to say, that was a long beginning but there’s nothing random about it and I’m honored to have both Dr.’s Ron and Mary Hulnick on the show today. Welcome!

RON: Our honor as well.

MARY: It’s a joy to be with you, Chuck.

CHUCK: It was kind of funny because as I was sitting there and came back home, I said, “Debbie, you’re just not going to believe this meeting that I had,” and I unfolded the University of Santa Monica and the Master’s of Spiritual Psychology and her eyes just all lit up and I was like, “You know, I knew there’s was a reason to drive to the other side of that little mountain and sit in that little restaurant.”

RON: And we assume this means that you are going to be coming to graduation.

CHUCK: Well, okay, I’ve got to say a little side story. The answer to that question is/was, “Yes, of course I want to support my wife in graduation there,” and I have also been working on a program. I do a lot of ethics work, and I was working on a program with the Retired NBA Basketball Players Association and they wanted me to attend this year and be one of their keynote speakers at a conference that they were having. I said, “Boy, I’d be glad to do it,” and I was excited about it because it was taking the speaking in a new direction and, of course, it’s the Friday, Saturday, Sunday of graduation weekend. So, I came home and I told Debbie and I said, “I’ve got the good news and the bad news.” She said, “We’ll start with the bad.” I said, “The bad is I might have a problem being in L.A. that weekend,” and she kind of looked at me. And I said, “The good is The Retired NBA Basketball Players Association really wants me to speak at their meeting,” and she is quite the understanding wife and such a wonderful lady and she said, “You know, that’s not a problem.” And, of course, I’m working on trying to work out doing my work on Friday and Saturday so I can catch a flight from Cancun to L.A. because I definitely want to be there for the graduation. I think it’s such a wonderful program you guys have put together.

RON: Well, thank you.

CHUCK: Let’s talk a little bit about your well-acclaimed book Loyalty to Your Soul. Now, Ron, you and I had the opportunity to talk a little bit about the back story, but it took a while to get the book written. So, Mary, maybe it would be best for you to talk a little bit about the back story and you and Ron’s connection but it took, again, a number of years before you guys collaborated to create such a wonderful book.

MARY: Well, when I think back on the writing of the book, it was a process that went on really for about 10 years and I think part of why it took so long is simply that the work was still in the process of evolving and growing as were both Ron and myself. As it ended up, I believe the book was really written at the perfect time because just the process of writing the book helped us clarify elements of the work that we do, such as the principles related to acceptance. It was a very interesting process, but once we came to a point where we just really were ready, then I’d say it took maybe about a year to complete it before we met with Tracy, the President of Hay House, and put the manuscript in his hands. But the process of clarifying some of these concepts so that we could really express them in written word, in a way that would have meaning and usefulness to the audience was fascinating.

CHUCK: You said that you guys in a sense were a work in process, like we all are. We all are going through that process of becoming and evolving, but tell us a little bit about the process. You mentioned one of the principles, Acceptance. Tell us about that.

MARY: Well, Acceptance really means the ability to accept what is. It doesn’t mean you have to agree with it, it doesn’t mean you have to like it but simply the willingness to acknowledge and accept that this is current reality. You gave some great examples at the beginning of the show, Chuck. Someone who loses their job or someone whose partner announces to them that they want a divorce – these are huge sea changes in somebody’s life and they can trigger a lot of internal judgment, a lot of emotional upset, what we refer to “I’m upset because…” Learning to recognize that disturbing things can happen, but we don’t have to respond and allow ourselves to really spin out in disturbance and escalation of upset.

CHUCK: I know, I guess the best way to put this is this is probably “I know enough to be dangerous” and when I say that jokingly but lovingly as well, because obviously in seeing the process unfold with Debbie over the past two years, it’s been transformational for her and educational and enlightening for me. I think the operative word, Mary, that I heard you say was ‘respond’. Yes, there are things in life that take place and it seems like, and, Ron, maybe you can address this as well, but it seems like people have a challenge sometime accepting it and it’s almost like acceptance means I’m not a victim of it. Then the question is, “How do you respond to it in a way that causes you not to spin out and actually be able to function moving through that process?”

RON: You have to back up a step or two, Chuck.

CHUCK: Okay, cool.

RON: This is why we call it Spiritual Psychology because it takes place in a different context. Most people, we just got them doing a couples workshop this past weekend, which was spectacular, and we had to be very clear with people of context that we’re working with.

Most people view reality and they see things happening and then their response to what’s happening they think is based upon what’s happening. It isn’t, it’s based upon their internal ideas and beliefs about what’s happening. So, for example, if sometimes someone will come forward with the divorce question– Or a better example, I was reading something this morning where a lot of the workforce in this country is going from full-time to part-time and for a lot of people that’s a welcome thing because they have time to smell the roses and for a lot people it’s a frightening thing because they are not used to that, they didn’t grow up with that, they are concerned about financial stability, but it’s the same thing that happened but two entirely different responses based upon what a person believes inside. So if I believe that it’s a good thing, my response is going to be a very happy one, “Oh, boy, what a great day,” but if I believe it’s a bad thing, then my response is going to be, “Oh, my God, this is upsetting. What am I going to do? I’m spinning out,” and all this kind of stuff, but it’s not in the, “What happened?” it’s in the, “What my beliefs are, what my thoughts are about the thing that has happened?” So when Mary is talking about acceptance, the first order of business is to just see what is.

CHUCK: And with that said, it’s break time. Gosh, it was a fast first segment. My guests are Dr.’s Ron and Mary Hulnick. This is Chuck Gallagher with Straight Talk Radio and we’ll be back to talk about context, belief, acceptance and Loyalty to Your Soul.

[Commercial break]

CHUCK: This is Chuck Gallagher with Straight Talk Radio and I have as my guests today Dr.’s Ron and Mary Hulnick, authors of the acclaimed book Loyalty to Your Soul, which by the way can be purchased on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or, doggone, on probably any e-reader. In fact, Ron was kind enough to provide me a copy many years ago when we met, but I just purchased a new copy from the iBook store with Apple since I don’t like carrying around copies of physical books and I can read it, and highlight it, and all those kinds of things with my iPad so, Ron, you just got another sale there, buddy.

CHUCK: I have to say, I highly endorse the book. The title of it is Loyalty to Your Soul and when we went to break, we were in the midst of a conversation talking a bit about, I guess said, Ron, kind of moving it backwards and understanding the difference between looking at it from a spiritual perspective or, I’m going to use my term, more of an earthly perspective.

RON: I actually like the word these days, a conscious perspective.

CHUCK: Okay, conscious perspective. All right, good. The first chapter, and I think this probably will tie back into it, but the first chapter of your book is called “Waking Up Is Not So Easy, It’s Also Not So Hard”. Waking up, waking up; how and to what?

RON: Well, I’ll start. When we talk about waking up, what we talk about is starting to see the world as it is, not as we think it should be, and this is where we were speaking before bad acceptance. That’s the first step.

Once you see the world as it is, then you also realize that you start to look at yourself as you are. Most people don’t like to look at themselves as they are because they perceive themselves as less than what they would like to be. That usually comes from a deep sense of unworthiness, “I’m not valued, there’s something wrong with me.” Unfortunately, a lot of religious teaching can reinforce that idea that you’re basically bad, stuff like that. We take the point of view that waking up means that you’re none of that; you’re what you are. Our basic premise is that what you are and what everyone is is a beautiful, loving being. We like to say you really are a diving spiritual being who’s having a human experience. Waking up means that you start to see yourself that way and you start to have experiences that derive from that. They come automatically, it’s not something you really have to work on.

MARY: And in the Master’s program at USM the very first soul-centered skill that we teach people we refer to as seeing the loving essence, and it really is learning to look with the eyes of your heart so that you can see the soul essence within another person. That in and of itself can profoundly transform your perspective, the quality of your life and perhaps most powerfully your relationships with other people because you’re really looking through the eyes of love, you’re looking with compassion, with kindness, with acceptance, and as a result you have a much more of a heart connection with other people and with the experiences that are going on as part of your life process.

CHUCK: When you talk about those things, it causes a couple of questions to jump up. One of the questions, and these may not be in any particular order, but one of the questions is when you’re talking about belief and what happens and then seeing through the eyes of love, are there some people that are just wired to have a hard time with making that transition into seeing things from a different perspective, from a conscious perspective?

RON: You know, that’s a very interesting question. Ahh, hardwired… The basis that we work from is everybody is going to wake up sooner or later. The only real variable is time and from what we know, from quantum physics, there is no such thing as time. The only time there really exists is right now. So what we think and what we do right now is going to determine the future experiences that we have. We really are in charge of that. The more some of us are asleep, the more difficult it is for them to understand that and the longer it’s going to take them to come into that realization. As we say, growth is a process, it’s not an event.

We had an incredible sharing this weekend where a gentleman who realized in the weekend through the processes that we do that all what he had in holding against his wife for 26 years and had made their entire relationship a struggle, all of that was based upon ideas that he had about how she wasn’t doing it right. He just had that realization, he saw it clearly and the only thing that I can say, I know Mary would agree, he lit up. I’ve rarely seen somebody , all of a sudden he just changed, he stood up in front of the entire group of 200 people and he just said, “I just feel like a huge burden has been lifted off my heart.” So, we get it when we get it. We wake up when we wake up. I don’t concern myself with whether someone’s hardwired or not, I just concern myself with what choices are you making right now, both inner and outer and how might you do it differently?

MARY: How is what you’re doing working for you?

CHUCK: Yeah, Mary, that’s a great question. I get a lot of people that, because of my background, having been a convicted felon would call and want to ask questions about how to change your life and yet the question is they’re making a set of choice that aren’t working too well, but they seem very invested in continuing those choices, which is mind boggling to me.

MARY: Yes, it’s so interesting that you say that because another one of the skills that we introduce very early in the program is called Responsibility I: Choice and it is a process where people really get to look at the situation that they are experiencing as challenging, they get the opportunity to take a look at what choices that they are making that perhaps tend to perpetuate that situation. We encourage them to look at both the outer choices that they’re making but also the inner choices, the more attitudinal choices that have to do with acceptance versus judgment. It’s a very simple skill but it is powerful because it helps people step back from their conditioned response patterns, their conditioned ways of looking at things and recognize, “I’m making choices here and these choices are having consequences and profoundly affecting my relationships, my perspective on life, on various situations, and that I have a choice about how I can do it differently.” And a part of what is also a piece of that choice is we just invite people to look at other choice they could make without needing to commit to them, to just consider the possibility that there are in fact other choices.

RON: And we take it one step further. We say, “If you were to just consider making this choice, what do you suppose would result from it?” And again, we make it very clear you’re not committing to anything. We’re just running a thought experiment, as Einstein would say. If you chose differently, what do you think would happen? What effect do you think that would have on your life? That can really be eye-opening.

CHUCK: It’s interesting to hear you talk about that and to recognize that, and I really liked what you said, that there are outer choices and inner choices. You guys have the experience, I certainly don’t, but it seems like most of the time the average person is invested in what appeared to be the outside choices without having the first recognition of that internal, driving issue or issues that cause the inner choices to be made.

RON: Right.

CHUCK: Ron, I sent you a copy of a book that I wrote called Message From The Mountain and I refer to something that came to me as I was writing the book called “mind sleep”. Good golly, I’m guilty of that, but you get up on a day-to-day basis, you go do the things that you’re supposed to do, you go to work, and you get invested in all of the stuff without necessarily being fully conscious of the deeper experience that’s taking place and it is true. When one awakes from being asleep into a different level of consciousness, it becomes far easier at least to consider the inner choices that might influence the outer ones.

RON: Always, they always come first. The outer choices follow automatically from what the inner choices are. So if you perceive that a situation is bad, then you will try to react to it and you will try to take action to change it and inwardly very often you will judge it. This is where 98% of the psychological difficulties that people have stems from that one dynamic that people really don’t see it. They really think that the outer thing that happened is wrong and they’re right to judge it and they don’t understand that what you judge you attract more of in your life.

CHUCK: This is kind of a way off… Well, let’s put it this way, the music is coming on so that’s telling us it’s about time for a break, but when we get back, I’m going to go down on a really kind of an odd road of political front because it seems like everybody is invested left or right in making judgments about the other and it just creates more dysfunction, but you might have some comments on it. This is Chuck Gallagher with Straight Talk Radio with my guests Dr. Mary and Dr. Ron Hulnick and we’ll be back in just a minute. Stick with us.

[Commercial break]

CHUCK: Hi, this is Chuck Gallagher with Straight Talk Radio and I am thrilled today. We’ve got a great show. This is one of those shows that I think could go on for hours and we are limited with time so I want to say that my guests today are Dr.’s Mary and Ron Hulnick, authors of the acclaimed book Loyalty to Your Soul, which again, can be purchased on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or pretty much from any e-reader organization that you can buy from. It is published by Hay House Authors, which I have great admiration for, but also Ron is the President and Mary the Chief Academic Officer of the University of Santa Monica who offer a graduate program, a Master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology.

In this segment I want us to get there but as we were talking about it in the last segment, a bit about this concept if you think it’s bad, then you’re invested in that judgment. I kind of made the comment, taking us a little off track, it seems like we are very dysfunctional in our political system today because the left wants to be very invested that the right is incredibly wrong and the right seems to be very invested that the left is incredibly wrong, and by that egotistical investment and I guess buying for power, we just have a lot of dysfunction and it’s just mindboggling that it’s that obvious and nobody seems to be able to get uninvested.

MARY: It’s so interesting, the key word to me in what you said, Chuck, was power. There is a distinction between ego power, the love of power and the power of love. When the ego is in charge, there is such an attachment to being right and people can become extremely polarized and extremely positioned. From our point of view, more conscious framework to consider those kinds of questions within is what is truly for the highest good of all concerned, and that is an entirely different level of conversation.

RON: When you talk about politics, I think it’s important to understand that you’re not really seeing– When we look out what we see, we’re not really seeing one party diametrically opposed to the other and one is right and one is wrong, and you pick and you choose. We’re not really seeing that. What we’re really seeing is two sides of the same level of consciousness from two different perspectives but they’re seeing the same level of consciousness.

The real political enhancement will come when the political discourse itself is raised to a higher level of consciousness and then the two parties can talk about the perspectives from either side of that level. Let me give you an example. What if there was a candidate running who was saying, “The thing that I want to see more of, I want to see more of conscious partnership at every level of our society. I want to see businesses cooperating more. I want to see marriages where people are cooperating more. I want to just see a lot more cooperation.” It is very well known, and probably the best book on this subject would be Steven Pinker’s book The Better Angels of Our Nature,evolution moves forward as more and more people cooperate. Cooperate is simply another way of saying going from what’s called a zero-sum game, where in order for me to win you lose, to what’s known in game theory as a positive-sum game that we work together to create a bigger pot where everybody can have more. This is the whole nature of the evolutionary impulse that’s happening on this planet right now.

Politics doesn’t seem to have caught on to that yet. They’re still having the same old arguments about the same old things and they don’t seem to realize that those things they are arguing about are all dying. They’re dying systems and what’s emerging is what is, well, I don’t even know what to call it, it’s just a system where we start to get clear that everybody can really win.

CHUCK: It’s interesting to hear that. I saw something the other day, and I don’t remember where I saw it, but the simplicity of the story was there were a group of kids who were brought together and 20, 30 yards away there was a pile of fruit, food. These kids were fundamentally malnourished and they were told, “Okay, we want you all to be here at the line and when we say go, the first person that get’s to the food gets all the food.” So, someone said, “Go!” and all the kids held hands and went together and got to the food because they recognized, kind of what you’re talking about, that everybody could share it. There was more food than anyone could eat and they all were hungry, so why not cooperate to create a win for everyone instead of having one person win and the others lose?

RON: Exactly.

MARY: That is such a beautiful example.

RON: That’s exactly what’s happening. Those kids, they will grow up and they will vote and where are the candidates that will vote for that kind of level of cooperation? They’re coming because it is part of the evolutionary process, but we’re not quite seeing it yet.

CHUCK: Well, we’re not, and we started off this conversation talking about your book, Loyalty to Your Soul, and I want to say this, and this is not to diminish the book, but it’s easy to read a book and think, “Gosh, that was great,” and then after you finish, go back to the behaviors that provide us our normal daily life. As an author of the book I like to think it makes a difference but I also recognize it is a moment in time while reading and it might not have the impact. You guys, to your credit, have created through the University of Santa Monica a structured Master’s program that opens the depth of this learning that you’re talking about to an entirely new level. So, I really would love for us to talk about the University of Santa Monica and the offerings that I know you offer and that attracts literally students worldwide. Let me give us a little bit of the background of the USM, but as importantly what are some of the programs and how do those impact and how can people connect?

MARY: We began working at the University 33 years ago so we are really the founding faculty and over time the work has really taken legs and taken shape in a variety and form. One of the decisions that we made to make this work more accessible and also to give people opportunity to have a depthful experience that would be an introduction to the principles and practices of Spiritual Psychology is the Loyalty to Your Soul Workshop, which is based on the principles of Spiritual Psychology and is a weekend event where people have the opportunity to learn and practice about eight of what we consider the most foundational soul-centered basic skills. This educational process is experiential. It’s exactly what you said, Chuck. People can have the information, but it’s a whole another thing to actualize that information to live into it.

RON: Let me give you an example. Let’s talk about that skill that Mary was mentioning, seeing the loving essence. So you read the book and you go, “Oh, that’s a great idea. I think I’ll just start seeing a loving essence everywhere I go from here on.” Well, good luck and you’ll probably laugh about an hour.

[Chuck laughs]

RON: And off you go again. What we do at USM, we do a lot of work at what we call a “trio format”. USM is highly experiential, highly experiential so we do a lot work in these trios. So, one person is the listener, one person is the sharer, on person is a neutral observer. The skill is seeing loving essence. One person is sharing anything that they want and the other person is listening. But the entire time they’re listening what they are focusing on is, “This is a divine being sitting in front of me. We’re having a sacred encounter right now.” We’ll teach them to say minimal things so they are not trying to influence the conversation because that’s not what the trio is about.

Maybe they’ll do that for 15 or 20 minutes and then we’ll stop. Then the three of them will talk about what was that experience like for them. And then we rotate our seating so the one who was the listener is now the sharer, the one who was the sharer is now the neutral observer.

You do the thing three times, each time from a different perspective. One time you’re sharing and you’re being listened to that way. Another time you’re the person doing the listening, you’re holding that focus. Or you’re the neutral observer watching this [35:36] and then talking about what your experience was like. So you have three different experiences, but you are steeped in that one thing for an hour. And then we say, “For your homework, everywhere you go practice this for one week or one month, depending upon whether you’re in the online program or whether you’re in the on-site program.” You start to turn concepts into experience. The process of turning concepts into experience is the process of converting knowledge into wisdom where you learn through experience.

CHUCK: That’s true and I’m amazed that went so quickly. We do learn to experience and we mentioned something. I want to make sure in this segment we get it because, Mary, you said there is an experiential workshop and according to the website, your next experiential workshop for Loyalty to Your Soul is July 11th through 13th, 2014 and if you go the universityofsantamonica.edu, it is easy to click a button, go to that and be able to register for it. In a few minutes we’ll join Dr.’s Ron and Mary Hulnick again on Straight Talk Radio. This is Chuck Gallagher, stick with us.

[Commercial break]

CHUCK: We’re back and in our last segment with Straight Talk Radio, Transformation Talk Radio and I’m just so excited. My guests today are Dr.’s Ron and Mary Hulnick and they are the pioneers and innovators in an emerging field of spiritual psychology and the founding faculty and co-directors in the University of Santa Monica, where by the way my wife happens to be a student in her second year, finishing up her Master’s program and I know that it has been transformational for Debbie. It really has made an incredible difference and we were talking a bit before the last break about the Loyalty to Your Soul Workshop, which is, I guess, a quick easy weekend way of getting a little taste what the Master’s of Spiritual Psychology might be about and I think it’s held on July 11th through 13th, 2014, so you have plenty of time to register.

Let’s talk a little bit about the program, the online program and the in-person program with the University of Santa Monica.

MARY: The two years Master’s program begins in October every year. We admit about 255 students and they move through the program together over the course of the two years. It’s really a powerful program.

The first year is really about learning the basic principles and practices and beginning to implement them in your life. But in the second year we really work with people so that they can apply them in their everyday life situations and experience the transformation of their consciousness and the transformation of their lives.

I’ll give one example, Chuck. One of the things that people do in the second year is they focus on a relationship project and we challenge them. We say, “Who is the most challenging relationship in your life?” and then we have a very supportive process that’s designed to assist them in very systematically looking the unresolved material inside themselves and also doing things on the outer level that are designed to enhance or improve their relationship.

I must say I love this course because it is so beautiful to witness the very, very deep healing and transformation that goes on. We’ve seen family estrangements that have been going on for 20 years resolve and relationships where people just couldn’t even stand being in the same room with each other where all of that dissolved and they really came into loving and respect and a joy and appreciation in the relationship together.

It’s a very depthful kind of process and [40:20] profoundly transformational. One of the things we say at USM is that the conscious world begins with conscious people. Sometimes people ask us, “What does conscious mean?” and to us it means that people are awake and aware and Ron spoke a little while ago about people really waking up to the awareness that they are a diving being having a human experience and then living their life, learning how to conduct their life in a way that is congruent with that.

RON: People have the idea by and large that life is what’s happening out there. They are living in this reality that’s happening out there, but really life is what you’re experiencing regardless of what’s happening out there. The inner is everything, so this is what the program is all about. We call it ‘spiritual’ because that’s really the kind of thing that’s been referred to throughout time, but it really what it is about it’s about people learning to live into their essential nature which is loving. The more loving you become, life changes. It just changes.

CHUCK: I have seen that transformation take place. It’s kind of fascinating when you’re on the, I’ll call it, the non-participating side of someone that’s working on a Master’s degree. Needles to say, you get kind of sucked into it. If you all want to just award me a Master’s degree, you don’t have to add anything to me.

[Mary laughs]

CHUCK: I told Debbie that and she said, “Don’t say that on the radio.” I said, “You know I’ve got to play with that a little bit.”

MARY:[laughs] It’s so incredible because there is a huge [42:15] that goes on with the partners, family, friends of students who are participating in the Master’s program at USM. I must say what you mentioned, Chuck, is very accurate from our perspective. it’s like you’re getting a bio osmosis.

RON: In fact, we have been doing this for 33 years and one of the funniest things is that is that we have people in the workshop or in the program right now who are there because they saw the change in their parents as they were growing up.

CHUCK: Oh, that’s fascinating. Oh, my goodness.

MARY: Yeah, we have some second generations but you asked also about the online and in February we launched our online program which is an eight-week course. The first flight, that’s what we called it, had 400 people on it from all around the world from 12 different countries and the feedback has been profound. It’s also wonderful because we have teleseminars with the online students on a regular basis and we add new material to the worldwide Soul Center, which is a subscription membership which supports people in continuing to work with the principles and practices and receive support for so doing.

CHUCK: Let me ask this question because I know that, first for the listeners, if you want to visit the University of Santa Monica, it is universityofsantamonica.edu. That is what I call the primary site for the school and the Master’s program, but what you’re referring to is usmonline.org and, again, a beautifully [44:13]that opens this teaching to people from an online basis. Can you enroll in USM online and get your Master’s program or is this a supplement to those people who are choosing the traditional program by coming to California?

RON: You can’t get the Master’s degree. This is really for those people who have heard about this, and obviously only 255 people a year can enroll.

CHUCK: Right.

RON: That’s not very much when you’re thinking of a worldwide perspective so the question becomes how can we make these teachings more available to more people? So the online eight-week offering is the first thing that we’ve done. It’s basically built on what you find in the Loyalty to Your Soul book, but the thing that we are looking forward to, because to us, what we’re teaching is supporting people and living into the future that we are evolving into. That’s our mission, that’s our vision. I don’t think it’s going to be too long before we have classes going on in other parts of the world when the facilitators are sitting here at the University in Santa Monica and the classes meeting in local time somewhere else and the facilitators are simply on it and through the two-way video stream they’re just facilitating the class from here. That’s going to be a happy day.

CHUCK: Well, Ron, I see that and I think that makes perfect sense. In the environment that people live in today, just like this, we’re sitting here in completely different time zones in Engineering Washington State. We have you guys in California, I’m in South Carolina and yet through the marvels of modern technology we’re literally able to connect, to create the show. I think it’s important that you’re right, you’re bringing something that is incredibly valuable to raising the consciousness of who we are and yet it is limited by 250 people or so that are able to come to the Master’s program. The expansion of that program I think is going to be wonderful.

And of course, I hear the music once again. My guests today have been Dr.’s Mary and Ron Hulnick. They are the authors of the acclaimed book Loyalty to Your Soul. Loyalty to Your Soul, authors Hulnick, go to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kindle, Nook, iPad. You can get a copy of the book and probably as importantly, go to the universityofsantamonica.edu and check out their Master’s program in Spiritual Psychology.

Ron, Mary, it’s been such an honor to have you on the program. For those that are listening, this is Chuck Gallagher with Straight Talk Radio. I am thrilled to be able to have the Hulnicks here and to talk about the Master’s in Spiritual Psychology and raising the consciousness of who we are as people as spiritual beings having a human experience. And with that said, stay tuned next week for Straight Talk Radio, Transformation Talk Radio to live by. This is Chuck Gallagher, bye-bye.

You’ve been listening to Straight Talk with Chuck Gallagher. Tune in each week on transformationtalkradio.com, each Monday at 2 p.m. Pacific, 5 p.m. Eastern, as Chuck Gallagher, international speaker and author, cuts through the noise to share truth through transparency. Nationally-known guests talk about what’s important to you – your life, your concerns, and your success. Visit gallagher.pcgdev.com for more information and turn on to Straight Talk with Chuck Gallagher.

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