Real Beauty with FD
Real Beauty with FD
Season 5 Real Beauty with FD: psychologist, dream expert, creator of the Daily Astro Alert, astrologer, and prognosticator starring the incredible Dr. Michael Lennox
Awesome episode, part 1 so look out for part 2 next week!
Hit me up at @choosandfashiondoos with comments
welcome to real beauty with I am so excited about this episode. But before I go into it, I am broadcasting. If that's still a term, even though this isn't a radio. Um, but I'm currently seeing in my closet This is what we refer to one of the spare bedrooms that I've converted into my closet. And it is hot as fuck. I mean it, I'm probably sitting at like 92 degrees upstairs and it's like 90 downstairs. We're going on to D eight. That's right tomorrow will be date eight. I've not having an AC. And holy shit. I think I've sweated out my like weight in sweat. Unfortunately, my waistline is still not representing this, but I have no doubt. It will catch up soon. Um, but. I'm not starting this podcast off with a downer. Had I been recording this yesterday? I probably would have felt differently. Like the world is ending. Is this to any of my girlfriends. I was in communication with yesterday. I did not feel myself nor my best. So I'm giving myself grace. So we all have those shitty days. Um, But today is probably like my best day since like, even pre-surgery I was not feeling great for like a couple of weeks before everything happened. Um, today's me, my best day. I was back in the office. I wore an awesome dress from rent, the runway, which I am back on, um, specifically, cause we have a wedding this weekend. Um, and it was such a cute dress. I wore heels. Also the first time in like, I can't remember. Um, so yeah, so today was an awesome day and tomorrow. The AC people will be coming over with a parts. I feel beyond optimistic. And then my mom's coming out on Wednesday, so really excited. Um, it's always nice to focus on like the positive things. Um, so yeah, and actually. Uh, shout out to my previous manager, staff in a, who constantly spoke about marshals and said how great it is. I finally went this weekend to have a timeout. From the family. And also seek AC, um, and it was super cute, much more organized than, um, TJ Maxx. Um, so really liked it. And I actually picked up a super cute. Um, Rachel Zoe. Am I going to say, even our name? I feel like I'm questioning myself now. Um, but yeah, I picked up a super cute skirt. Um, and honestly I wanted a bit more separate. I was trying to be disciplined, so I will definitely be back. So anyone who hasn't been to Marshall's. I know, you're probably thinking I'm the only one, but if you haven't. Um, highly recommend plus. I actually got some. Um, sale pieces from uncommon James. So that is. The jewelry range by Kristin. Um, capillary from. I'm sure you all will remember like Laguna beach or the Hills, but anyway, she started this range. I mean, I honestly think maybe like five, six years But it is super impressive. Um, I got like a necklace and I also have earrings and the earrings are like gorgeous statement earrings. So very impressed. But anyway, I will stop chit-chatting. Um, so this episode is with Dr. Michael Lennox. Um, and I go into like his background, but, um, I will say this is great timing because again, my mom is coming out and she was actually here when I recorded this with him earlier this year. Um, so yeah, time flies, which is wild. But it was just such a fascinating discussion. And again, I split it up over two episodes. Um, so actually the next episode is when I talk in a bit more detail about like, my mom has very like specific dreams. But anyway, I hope you enjoy. Thanks.
francene:Hey, Michael checking. You can
michael:hear me. Hey, loud and clear. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hi. How's it going?
francene:How's it
michael:going? Oh, honey. I've just had the most incredibly difficult four or five. Oh, no. Oh, I'm sorry. Retrograding V retrograding. Venus and the sun. Yes. Came together on Friday. So yeah, Venus is retrograde. We're all in this deep emotional investigation. The sun on that's like a big river atory moment and somebody that I'm seeing a bit hurt my feelings really badly. Um, And I spent four days in the anxious attachment I experienced when I was like in my twenties. Yeah. Yeah. Oh no. And I, let me assure you the three dimensional story of what buck did was nothing. It was like nothing. It was a blip, it was a blip. And like we're fine. Yeah. Yeah. I was on the floor the next morning in like 7, 8, 9 month old experiences of no one's coming to soothe this. Yeah. Which is what it was like when I was 7, 8, 9 months. So the full moon, the. Was on my north node, my DMA. Right. So karma got kicked up on Friday. The full moon ended it overnight. And it's like, I didn't believe that I would go to bed and wake up feeling better, even though that's what the astrology said. Yeah. But my, I was so much pain. I was like, ah, yeah. Yeah. And, um, I woke up this morning feeling like myself again and. Buck returned from Dallas. And there were texts on my phone overnight. I was like, right. We're just back to where we were on Thursday. Thank you, astrology.
francene:Yeah, isn't it. Um, oh my gosh. I'm so, so pumped at talking to you today. I have so many
michael:questions. Yay. I'm I love it. Listen, questions are good. Like that's I'm I'm I? Yeah. I'm yeah, this is gonna be fun.
francene:Yay. Um, so. Obviously I will do like the, um, the intro and everything else. Um, so don't worry. That will be kinda added in. Yeah. Um, so firstly, how, how did you get. Involved in this because you studied psychology, right? Yeah. Originally. Huh? And then you went on to look at astronom, um, astrology and then personality. But yeah. Tell me how.
michael:Yeah. Yeah, no, totally the opposite, like that is not at all. It started as a teenager, as a spiritual rising up of, of gifts and intuition and curiosities. Yeah. Okay. And the ability to interpret dreams was something that was pre-installed that I discovered as a teenager. And so by the time I went to grad school in my mid thirties, I was already fully formed as an intuitive, I was interpreting dreams for decades. I was doing workshops on dream interpretation at like 28 years old. Oh my God. And so the psychology degree was in that moment, I'm like 36 years old. I'm sort. Practicing interesting spiritual, intuitive stuff on the side. But my job, I was vice president of new business development at Playboy. No no
francene:way. Yeah,
michael:no, no way. Lots of fun. I've been at MGM for five years. I was in the entertainment industry as an executive and on the side, I'm doing readings for people, right. Workshop and whatnot. And I was like, my soul is being eaten. I am not doing what I'm here to do. I don't wanna be a. Therapist, but I need to know more. I need to know deeply about the human condition. I don't wanna be someone out there teaching and helping. Who's just intuitive and, you know, whatever. I was like, we need credit. I wanna know. And I wanna Dr. In front of my name and I don't care if it takes me six years to make it happen. So I just went to grad school saying, I don't know where this is gonna lead. And it changed everything in my life. And so. Right. When I finished my master's, I got a television show on the sci-fi network as a dream expert. And while the show was not a success and that was not the future, I hoped it would be. Yeah. What I got at like 40 years old was. I can do this as a career. I can be a teacher, a dream expert. I was already diving into astrology and I started making my living doing astrological readings in a bit in, at that age. And then, you know, I, I left the corporate world behind in the first half of my life and entered this chapter 20 something years ago and put it all together. Mm-hmm and so the education came last.
francene:No way. So wait, you were able to read dreams when you were younger. Like, so how, how did you know that? Like, like you just heard, like people would talk about their dreams and you're like, I know what that means.
michael:Well, it's actually, there's a cute piece of the story that I don't always tell, but I'm gonna tell it to you, which is that a lot of it had to do with a show album of Fiddler on the. Yes. Yes. There's a dream sequence. Mm-hmm in Fiddler on the roof. It's a very vibrant, important piece of music and it changes the plot tremendously. Yeah. And it's on the show album and it's a dream. And he says, so he says, I had this dream cuz there's dialogue on the album. And he's like, ah, I had a dream. It was terrible. And Golda says the wife. Tell me what you dreamed and I'll tell you what it meant. Mm-hmm so I just heard that phrase a thousand times as a kid. Cause you know, my mom played that album a lot. Yeah. So cut to 15 years old and Freud's interpretation of dreams shows up on the bookshelf. Cuz my mom's getting an MSW master's in social work. Mm-hmm I read it cuz I love dreams. I've been fascinated with dreams since I was a little boy. Me too. Yeah. and I read anything that was interesting on my mother's shelves. Right? Mm-hmm you know, when I was younger, was looking at the medical books to find pictures of genitalia, and then I graduated at 15 to that's an interesting book on dreams. Um, I think I looked in every academic book in my life. I looked in the index to find the word homosexuality, just to see if I could learn something about my, you know, budding Gauss. I read this book on dreams and I really get some understanding that dreams are valuable and they reveal stuff. And like your deep
francene:subconscious. Yes.
michael:Yes. I don't know that I understood Freud at 15, but I certainly got that. He was saying very clearly you have this unconscious material. It's really unconscious. Yeah. And dreams. He called it dreams the Royal road to the unconscious mm-hmm So you walk around high school to what a kid say all the time. I had the craziest dream last night. Right? You still say that now? Yeah. Right. Of course everybody would give high school office water coolers today. It's on text, right? Sure. Yeah. I remembered Golda. So kids would say I had the craziest dream and I just. I don't know, I guess I got kind of bossy about it and I said, well, tell me what you were dreaming. And I I'd love to, you know, say something about it. Yeah. And so people would, and I would say what I would say, and people would stop. They would widen their eyes and they'd go, wow. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. That experience I am telling all my secrets today. No, I love this. This is great. That experience lit up my little narcissism so strongly, like you mean you're gonna pay attention to me for a few minutes and you're gonna think that what I have had to say is really valuable. Yeah. And you gonna look at me like that. I want more that feeling, baby so I did it a lot. Yeah.
francene:Right now that's a great talent.
michael:I don't know, like I would love to be a fly on the wall and go back to what it was like at 16 and 17 and hear a dream and speak into it. Um, but I, this is what I learned many, many years ago. Now I'm a full on adult. I'm I'm preparing a television show on the sci-fi networks of dreams or everything and, and a manager at the time. And she said, you know, Michael, you're gonna have to figure out what it is you do when you interpret a dream till you can teach it. Yeah. I was like, well, actually I cried. In that moment, cuz I was overwhelmed at the question cuz it just felt like, well it just feels like a crazy, I don't know. Yeah. But I started watching what was happening in my mind and in my thoughts and in my voice when I heard and then responded to a dream, the dream is just a story it's being told in the language of symbols. I'm hearing the symbols and I'm going immediately to what the universal sensibility might be around that symbol based on what it is, what it does, what its use is, what its essence is like. If somebody has a dream about a refrigerator, it's not their refrigerator in the kitchen, it's their dreaming. It's the idea of being able to preserve. Because that's what a refrigerator does. It helps us preserve our food. Right. Right. So that's its essence that's its use. So then that gives it its meaning that isn't that thing in the refrigerator. That's probably yellow and well I'm aging, myself, avocado green refrigerators. We're a big thing in the, yeah. You know what I'm saying? So, um, I can do that with a dream so fast that by the time you're telling it to me, I am already vibing with what's the meaning behind the meaning? Like what's the I'm holding here a glass. Well, it's a cut. It's a. Actually made out of copper, a copper copper of water, right? Yeah. So the use of this thing is it helps me sustain myself. It allows me to draw to me what I need for life force, water mm-hmm mm-hmm So if the cup is broken in the dream, then the dream is about your inability to help yourself or access what you need. For sustenance of life. Right? So my gift isn't that I know things that you don't know, it's just that I can do this so fast in this kind of quantum place. That isn't my conscious thinking that by the time you have finished telling me your dream, I can tell you the story behind the story based on how universal wisdom speaks to and through me. Got it.
francene:Crazy. Like, so I, and this is a hundred percent why I reached out every time I have a dream in the morning, I will wake up. I will wake my husband up and I'm like, oh my gosh, I dreamed about blah, blah, blah. And then I will instantly Google it. But sometimes when it's so specific, you know, things like, oh, um, oh my God, what's like the classic one. Like your teeth are falling out. It doesn't necessarily, it's not symbolic of your teeth, but isn't it do with money. Your teeth?
michael:Well, that's an interesting thought, like right here. Yeah. Let's go with that idea. Cause I certainly heard this. I, I call'em superstitions. Yeah. That the superstitious interpretation of teeth falling out is about money or losing resources. Yes. That's an old cultural idea that probably came out of some cultural likes, you know, uh, uh, uh, you know, you can't, it's a politically incorrect term to use the term wives tale. I try to. Say that, but superstitious cultural ideas, you know, a yellow bird means your mother-in-law is coming. Yeah, I, I actually read that in an, a, in a very old dream dictionary, like pre psychology. Yeah. Yellow bird. Mother-in-laws visiting. Oh, God. Right. So I think there are a lot of meanings that come from those cultural sort of perspectives. Yeah. But the way I work and approach universal meaning is, well, what do your teeth do? Well, first of all, they aid in digestion. They're the first line of breaking down food. So you can be sustained and nurtured. Yeah. They attract love. Mm-hmm reveal them in a smile and love comes back to. So just right there, sustenance and nurturing self and attracting love. If you can't do that, then your dream is reflecting a kind of an insecurity of not being able to care herself or draw in love. And because the teeth are located. In the mouth and the mouth is the point through which our voice emerges. And our voice is how we express our sovereignty and power in the world. Yeah. Than anything that's connected to the mouth is also gonna reflect your relationship to how you are speaking up for yourself, setting boundaries and declaring who you are, not through your voice. So it could be a money dream, but I doubt it. It's probably a dream about feeling insecure and needing to recognize that there's more sort of groundedness and strength required in how you relate to taking care of yourself that your needs are met, attracting love and speaking your truth. Do
francene:you think if more people. Kinda listen to your point. If you wake up in the morning and you know, whatever the dream is, you cuz I will also sometimes write it down in my notes. Cause you forget it so quickly. Yeah. I'll write it down and think, okay. What, what were the main things? And then I try and think. I don't know. I feel like sometimes it's like a guide to your life that you're not thinking about. So you mentioned like health, so do you think sometimes your dreams are. Trying to kind of give you warning or draw your attention to something and how many people just ignore it.
michael:Yeah. Um, I love this question and I wanna speak into, there's a, kind of, a bunch of complex ideas that you're actually putting on the table. One is this outside of what I can do in interpreting dreams, that feels like a God-given gift to me and that the people who I share it with go, oh my God. And by now at 58 years old, having done it since I was 18, I have a lot of experience with that. So I trust that to be. Yes. But at the end of the day, your job with your dreams is not to figure out what they mean. Now that might be a little ironic coming from somebody who has an ability to hear your dream and tell you what I think it means. Right, right, right. That is my gift. And so I learn around the planet. Utilizing my gift because it's my gift. In fact, I got a lot of flack in grad school because in, in, as a trained therapist, you're trained, never to touch people's dreams. Oh, really? Why? Why is that? Oh, because of this principle, the dream is sacred. The dream belongs to the dreamer. You do not wanna. Can I curse? Yes. Yeah. You do not wanna fuck with that. at all. So it would go a little bit like this people, you know, professors professional therapists would say, oh, no one, you should never interpret a dream of a client. And I would say, you're right. You never, should. You never should. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I ain't gonna stop practicing my God-given gift. The, the challenge in that is you might hear me interpret a dream and say, oh, the best thing to do with the dream is know what it means definitively. Mm. Yeah. But it, but the opposite is so, so when I'm teaching or doing workshops, even though I'm showing you what my gift looks like, I'm also trying to make sure that people understand that really your dreams are just like. A mother at the pool with her eight year old, who wants to jump in and say, Hey, ma look And the kid jumps in and mom is like, huh. Then she goes back to her book or Cosmo and like has to do it again. 10 minutes later when the eight year old is like, ma look and it's the same thing. Right? Let our dreams are a little like that. They're like a part of us that just want to be related. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they come from our unconscious. And when you relate to them, you are relating to yourself in the most intimate way a person can relate to themselves. Mm-hmm through considering what the unconscious is expressing. Yep. So when you write down a dream, because you know that in the ether, it will be gone. That's dream work. That alone increases the ongoing dialogue between conscious and unconscious mind. That happens every night when you're asleep. Yeah. It's every night, honey, you might remember a dream every five nights. Yeah. But every single night you're unconscious and your conscious mind are relating to each other. And we wake up wiser and smarter because of our dream. You know, we're learning in the REM state data. Like when you learn, like you, you study calculus during the day, you spend more time in REM sleep at night, that's proven in the lab because your mind is downloading the data and turning it into short term memory. Right. I think the same thing is said about wisdom, like in, you know, smarts intelligence is about the things, you know, mm-hmm, wisdom is about how you take what, you know, and turned it into better.
francene:Yes, ideally, right? Yes. Ideally
michael:but yes. So every night we visit with our unconscious and wake up the next day wiser. And it's through the dream process. I believe that that happens. Yeah. So if you write down your dream, you've already lifted up that mechanism. to a higher level. Mm-hmm if you then share that dream with another human being your poor husband every
francene:morning. Yeah, I know. I know. I wanna say, I tell the amount of random stuff. I, uh, I, I tell him, but,
michael:but you understand that's dream work. Yeah. Yeah. Like it may even be. Innocuous and silly. I'm telling my I'm nudging my husband and annoying him with my dream. And I'm sure he has a funny way of talking about this when you're having dinner with other people. Yeah. but that's elevating your experience of something that's very intimate inside of you. Yeah, true. You know, and then if you do any work on it, that's further than that by marinating ruminating or writing or journaling or thinking or Googling. Googling is good. Yeah. That can lead to some good, valuable information. Not always, sometimes sometimes. Absolutely. And, um, then if you take it for my money, the top way to respond to a dream is. You know, the dream is speaking to you in the language of symbol. Why not speak back to your unconscious in the language of symbol? So you can write about it and talk about it. But if you sit down with your crayons and draw a little picture of the scene from the dream, now you're cooking with gas. Now you're unconscious is gonna receive the imprint of that symbolic expression. You've just created with your imagination and your creativity and your crayons and go, oh, should paying attention. Let's give us some more information through the dream state. And then the whole thing rises up, gets a little bit more. Oh, wow.
francene:I'm a hundred percent gonna try that.