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Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I’m Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond the Crucible.

Dr. Thomas McCormack:
Over the 12 weeks, what we found was that initially the cohort had a Beck Depression Inventory score of, I believe it was about 32, which is in the severe range. By the end of the study, the mean Beck Depression score had dropped to 14, which is in the mild region.

Gary Schneeberger:
That’s our guest this week, Dr. Thomas McCormack, describing his research into how adding a spiritual component to psychiatric care can have a powerful impact the medical discipline he pioneered. Ruachiatry takes a 12-step approach to helping patients find healing, especially in the wake of crucibles, by leaning into such things as finding peace through surrender, embracing reconciliation, and choosing forgiveness.

Warwick Fairfax:
Tom, great to have you here. Tom is Dr. McCormack. He is a psychiatrist educator, thought leader and integrates spirituality and medicine. He graduated with honors from Wake Forest University, got his medical degree from Emory. Fellowships at Duke. He has a thriving multidisciplinary practice in Athens, Georgia, and he specializes in complex and treatment-assistant psychiatric cases. Dr. McCormack, Tom is an expert psychiatrist and has written a book, Hidden Medicine that really talks about the integration of spiritual with the physical and the biological, and talks about the 12 steps of Ruachiatry. Did I get that close to right?

Dr. Thomas McCormack:
Yeah, that’s right War.

Warwick Fairfax:
Okay. So before we get into that, which I found fascinating because it really offers help to folks spiritually really holistic medicine I guess you could say. So tell us a bit about the backstory of what a young Tom McCormack was like growing up and how you got interested in medicine. Where was that journey because not everybody grows up saying, “I want to be a psychiatrist one day.” Probably didn’t think that when, I guess you were six or seven, I’m guessing. So what was life like for young Tom and what led you to your life’s calling?

Dr. Thomas McCormack:
Yeah. Well first thank you guys for having me, Warwick and Gary. And look forward to talking to you guys today. Yeah. Starting from the start, when I was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia and growing up from a really young age, I knew I wanted to be a physician. Honestly, it was probably like three or four years old. I remember watching the old 1970s television show called Emergency, and I just really-

Warwick Fairfax:
Yes.

Dr. Thomas McCormack:
You remember that? All right.

Warwick Fairfax:
Oh yeah.

Dr. Thomas McCormack:
Same generation. Good.

Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Thomas McCormack:
Well anyway, the role of the physician, the doctor really resonated with me. I just thought it was neat. And so I started saying … My parents tell me now that I wanted to be a doctor from a really, really young age. I went to a great college preparatory school from seventh grade onward and was blessed to have a wonderful education. And the further I got in my education, I began to see science as the way to truth. And as a person of science, I overemphasized that and really abrogated anything spiritual to the backseat. I wasn’t sure that existed and science seemed to explain the natural world and what occurred, and so I went with that.
So growing up really wasn’t a person of faith to any large degree, and that got worse in college as it often does. I really looking back was very selfish young man and was all about me, myself, and I. I’m embarrassed to say that, but it’s the truth. And I studied very hard in medical school initially … I’m sorry, in undergraduate. My first semester, just a month or so into school, I got a very severe case of mononucleosis. And it was so severe I thought initially it was just pharyngitis strep throat or something like that. And so I really blew it off. I thought, oh, this will get better in a few days and just gargle and that sort of thing. But by the time I actually sought medical help, it was my roommate and my suitemates who said, “You’ve got to go down to student health.” I couldn’t move at that point, Warwick. I was so fatigued. My throat hurt so badly I could not swallow. I’d lost a lot of weight in a really short period of time and they knew something was wrong. And so they took me to student health. I had an enlarged liver, enlarged spleen. I just let this go and they diagnosed me with mononucleosis.
I was actually in the hospital just for supportive care for almost two weeks and missed a lot of class. And obviously I was taking a pre-med track, and so I was taking biology and chemistry among other things. And I got way behind and met with my advisor after I was discharged and he said, “Tom, I really think you ought to withdraw from some classes. Probably the harder ones, like the science classes.” And where I went to school was at that time pretty small college and they didn’t have where you could take chemistry one or biology one second semester, you had to take it first semester. And so if I dropped out, I couldn’t take the chemistry two. Anyway, I couldn’t take it second semester, so I’d be a year behind on the pre-med track. And I just thought, that’s unacceptable. I don’t want to waste a year. So I foolishly did not take that advice and kept going forward and ended up getting two Cs and both in biology and chemistry, the rest for A’s and Bs.
It was very humbling. I had never gotten a C in my life, let alone in a class, but I think on a paper test, I don’t think I’d ever gotten Cs. I’ve done very well. And I met with my pre-med advisor and he said, “Tom, you’re obviously not going to medical school, so you might want to think about another major.” And indignant, I said, “No, sir. Well, I am going to medical school.” I was respectful, but I said, “Eat my dust and I’m going to get a new advisor, somebody who’s more encouraging.” Always said respectfully. Anyway, so I did. And the rest of my time at Wake Forest, I studied really hard and almost had a 4.0 the rest of the time. And so it did help bring my grade point average up. So by the time it was time to apply to medical schools, the same advisor I met with, because he was in charge of the pre-med committee, he met with me and said, “Oh, well, we highly recommend you to medical school.” I didn’t say I told you so. He might not have even remembered what he told me three and a half years earlier. So he said, “Where do you want to go?” And I said, “My state medical school.” He said, “You should have no problem getting in there with your grades and your activities and your MCAT scores.” And I thought, “Great. That’s where I want to go.”
After applying, I got a interview very early on, which was a good sign. It’s a rolling admission. And the interviews went great at my state medical college and I truly expected to get an acceptance letter any day now. And so every day from October my senior year in college on through my graduation, I checked the mailbox and there was nothing there. It got humbling, but then scary and I was puzzled like, “Why don’t they let me know?” And they didn’t put me on the wait list, which usually they’ll do if they think, “Ah, he’s okay, but we’re not sure. Maybe something will open up.” But they just didn’t let me know. And graduation came around and I still hadn’t heard. So I went home that summer in late May of ’92 and still checked the mailbox every day, really hoping to get a letter, but my confidence was waning.
And then one muggy day in June, I grabbed my trusty dog, Murph, and we went down to the mailbox and I found a very thin letter, which I knew spelled bad news. Opened it on the spot and there was a few line rejection and I was just crestfallen. Everything I’d worked for one, be a physician since a very young age and worked really hard to overcome some early academic setbacks have been taken from me, and I was led to believe I was a really good candidate. And on paper, I was. I was just puzzled. I started tearing and I thought, geez, what do I do? I didn’t want to go back to my home. I knew my parents were there and they’d start asking questions and scrambling around, and I just didn’t feel like facing that. I felt like I needed to process it. So I had my dog and I thought, well, I’m just going to go for a walk and try to clear my head. But my head was swirling. I was so upset and tearful.
I hadn’t made it very far. Made it to the house next door, and I stopped in the middle of the road and I’m embarrassed to say this is how I addressed the almighty. But I stopped and said something along these lines, God, I’m not really even sure you exist and if you do, why in the world would you let this happen to one of your children? This isn’t fair. I worked hard for this. And I said, “I’ll tell you what, if you exist, you need to show me right now. I’m not asking you to get me into medical school, but I’ve worked hard for this and I’m lost, and you need to show me what path you want me to take. And if you do that and show your reality, I’ll follow you the rest of my life.” And not expecting any answer whatsoever, and to my shock, immediately I felt an otherworldly presence. I don’t know how else to describe it. Words don’t do it justice. It felt as though this piece instantaneously embraced me. I came to realize in retrospect that whoever listened to me … I prayed a silent prayer. Heard me, and then responded, and I wasn’t expecting that, and I felt a duty to figure out who or what that was.
So that started my journey of spiritual exploration. Long story short, I made it back to my house. I went in, my parents were very upset and they started scrambling immediately. Well, let’s pull some strings. They knew some people. And I didn’t really care. I just thought it’s going to be okay. And my dad said I remember, “Why are you so calm?” Because they were not. And I didn’t want to explain to them. I thought they might think I was crazy or lost my mind. So I just said, “Yeah, I think it’s going to be okay.” And they looked at me puzzled. So they got on the horn behind the scenes. Turned out my mom knew the dean from another medical school in Georgia that I hadn’t applied to. It was a newer medical school. It was kind of geared to rural medicine, which wasn’t really my interest. And she called him and he surprisingly said, “Well, I’d be happy to interview Tom. I can’t guarantee he’ll get in.” But it seemed like there was hope because I would be a very good candidate for their program. And I thought, well, maybe they’ll open the spot for me. But still weren’t really sure this was the right way. It didn’t feel right.
So the next week when I was heading down south for that interview, got dressed up in my Sunday best, and I lingered on the couch and my mom came in and said, “Tommy, you’ve got to go. You’re going to be late. I set all this up.” I said, “Yes, ma’am.” So I walked to the back door and I kissed my mom and dad.
And y’all remember back in the days when phones were on the wall. Anyways, our laundry room. And the phone on the wall rang literally as I was touching the doorknob to leave. And I remember my mom answered it and said, really puzzled, was like, “Yes, yes.” And so I stopped like, “What’s going on with her?” And she said, “Yeah, he’s right here.” And she put her hand over the phone and thrust it in my direction and said, “It’s for you.” And I was like, “Who is it?” And she goes, “It’s for you.” And thrust it in my face. And I answered the phone. And on the other end, I had been waitlisted at a private medical school in my state, and it turned out the dean of admissions was calling me and said, “Tom, a spot has opened up. Would you be willing to accept this spot and join our class of 1996? Classes start next week so there’s not much time.” And I said, “Yes, sir,” and I hung up the phone. They’re like, “What happened?” I told them and it was just jubilation ensued. And that really started me on this spiritual journey that wow, something cared, listened to me. And even though I was disrespectful and he answered my prayer and gave me the desires of my heart, not because it was my desire, but because looking back it was his will and I finally surrendered and submitted.

Warwick Fairfax:
You’re in medical school. So tell me what led you to psychiatry? Because not everybody wants to do that. Some one of these surgeons. There’s a lot of different specialties. Neurology. A lot of things you could go into. But why psychiatry?

Dr. Thomas McCormack:
So I saw a flyer in my fourth year in our medical school, and it said, “The law school is looking for medical students to be a mock expert witness in a medical malpractice case for our moot court, and we’ll pay you, and it’s on a Saturday morning.” And I was like, “That sounds fun and I could make a little money.” So anyway, I signed up for that and I went to court. They were very serious. They acted like it was a real case. And because this was the law students, they got a grade for this. It was important to them. I was just there getting paid. But they gave me a transcript of, okay, your doctor so-and-so and it was a malpractice case that had to do with surgery. I supposedly tied the suture wrong, and then they were also suing the company that made the suture.
Anyway, so I got up there on the stand as the expert witness and really enjoyed it. And I think did a pretty good job because afterwards the judge caught me on the way to the parking lot and said, “Hey, young man.” I said, “Yes sir, your honor.” And he said, “What’s your name?” Introduced ourselves. And he said, “You were really good up there.” I said, “Well, thank you, your honor. I appreciate that.” He goes, “Have you ever thought about doing that for a career?” And I was like, “Doing what?” He said, “Being an expert witness.” I said, “No.” And he said, “Well, you might want to consider it.” He said, “I think you’re really good at it. And that’s needed in law for us to have experts to give judges guidance on these things.” And I thought, “Oh, okay.” And so I went home and I looked it up. I was like, “What is he talking about?” And I found forensic psychiatry. And I was like, “I would love that. That sounds great.” So my goal then, I was like, “I think I want to be a forensic psychiatrist.”
In order to do that, you have to do at least a four-year residency in psychiatry. And again, I didn’t really know what that was. I had a psychiatry rotation, but I thought, “Well, gee, if I’m going to go into this, I better do another rotation.” So I did one with a private practice, which was more my speed, and I loved it to my surprise. And that was the goal. I was like, “I’m going to be a forensic psychiatrist.” And my wife supported me, and my family was very puzzled. My dad was a dentist, so he was used to doing things and fixing things and then boom, we’re done. See you next year. And he just said, “You’re doing what?” He goes, “We paid for four years of medical school for you to do that?” He just didn’t understand it. He later came to appreciate it. He never did understand it because he doesn’t have that bent at all. But at any rate, that’s what I chose. And it was the road less traveled and never looked back. I love it. I’ve been blessed to get a great education and have wonderful people around me, and it’s been fantastic. Good fit for me.

Warwick Fairfax:
So before we get into the 12 steps of Ruachiatry, which I found fascinating, talk a bit about the spiritual and the physical, and the biological, because it seems like … And obviously you talk about this a lot in the book, doctors are trained medically that they focus on that and not always thinking about holistically. It’s like, I’m not trying to make fun of doctors, but if your cholesterol is high, you need to take a statin. Okay. That could be helpful in some cases. But what about diet and exercise? Isn’t preventative helpful? Again, some might actually say, “Hey, before I give you a statin,” but some might not. Depends on the doctor and their background, their training, their medical philosophy. But I think what you’re advocating is more for holistic, not just physical. And again, obviously you’re a doc, not against medicine. But talk about how holistic is maybe a better approach, including the spiritual. So talk about your philosophy of medicine, which not every doctor may share necessarily. What’s your philosophy of, I guess, healing rather than curing or preventative medicine? Just talk philosophically about what your approach is.

Dr. Thomas McCormack:
Yeah. Like I said, early in my training, I had become a spiritual person based on my own experience. And simultaneously as I was going through my own spiritual journey, had the privilege of obviously starting to see patients. And what I’ve found was that even when they were really sick or in despair, there was an undeniable tendency for those with a religious foundation to have better coping but also better health outcomes in general. And so it puzzled made that, why aren’t we talking about spirituality at all in our medical curriculum, both in medical school and then I found later in residency as well. When I was in residency, this puzzled me and I was at Duke and there was attending named Harold Koenig at Duke who is an expert in spirituality and medicine. And I started reading his stuff and found that there are over 3000 studies showing the benefits of having a religious faith background. And again, it just puzzled me.
We are trained in medical school on what’s called the biopsychosocial paradigm, and that was introduced by a fellow named George Engel in 1977. And so that is standard in medical curricula in the United States. But even though medicine had a spiritual beginning … If you look back centuries, even millennia, the people who were doing most of the medical treatments … Back then, of course they were herbs, not for pharmaceutical company and whatnot. But they were the shaman or the medical man or the priest and that sort of thing. And the fact that that had been totally ignored in modern medicine was puzzling to me. So finding this information that it can be helpful and seeing that in my own practice, I really started to think, well, we need to integrate this into medical care. And something in the ’90 when I was training was called the biopsychosocial spiritual approach. So they tried to add the spirituality component to it and it never really caught on to a large degree Warwick. And again, the further I got, I thought this is really helpful. I don’t know why that could be.
When I went through my own both physical and spiritual battles as I aged, I felt like there needed to be a more systematized approach to this for patients because somewhat selfishly to some degree, I’d had a lot of problems back in 2019. My dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and watching the greatest guy become a shell of himself and being robbed of his humanity and watching my poor mom having to take care of him, and then COVID hit and we were trying to keep him out of a nursing facility, but it became increasingly hard to keep him at home. I just thought he’ll die if he goes there. He’ll never get out with COVID and who knows how long that’s going to last.
But also with COVID, there were challenges. I had some physical illnesses turning 50 for the first time in my life that were pretty serious and even had to take some time off of work. In addition to time away from practice from COVID was trying to help mom with dad to some degree. And all this along with just … I had three teenage kids running a private practice that I owned and trying to be there for my wife as well was overwhelming. And so I decided to try to systematize it honestly initially for my benefit. And I found it to be wildly beneficial and always wanting to help patients. As I went along, I thought maybe this could be turned into some kind of paradigm that we could help patients. In 2022, I also suffered some trauma in my church that I’d attended for over 20 years, and there was really intense spiritual warfare. That led me … And my father had passed recently. Led me to start writing.
I actually started writing with my pastor. He had a PhD and had written books before and such, and I had written anything since college and I thought, I don’t know what I’m doing and I don’t know if anybody will read this or publisher probably wouldn’t be interested. And he and I started writing together and it was not far into the process where Dr. Mills said to me, he said, “Tom, I think this is your book.” And I was scared. I said, “No David, I really need you. I need you to help me with this.” And he said, “No.” He said, “I think you have a message to say here and I think it’s for you.” And he said, “Look, I’m in the business and people may not hear it from me that they expect me to say these things, but coming from you, it might be seen differently.” And again, I didn’t like what he said, but with trepidation, I went out on my own and over the next couple of years wrote the book at night and on weekends and things of that nature.
And finally got it done in 2024 and approached a friend of mine who’s a ghostwriter, and he said, “Well, let me look at the manuscript.” I said, “Okay.” And he looked at it and he said, “Tom, I think you’ve got something here.” He said, “I really think this could be a special book.” And I was like, “Really? Wasn’t expecting that. I was expecting to self-publish it and just be Vanity Press or something.” And he said, “Let me edit it and put some polish on it and then I’m going to introduce you to my publisher.” And I said, “Wow. Okay.” And so he did that, and this was late 2024 and Greenleaf Publishing accepted later in the year and early 2025, we started the process of having them help me edit it a lot on coming up with cover and all the things that I’m sure you’re aware of having written a book go into. And it’s due October 28th and really excited about it. I hope it helps a lot of people.

Gary Schneeberger:
Warwick, I want to jump in here just for a second because I think we’re at a pivot point in the conversation, and I want to make this point because you’ve described Tom as we’ve been going through your story, your first crucible situation. You didn’t get into law school and you used this phrase when you were talking about who you were at that time. You said that you were all about me, myself, and I. That was your words about where you were at then. You’ve then just described another round of crucibles with some health challenges for you, your father passing away, some problems in your church. And it seems like in those situations your focus was not totally on yourself. For people who are listening to this and their crucibles are going to be different in detail, but the emotions will be the same, what’s the difference? Why did the second way that you dealt with it not being me, myself and I, how did that help you get through those crucibles that you faced?

Dr. Thomas McCormack:
Yeah. That’s a great question. Well, as a person of faith, I came to believe the word of God that says that the highest two commandments are love the Lord your God with all your heart, strength, mind and also love your neighbor as yourself. And going into medicine being really clearly in retrospect, a calling from a young age, I just grew to love people and started seeing myself as less important. That I was a vessel for God to use to help people. And that was my mission in life. I came to see that very differently. And because of that deep desire to help people and show them the way I also became convicted that I can’t show people the way if I don’t have it myself. It’s the same with physical health.
And what I mean by that is in medical school, there’s a very famous cardiologist who literally wrote the book Cardiology, and he would lecture to us and then I would see him between lectures go outside and chain-smoke. And I just thought, wow, this is like a world-famous cardiologist who would tell everybody not to smoke and he’s not doing it. I wasn’t being judgment. I just thought that’s a little hypocritical. As I practice medicine, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to tell people. Or you said, “Hey, diet, exercise,” and then have me be out of shape and that sort of thing. So same thing happened here. It had been helpful for me and I wanted to get the message out and see if I could help other people.

Warwick Fairfax:
So let’s talk about Ruachiatry. Before we get into the 12 steps. At a high level Ruachiatry what’s the philosophical underpinnings? What does it mean?

Dr. Thomas McCormack:
Yeah, ruach in Hebrew means spirit, and iatry obviously comes from a Greek word iatrea which means treatment of. And so this is a spiritual treatment that I came up with. I coined that term for better or worse, but I think I wanted to give it one term that maybe would be memorable to incorporate the spiritual component that’s been neglected in medicine. So yeah, that’s it in a nutshell.

Warwick Fairfax:
And it’s interesting. You did a study with Ruachiatry, with people I think that had depression, and you have a bunch of things like the Beck Depression inventory that I guess I’m sure psychiatrists, but all know what that means. The rest of us probably don’t. Talk about how in that study using these principles actually had very significant health benefits. Talk about that because must’ve been affirming to you.

Dr. Thomas McCormack:
So in seeing it being helpful in my own life, I thought, well, if I’m going to have a systematic approach to help patients, I want some empirical evidence that it is in fact helpful, not just my own experience. And that’s how the study came to be. It was a 12-week study where we had people who were treatment resistant, which we defined as having three or more standard of care antidepressant treatments to deal with their depression and also psychotherapy. And during the trial before people signed up, we told them, Hey, during this 12 weeks you cannot change your medication or your therapy scheduled if you’re currently in psychotherapy. And we had a number of people signed up. Now some of them dropped out because they were so severe that they needed changes in their treatment, but most of the people stayed. And what we found at the end of the 12 weeks, we met with them weekly and went over the 12 steps each week or met them at their own pace. Some people, if they had a spiritual underpinning got through steps one and two pretty quickly, other people might need to spend more time there and such.
But anyway, over the 12 weeks, what we found was that initially the cohort had a Beck Depression Inventory score of … I believe it was about 32, which is in the severe range. By the end of the study, the mean Beck Depression score had dropped to 14, which is in the mild region. So over a 50% drop and also just improvement in their functionality.

Warwick Fairfax:
So let’s talk about these steps. So steps one through three, acceptance, searching, and submission. Just give us a bit of an overview of the first three steps of Ruachiatry.

Dr. Thomas McCormack:
Yeah. The first step you have to accept your powerlessness over your illness. And this might seem self-evident, but it is actually harder in practice because people have a lot of psychological mechanisms to deal with illness. And the first step of any kind of grieving for the loss of a loved one or just loss of functioning and health is denial. And it’s very common, especially early on. The sooner we physicians can move our patients toward acceptance, the better, the quicker they are on the road to help. And so that’s super important.
And then the second part of step one is commitment. Once you’ve accepted, “Hey, I’m powerless over this and I need help of a physician or therapist or a team,” then saying, “I am committed to fighting this. I’m going to take the first steps to dig my heels in and say, ‘This is hard. I don’t want to do this. I’m a peaceful person. I don’t want to fight, but I’m in a fight and I’ve got to be committed to that fight.'” Step two is searching, like I mentioned earlier. And this is where I encourage people to embark on a journey to fulfill their personal responsibility, to decide for themselves if there is a higher power, which one? Who is it? And because this acknowledgement can help people have hope and better cope with illness. And so to me that’s foundational.

Gary Schneeberger:
Step two is interesting to me because I have an AA background. I went through AA in the early ’90s. And the idea of a higher power of my own understanding worked for a while because I did not grow up Christian, not even nominally. But eventually as I was walking through my recovery, I started to think, God of my own understanding, isn’t my own understanding what got me in this position to begin with? How is that going to help me necessarily? It wasn’t enough for me. Now you will not find a greater advocate for AA. But that didn’t work for me. And my story, people have heard it on the podcast because Warwick interviewed me for our 50th episode. It was a little stunt on our host interviews, cohost. But I do believe at the end of the day, God healed me of that. And I don’t refer to myself as a recovering alcoholic. I believe I leaned into that and God just plucked it out of me. But that part of what you said about who is that God of your understanding, I think that’s an important part for people because it’s our understanding that for me, it got me in trouble. That’s what made me an alcoholic and I couldn’t get away from it. And I think that’s probably true through your experience over a lot of different kind of illnesses, right?

Dr. Thomas McCormack:
It is. And that’s great insight. Actually the 12 steps were born out of that because that’s already in our lexicon. It’s already in medical parlance from AA, which started in the 1930s. And because of that, I started looking into AA. We had to do substance abuse stuff during residency, but it’s not really my specialty. But in looking at the research and is there a branch of medicine that talks about spirituality at all? The only branch is addictionology and AA is the foundation of that. And that’s where I came up with the idea of 12 steps. I actually contacted the folks from National AA in New York, and they were very encouraging and said I could use it as a template, but I just had to put a disclaimer that I’m not affiliated with AA at all and that sort of thing, which I put in the book of course.
But yeah. A study out of Stanford not too long ago, I think it was 2021, had 10,500 and something subjects. And their conclusion was that AA is a free resource that doesn’t take professionals or physicians and that it works. And it works fantastic for the malady of alcoholism if people are active in the program. And just saying, “Wow. If that could be applied to general medicine and psychiatry as well, what would that mean?” If we could have something that worked that was free … We’re always talking about, oh, healthcare costs and stuff, what would that mean if a part of our sickness is due to spiritual issues? And so that’s how I came up with the 12 step approach.

Warwick Fairfax:
So after searching before we move to step four, you’ve got submission. Submission is not a very popular word in our culture, but you talk about once we identify the spiritual power greater than ourselves, we decide to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. Submitting ourselves to a higher power to God. So talk before we get to the next one after that, why is submission important? Because it feels like counter cultural. How could submission help me?

Dr. Thomas McCormack:
It is probably same with Australians as it is with American. Yeah, submission is a dirty word, right? It has a connotation of groveling at the feet of somebody who’s conquered you. So you’ve lost and you’re having to against your will do something you don’t want to do. But in spirituality, it has a different connotation. If you’ve identified in step two, a higher power that hopefully is benevolent and powerful enough to help you with your illness, submission should be a reasonable idea. Why wouldn’t I submit to somebody who loves me and is powerful? We submit to our parents. We a lot of times, submit to the state for better or worse. But they still are sinful entities and they’re not all powerful. So if there is something that’s all powerful and willing to help, why the heck wouldn’t you consider submitting? But yeah. Submission is hard even for people of faith. We have our own strong self-will, we also have a system in place that the Bible says is run by the devil. The Bible says our three enemies of the world system, which he runs, the flesh, which is our own fallen physical nature with its appetites that we want gratified. And then the devil himself and his spiritual cohorts that are out to get us. So that’s where submission comes from and it’s super important.
I find that a lot of people who are believers tell me, “Hey, Dr. Mac, these first three, I got those.” And I say, “Wait a second. Let’s go through them and just make sure.” Because I find even with believers, they obviously have submitted to some degree, but most of us have an area of our life that we say, “You know God, you can have 95%, but I’m going to hold this little piece for myself.” Whether we’re willing to admit that or not. Nobody is completely submitted usually and just identifying, “Hey, are there any areas you haven’t turned over to God? And let’s explore the reason for that.” But the more you get to know God and know who he is, it just makes sense. Wow, why wouldn’t I turn everything over to him?

Warwick Fairfax:
Let’s talk about the next step you’ve got. Step four is trauma and lies. You’ve got step five, choosing forgiveness, which we talk about a lot. Traumas we inflicted upon others. I have to say, the worksheets you have in here were really impressive. You’ve got a worksheet for inventory of traumas that you’ve suffered, and the questions here are so specific and clear. Who hurt you? What did they do? Was it intentional? Unintentional? Lies, I believe a result of my hurt, truth according to my higher power, degree of current resentment, ask God for their strengths to forgive. And then flip it the other way, when we’ve inflicted harm on others, the worksheet says, whom did you hurt? What did you do? Was it intentional or unintentional? What could you have done instead? What was the nature of your character defect involved? Had you forgiven yourself admitted to God, another person, the nature of your answers? Powerful questions. Talk about these. Trauma and lies, choosing forgiveness and then traumas be inflicted upon others. Let’s talk about those steps.

Dr. Thomas McCormack:
Sure. So steps four through nine, I call radical renovation. You’re cleaning out the house, so to speak, and this is really hard work, and it takes that commitment we talked about in step one. And because of that, a lot of times for people who’ve had a harder time, it might involve a competent psychotherapist to help them work through this or maybe a Ruachiatry coach somebody who’s trained in the principles of Ruachiatry. But step four is super important, and I tell people, take your time, especially on step four and five. It’s so foundational and fundamental because we are according to the Bible, born with a fallen nature. And people say, “Our baby’s sinful?” Well, if you ever had a two-year-old, you can see how selfish they are and throw tantrums. Yes, from the womb we are innately sinful. I don’t mean we sin all the time, but we have that nature. And because of that, it’s easier for our spiritual foes to blind us. And those who are fortunate enough to either grow up with a faith background from their family or who come to their senses because either God plucks them out or somebody tells them about it, they’re now spiritually awakened and they can see things differently. But everybody has trauma to varying degrees.
And what I talk about in the book is trauma with a big T, a capital T, and then traumas with a little T. Now traumas with a big T, as far as your physical health, it could be having some terrible injury, compound bone fracture or things of that nature, cancer and things of that nature as well. And then other traumas could be things that we would all say, “Oh gosh, yeah.” War, rape, watching somebody die horrifically. These sorts of things are big things that most of us don’t have to go through, but some people unfortunately have. But we all have little T traumas, and these are things that we accumulate during our life. Hurt people, hurt people and we’re all hurt people. And so these accumulate, and what I’ve found is that a lot of little T traumas can add up to big T trauma. And so we all need to look back and say, “Hey, before I was a person of faith, these things have accumulated and I need to go back, unlock the cellar door and see what’s down there and deal with it, not just bury it.”
And so this is a hard step, firstly, admitting and looking in the mirror and saying, what are the traumas? But who hurt me, whether it’s a person or an institution. And I tell people, go back to childhood, write down everything. And so this list can be super long, which is great. It should be because you have traumas. And trauma is in the eye of the beholder. And what we found with resilience research is that what I see as traumatic, you fellas might look at it and be like, “Well, that’s a piece of cake.” Because we all have different coping mechanisms and see things differently. But it doesn’t matter. If I experienced it as traumatic, I have the same physiologic response, I have the same psychological response and so it’s traumatic to me. So going through in every individual listing these things is super important and who did it? And then identifying was it intentional or not?
What I’ve found is that traumas that are either born of happenstance, acts of God or war things you couldn’t control or just accidental, they weren’t purposeful … Somebody hurt you, but they didn’t mean to. It wasn’t malicious, but they still hurt you. Those are easier to forgive even if the person doesn’t come to you and ask for forgiveness. It’s a lot harder when we look and say, “Gee, that was intentionally inflicted and they were trying to hurt me and that sort of thing.” So that’s an important aspect.
Step five goes on to another foundational truth. And that is so important. If you don’t forgive completely and fully, you are carrying around what the Bible calls a root of bitterness. So this understandable anger based on you’ve been hurt. It can grow over time. And what I tell people is that it grows into resentment. Meaning again, sentiment comes from sentire, which is Latin that means feeling it. And so you’re choosing to feel the same emotion you felt when you’re hurt again and again. And it’s just simply madness. And so just recognizing that this is a prison of your own choosing. And when you choose forgiveness, you choose to set two captives free. You set the person free who did this to you, but you set yourself free as well. And forgiveness is hard, especially if the person does not apologize and was malicious about it. But it’s so important and it’s really necessary. And that can take some time, as I mentioned.
And then looking at our own selves in the mirror. Hey, hurt people, hurt people. I’ve hurt people. It’s not just all about me. What have I done and what potential character defects, looking at what’s gone on in my own journey and identifying and look in the mirror and saying, “These are things I need to correct in order for me to be whole.” And then seven is making amends where you can .this isn’t always advisable nor possible to do, but when it is, it’s important to reach out to people whom you’ve hurt and offer genuine remorse and try to make it right if you can.

Warwick Fairfax:
It’s fascinating that you talk about this because Beyond the Crucible, we talk about forgiveness a lot. And we say, as obviously, I’m sure you would believe that forgiveness doesn’t mean condoning what was done to you. It doesn’t mean what was done to you was right, acceptable, moral. But you do it because obviously as people of faith, because we’ve been forgiven, those who’ve been forgiven much should forgive. So we often say that choosing not to forgive is like drinking poison. It just corrodes your soul. And the other thing with forgiveness is I often tell people and our church and all, it is rare that somebody will say, “I apologize,” in my opinion. It can happen but most of the times they’ll say, “Well, I’m sorry if that hurt you.” Sorry if is never … I tell all my kids, sorry if is not an apology. That just does not cut it.
So you’ve got to realize when bad things are done to you, you will rarely get the satisfaction because of the world we live in. It just won’t happen most of the time. So we’ve make amends in the last few steps we’ve got from fear to faith, vigilant and sober. And then I think you’ve got drawing closer to God seeking spiritual wisdom. So really from eight instead of a turning point. So talk about that turning point from theater, faith and vigilant and sober drawing closer to God. Talk about how that helps your spiritual recovery if you will.

Dr. Thomas McCormack:
Sure. Four, five and six deal with anger, which sometimes it’s like you said, if you’re heard, it is justified. And so step eight deals with the other emotion that I find to be very problematic and where people get stuck and that’s fear, which is very common in today’s world, the state of flux that our world is in. The political discord. Obviously the pandemic that happened. There’s a lot of fear and some of it’s certainly understandable, but I’ve seen it grow in my practice with folks presenting with anxiety is super common. I think there’s a spiritual way to combat it in addition to certainly some people need therapy and medicine also, and I’m not against that. To get them fully there, I think going from fear to faith is a big leap and trying to help people understand how to do that. And again, that’s a process, right? Fear didn’t happen overnight. A lot of times it’s grown over time and additional things have happened that make one more fearful. And so that’s the step there.
As far as vigilant and sober, sobriety doesn’t always necessarily just mean from alcohol or drugs, although think it’s best to be sober from those as well. We are all influenced. We say, “Oh, so-and-so got a DUI. They were under the influence of alcohol, right? Oh, that’s bad.” We can be under the influence of negative spiritual enemies as well and just unwittingly not know about it. So being sober in that regard, and like you alluded to earlier, think on things that are good and positive. We found out through research lately that thoughts are things. They actually have mass and they’re not a separate thing. They’re part of our soul, our mind, will and emotion. And so they’re important. What you think determines your destiny to a large degree. And so reframing things from fear to faith and having that foundation is super important. And then being vigilant. Once you’ve cleaned out from steps four through nine, now you got to keep it clean. And so that’s where the vigilance of the guard on the wall comes into play.
10 through 12 are more … I was drawing closer to God. And James says in the Bible that draw close to God and he will draw close to you. And I found that to be true in my own spiritual walk. And so Step 10 talks about seeking spiritual wisdom. There is worldly wisdom, and it is not bad. I’m not against philosophy. But the issue with human philosophies, even from the most brilliant people, Plato, Socrates, these folks and others, is that the philosophy from spirituality is fixed. And it’s this rock that doesn’t change over the millennia. Whereas human philosophy, there are lots of different schools of thoughts and it can change with time just like science and new discoveries can. And so it’s a shifting sand, so to speak. And so you shouldn’t rely on it for your spiritual wellbeing, but certainly there’s wisdom to be had from secular searches of philosophy.
But scripture and then lastly, prayer and meditation. And I go into depth about these things that whatever you decide is your higher power, study the orthodox teachings of your faith and get their spiritual books that they feel are inspired and principles are worth living by. And then prayer. I know for a fact that some spiritual being heard me, I believe it’s God and Jesus, but at any rate, prayer works. There are lots of studies on that too that aren’t talked about in medical school or even in general life, but prayer does work. And adding with that, a meditation upon scripture, meditation on truths, the health benefits of meditation are well-known. But the goal of meditation, unlike transcendental meditation for example, isn’t to empty your mind, it’s to fill your mind with truth and have that be the focus of your thoughts.

Warwick Fairfax:
There might be somebody here who maybe today is their worst day, and it’s like, “I feel spiritually empty, bankrupt. There is no hope. I’m not sure anybody cares about me. There’s no higher power that cares.” They might be in a very dark place. What would a word of hope be for somebody that maybe today is their worst day and they just feel spiritually bankrupt? They might hate themselves, hate other people hate the world. They might be in a very dark spiritual in soul place. What would a word of hope be for that person?

Dr. Thomas McCormack:
Yeah. I would say to that person, you are so important. You have no idea the importance that you carry. You are made in the image of God. As difficult as that is to fathom, it’s the truth in my opinion. And if you haven’t already, I would encourage you to explore, especially the God who claims to be the creator of you and everything. Who claims to be all-powerful and who claims to be omniscient so he can hear your prayers. He knows everything at all times and he’s omnipresent. He’s not bound by location. So whether you’re in the middle of the desert or in church, he hears your prayers just the same. And he also claims to be Jehovah Rapha, which means God the healer. He claims to be the great physician. And if you reach out to him and really earnestly search, you’ll find the truth. There is hope. But it doesn’t come in things that the world offers. Their passing away as the Bible says. And the only thing that won’t pass away is our souls. And you’re going to spend eternity somewhere and why not go ahead and surrender your own will to God so that you can be one of those people who is assured that you’re going to spend forever with a loving God.
And also remind people you will eventually be healed. If you’re a believer. People think, oh, you die and you can either go to heaven or hell, sort of true. But the truth of matter is God made a perfect world. He said everything was good and it got wrecked by us and the influences that influenced us negatively. But the good news is he promises he’s coming back and he’s going to restore everything to its perfect state. In fact, at some point, he is going to make a new heaven and a new earth because this one’s a mess and he’s going to remake us. Our bodies will die, but he’s going to give us new bodies that will be eternal and that will be without sin, sickness, or death. So if you’re a believer, you have that assurance, you will get out of your trouble at some point. And the Bible says even that our troubles in light of eternity are light and momentary. And they may not feel light. They may not feel light. You may say, “Dr. McCormack, you don’t know what I’m going through.” I do. I sit with people in pain every day, and I’ve been through my own. There is hope and there’s a way out. So I’d encourage you to examine what you believe about a higher power.

Gary Schneeberger:
Folks, I’ve been in the communications business long enough to know when the final word on the subject has been spoken, and our guest, Tom McCormack, also known as Dr. Thomas McCormack, has just spoken about the substance of what we’re talking about, but I’ve still got a little housekeeping left to do, and that is Tom, to have you let our listeners and viewers know how can they find out more about your book Hidden Medicine and more about you on the internet.

Dr. Thomas McCormack:
Yeah, thanks Gary. I have a website called www.hidden-medicine.com. Usually you could find me if you type in Hidden Medicine or Dr. Thomas McCormack. But also the book Hidden Medicine is available now on Amazon for pre-sale. It will be in bookstores everywhere on October 28 so coming up real shortly. And it’s my sincere desire that it helps a lot of people give some clarity to some of these things that a lot of people find confusing. Really tried to write it for lay people. And my second hope is that the medical community will embrace it and realize that yeah, there are things beyond medicine and surgery and therapies that we’re missing. We’ve left untapped and we need to tap into that.

Gary Schneeberger:
Folks. Now, the plane is indeed fully on the ground. Time to gather your peanut bags and head off the plane. Warwick, we just got done speaking with Tom McCormack, which felt weird to me because he’s Dr. Thomas McCormack. So I always felt strange every time I called him Tom. I don’t know why. It’s the old soul in me. I can’t refer to a doctor except by doctor, but we did it. He had some very interesting things to talk about from his own experience, his crucible, not getting into medical school, some other ones that followed after he was a doctor already, and then his new book, Hidden Medicine, some things that he talked about there. So what is the little bow on the package you’d like to put on our conversation to hit on? What was the most important thing that Tom had to say to us?

Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. Dr. McCormack, Tom and his book, Hidden Medicine, it’s so interesting because he’s a psychiatrist, so he’s not against medicine, Western medicine, but what he is I think advocating is for a more holistic view of health, which includes the spiritual side. And he talks about negative forces. Some could call it spiritual warfare, which he talks about a bit in his book, but negative influences. If we are watching the wrong things that just pull us down and just make us feel depressed about life, angry at ourselves, angry at others, just indulging that. It can be through substance abuse, alcohol or drugs. Those are things that erode our soul in addition to obviously they can hurt our health. He’s advocating just be aware of that. Be aware of those forces that can really pull us down if we let them. Life is tough enough, but just really talking about things in his 12 steps of Ruachiatry that really fill us up. And he talked about things like forgiveness which should talk a lot about on this podcast, which doesn’t mean condoning. It can be forgiving others, forgiving yourself, and just it can be making amends, filling yourself with truth. From his perspective and our perspective that could mean that the truth of the scriptures of the Bible. But whatever your spiritual religious paradigm is, fill yourself with truth.
Avoid the negative influences. Focus on the positive and didn’t really get this into this in our discussion, but focus on what we call a life of significance. In the book, he does talk about one of the highest forms, I think spiritual, psychological health talks about other … When you’re focused on, from my perspective, a higher purpose or on helping other people, that’s certainly, I think to me, a good part of spiritual health and soul health. So really, I think the big message is when we are told to focus on what we eat, avoid foods that are unhealthy. fill yourself with healthy foods, well, the same is true in spiritual health. Avoid influences that bring your soul down and fill yourself with influences that are good for your soul. That will both help your overall wellness as well as your overall outlook on life. So what’s fascinating is he comes at it from a psychiatric clinical perspective, and his view is soul health, in my words and our words really [inaudible 00:59:15]. Avoid the things that drag you down. Fill yourself with truth, whether it’s biblical truth or whatever truth you think is meaningful to you. Fill yourself with truth. That is the path to spiritual health and soul health.

Gary Schneeberger:
And remember this until the next time that we are together that we understand. We know your crucible experiences are difficult. Warwick knows that. Tom knows that. I know that. You’ve heard us all talk about that either here or in other episodes of the show. But know this also. That it’s not the end of your story. Your crucible is not the end of your story. If you learn the lessons from it, and if you apply those lessons moving forward, you can chart yourself a course to the greatest destination you can ever reach, and that is a life of significance.
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