Speaker 1: Of spiritual life is eighty percent protective against addiction, ninety
Speaker 1: percent protective against the epidemic of our time depression.
Speaker 2: Why should someone who's never considered themselves spiritual even consider
Speaker 2: tapping into their spirituality?
Speaker 1: Spirituality can fulfill our deepest calling. It allows us to
Speaker 1: see where the universe is guiding us and then do
Speaker 1: something about it.
Speaker 2: Do you believe everything happens for a reason?
Speaker 1: Shift from asking why is this happening to me? To
Speaker 1: how is this happening for me?
Speaker 2: Hey? Everyone, welcome back to on Purpose, the place you
Speaker 2: come to become the happier, healthier, and more healed. Today's
Speaker 2: guest and on Purpose is doctor Lisa Miller, psychologist, Columbia
Speaker 2: professor and author of The Awakened Brain. We're going to
Speaker 2: explore the science of spirituality and how connecting with something
Speaker 2: bigger can transform your mental health, resilience, and sense of purpose.
Speaker 2: If you felt stuck or disconnected, this conversation will help
Speaker 2: you see life through a more awakened mind. If you're
Speaker 2: listening and loving the conversation, please do go and grab
Speaker 2: a copy of The Awakened Brain. The New Science of
Speaker 2: Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life by doctor
Speaker 2: Lisa Miller. Please welcome to On Purpose, Lisa. Lisa, it's
Speaker 2: great to have you here.
Speaker 1: Ja, It's so great to be here. Your whole studio
Speaker 1: feels full of peace and love.
Speaker 2: Oh well, that makes me very happy. Thank you for
Speaker 2: saying that. It means the world to me. My first
Speaker 2: question for you is if someone was to listen to
Speaker 2: our conversation today and to apply the things you share
Speaker 2: and say, how would their life change?
Speaker 1: Immediately we can awaken to the reality that every single
Speaker 1: one of us is loved, held, guided, and never alone.
Speaker 1: This is not a belief, This is our inborn, natural
Speaker 1: spiritual awareness.
Speaker 2: One of the things I find interesting about your work
Speaker 2: and why I wanted to have you on the show,
Speaker 2: is because I've always felt for a long time that
Speaker 2: there are a lot of people who identify with being
Speaker 2: scientific and may not feel spiritual, and then there are
Speaker 2: other people who identify as being spiritual but don't feel scientific.
Speaker 2: And the reality is that science and spirituality are far
Speaker 2: closer in their work and their ability to synchronize than
Speaker 2: we actually believe. And I love that you bring these
Speaker 2: two together. Can you talk to me about how you've
Speaker 2: been studying spirituality in a scientific way? And how science
Speaker 2: can back up the claim you just made that we
Speaker 2: could live a life knowing that we're not alone, that
Speaker 2: we cared for, that God, the universe, a higher power
Speaker 2: is always there with us. How does science show that?
Speaker 1: So, Jay, You're so right. For the longest time, we've
Speaker 1: had two camps of people. One camp said, I am
Speaker 1: a very scientific person. I only take to be true
Speaker 1: that which is rigorously shown by science. So what is
Speaker 1: this spirituality stuff? And then the other camp said, I
Speaker 1: am a deeply spiritual, perhaps spiritual and religious. I know
Speaker 1: this in my heart to be true. I don't care
Speaker 1: what science can or cannot show. Finally, science and spirituality
Speaker 1: do go hand in hand. Science is only a lens.
Speaker 1: It's a lens of witness, whether it's a telescope or
Speaker 1: a microscope or an MRI study. And we can point
Speaker 1: our lens at a great number of questions, including the
Speaker 1: impact of lived human spirituality onto the rest of our lives,
Speaker 1: and including the deep nature of spirituality in every single
Speaker 1: one of us, and the journey through which across our
Speaker 1: lifespans spirituality burgeons and develops. Science is actually not antithetical
Speaker 1: to spirituality. Science can contribute to a deepening of spirituality.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Why do you think people right now were moving
Speaker 2: away from organized religion and moving towards spirituality.
Speaker 1: Well, there's definitely a trend right now that particularly gen
Speaker 1: Z is so hungry for spiritual life because sadly, over
Speaker 1: the past two or three decades, our culture has gotten
Speaker 1: more and more silent. More. Really, we've had an ice
Speaker 1: age over the past three decades of spiritual life in
Speaker 1: the center of society. Our public square has experienced an
Speaker 1: ice age of thirty years. When it comes to spiritual life.
Speaker 1: There is now a whole generation gen Z that is saying,
Speaker 1: you know, I know there's more. I feel this tremendous love,
Speaker 1: and I wonder where to take it, what to do
Speaker 1: with it. My deep inner wisdom, my gut instinct is
Speaker 1: telling me information and there's nowhere in school that I've
Speaker 1: learned where this information comes from. The only way to
Speaker 1: realize who we are is to own our birthright, which
Speaker 1: is our inborn natural spirituality. Spirituality is not a belief,
Speaker 1: It is an inborn deep seat of perception. Spirituality is
Speaker 1: not a theory or a belief. Spirituality is a per
Speaker 1: perception that is hardwired in our brain. Spirituality, according to science,
Speaker 1: we know three things about spiritual life. One, every human
Speaker 1: being on earth is born naturally spiritual, no matter what
Speaker 1: our tradition, whether I'm Hindu, Catholic, Jewish, or spiritual not religious,
Speaker 1: Every single human being on earth is born in naturally
Speaker 1: spiritual being. Two, there are even circuits in the brain,
Speaker 1: one spiritual brain, and everyone on earth has it. Three.
Speaker 1: Although spirituality is inborn, it is one third and born
Speaker 1: two thirds environmentally shaped, which means we are invited to
Speaker 1: do our part in strengthening the muscle, in building our
Speaker 1: gift of natural spiritual awareness. The question is not am
Speaker 1: I spiritual? You already are spiritual. The question, the real
Speaker 1: question is how do you wish to accept the invitation?
Speaker 1: How do you wish to build your spiritual life?
Speaker 2: Why should who's never considered themselves spiritual up until this
Speaker 2: point even consider tapping into their spirituality? Why should they
Speaker 2: do it?
Speaker 1: The data is so strong that it blinds the eye.
Speaker 1: A strong spiritual life is eighty percent protective against addiction,
Speaker 1: ninety percent protective against depression when we're otherwise at high risk,
Speaker 1: eighty two percent protective against the epidemic of our time,
Speaker 1: which tragically is suicide. A young person's more likely to
Speaker 1: die by suicide than by what used to be the
Speaker 1: number one cause of death, which was auto accidents. We
Speaker 1: have an epidemic of the diseases of despair in most
Speaker 1: post industrial countries, and yet we also have the antidote,
Speaker 1: which is strengthening the muscle of our natural spiritual awareness.
Speaker 2: Talk to me about the link between spirituality and depression.
Speaker 2: What does someone who has a spiritual life, what are
Speaker 2: they doing that's making them less depressed.
Speaker 1: Depression is often viewed only as a medical illness, but
Speaker 1: that's actually an error. Very often people say, you know,
Speaker 1: I have depression or I have addiction. That's a medical
Speaker 1: biological condition in my brain. Spirituality is something else that's
Speaker 1: sort of ethereal. Actually, spirituality has circuits in the brain.
Speaker 1: Any deep, profound human capacity has circuits in the brain.
Speaker 1: The question is, how can we strengthen our natural spirituality body,
Speaker 1: mind and soul, brain, mind and soul. How can we
Speaker 1: awaken our brain to move through depression, through addiction to
Speaker 1: a more profound understanding of life. Depression is often the
Speaker 1: knock at the door for spiritual awakening. Depression doesn't mean
Speaker 1: we're off the path. Depression means we are on the path. Anxiety,
Speaker 1: even trauma, can be the first phase towards looking more
Speaker 1: deeply at life, widening our lens, starting to feel a
Speaker 1: presence in our heart, authorize our inner knowing. Suffering makes
Speaker 1: us more sensitive, Suffering makes us ask bigger questions. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: suffering widens the lens, and suddenly we see, we let
Speaker 1: into the aperture a frequency of light we hadn't seen before,
Speaker 1: which is the fact that every single bit of our
Speaker 1: lives is cast in divinity. From the view of science.
Speaker 1: When depression is met with a spiritual response, what God
Speaker 1: do you ask of me? What higher power are you
Speaker 1: revealing to me? How might I love more deeply despite betrayal?
Speaker 1: How might I forgive and therefore release myself from the
Speaker 1: entrapment of anger. When we cultivate a spiritual response to depression,
Speaker 1: to sorrow, betrayal, we literally strengthen regions of the brain
Speaker 1: for spiritual awareness. Next time around, next time there's a
Speaker 1: hailstorm and I encounter depression, despair, betrayal, a spiritual response
Speaker 1: is built and ready in the brain. We are more
Speaker 1: able to bring to life's challenges a spiritual way of knowing.
Speaker 1: We are more prepared to bring an awakened perception to
Speaker 1: life's disappointments and hardships.
Speaker 2: The way you talk about spirituality right now, it sounds
Speaker 2: like a response, a way of responding distressed trauma and pain.
Speaker 2: How would you define what being spiritual means and looks
Speaker 2: like as a whole as opposed to just that response.
Speaker 1: Through the lens of science. Spirituality is an inborn perception,
Speaker 1: but it is one third inborn, two thirds incoming upon
Speaker 1: us to cultivate. From a lens of science, spirituality is
Speaker 1: an inborn seat of awareness through which we perceive that
Speaker 1: we are loved, we are guided, and we are never alone.
Speaker 1: And for each of those core components of spiritual awareness,
Speaker 1: there's a circuit in the brain. We are loved and
Speaker 1: held is the bonding network, same bonding network through which
Speaker 1: as young children we felt loved and held by our parents,
Speaker 1: our grandparents. We are guided. There's a shift from a
Speaker 1: very narrow I've got to have it dorsal to a
Speaker 1: bottom up ventral, big wide lens attention network. Never alone,
Speaker 1: the parietal that puts in and out hard boundaries that
Speaker 1: lets us know we're alone, in distinct and unique and
Speaker 1: at every instant also part of this great unit of reality,
Speaker 1: the family of life. Loved, held, guided, never alone is
Speaker 1: the deep natural spiritual perception built into every single one
Speaker 1: of our brains. It's now up to us to awaken
Speaker 1: our brain and bear witness to the actual love, guidance
Speaker 1: in presence that's written into life, the divinity written into life.
Speaker 1: Who I call God, but everyone has their sacred name
Speaker 1: Jesus Fashem allowed the universe. The most interesting finding in science,
Speaker 1: I think, is that just as the brain is wired
Speaker 1: to perceive, we are loved, held, guided, and never alone
Speaker 1: to perceive something real, which is the nature of life,
Speaker 1: shows up to be loving, holding, guiding, and never leave
Speaker 1: us alone. It's simply up to us, then, to strengthen
Speaker 1: our perception. Every day of our lives. We have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to be in a deep dialogue with the Divinity
Speaker 1: in life, but we have to build the muscle of
Speaker 1: spiritual awareness. We have to awaken our brain.
Speaker 2: What about someone who says I don't have time for spirituality,
Speaker 2: I don't really need it. I'm fine. What are they
Speaker 2: missing out on?
Speaker 1: On the one hand, spirituality is protective against some of
Speaker 1: the most prevalent forms of suffering. Right now, depression, addiction,
Speaker 1: even suicide. But even if it were not for its
Speaker 1: mental health benefits, spirituality in and of itself opens the
Speaker 1: double door to an entirely different journey through life. If
Speaker 1: you want to roll out the red carpet in your life,
Speaker 1: deepen your seat of spiritual awareness, awaken your brain, and
Speaker 1: suddenly we move from a very narrow understanding of who
Speaker 1: am I? How well have I done? Do I have
Speaker 1: enough money? Am I well known enough? All the sort
Speaker 1: of markers of outwardness, to a profound dialogue with life,
Speaker 1: not what do I want? And how am I going
Speaker 1: to get it? Which I call achieving awareness. We are
Speaker 1: liberated from achieving awareness, and we can then start to ask, Hey,
Speaker 1: what is life showing me now? What is the universe
Speaker 1: revealing to me? Now? Life becomes less of a shopping
Speaker 1: list and less of a hallway of trophies, and instead
Speaker 1: life becomes a very awesome, surprising adventure. We don't get
Speaker 1: the life we want, that would be way too small
Speaker 1: a life. We get the life if we're an open
Speaker 1: system awakened that is far greater, a much bigger life.
Speaker 1: We get an inspired life.
Speaker 2: And I think that's what's hard for people because the
Speaker 2: hallway of trophies or the grocery list feels tangible, and
Speaker 2: you know what that means, and so it's within our control.
Speaker 2: And when something's within our control, we feel more directed
Speaker 2: towards it, Whereas when we hear about a quest or
Speaker 2: a journey or inspiration, it feels so vague that you're like, well,
Speaker 2: what does that even mean?
Speaker 1: May we do a practice?
Speaker 2: Of course?
Speaker 1: Okay, lovely, this is a practice that honors exactly Jay,
Speaker 1: what you just said, the difference between our laundry list,
Speaker 1: our grocery list, our trophy hall and instead, what really
Speaker 1: is the road of life? Okay, good, let's let's it
Speaker 1: ninety seconds. Okay, I invite you to take two breaths
Speaker 1: and clear out your innerspace. I invite you to think
Speaker 1: of a time where you wanted something so badly that
Speaker 1: red door was yours. It was him or hurt or
Speaker 1: them to say, yes, it was that job, that school,
Speaker 1: that home. So you did everything right, planned it A
Speaker 1: plus B plus C, researched it, ready to close the deal.
Speaker 1: You reach for your red door. It stuck, and you
Speaker 1: can't believe it stuck because you've done everything right A
Speaker 1: plus B plus C. You might kick the door, be
Speaker 1: angry or even depressed. But because the red door is stuck,
Speaker 1: you shift twenty forty one hundred and ten degrees over there.
Speaker 1: Over there is a wide, open, splendid yellow door. You
Speaker 1: might have never heard of yellow doors, didn't know they exist.
Speaker 1: On the other side of the open yellow door is
Speaker 1: a landscape you had yet to imagine. Someone who makes
Speaker 1: you feel alive, a job where your boss sees you
Speaker 1: in a way you didn't even know you were capable.
Speaker 1: A community where you finally belong. The yellow door was
Speaker 1: not what you had wanted. It was better, far better.
Speaker 1: The yellow door was far better and better for you.
Speaker 1: So now as you sit back and you think, wow,
Speaker 1: stuck red door, hairpin turned taking me to that surprising,
Speaker 1: wide open yellow door that has everything to do with
Speaker 1: who you are and where you are today. Was there
Speaker 1: anyone there at that hairpin turn? A trail angel pointing
Speaker 1: you to the yellow door. It could have been a
Speaker 1: counselor or a therapist. It could have been summoning you meant
Speaker 1: for two minutes at the coffee shop, or a story
Speaker 1: from a friend or grandparent. The trail angel pointing you
Speaker 1: to the open yellow door, and Finally, sitting way back,
Speaker 1: stuck red door, hairpin turn, trail angel, wide open yellow
Speaker 1: door that has so much to do with who you are.
Speaker 1: How really are the most important parts of our lives found? Sure,
Speaker 1: we have to do our part and plan and try,
Speaker 1: But is it really through radical control that our lives
Speaker 1: are formed? Or are we less makers of our path
Speaker 1: and more discovers of our journey? Where in your road
Speaker 1: of life is your higher power God? The force is
Speaker 1: your higher power in the wide opening yellow door, and
Speaker 1: the stuck red door is your higher power in the
Speaker 1: trail angel and your ability to be an open system
Speaker 1: in dialogue with the deepest force of life through which
Speaker 1: we are guided and loved. Is it possible you've already
Speaker 1: been on a spiritual journey, a great adventure, and I
Speaker 1: invite you back.
Speaker 2: Did you relate absolutely so many times?
Speaker 1: Was there a red door in a yellow door?
Speaker 2: You might have? Absolutely? For sure. I could I pictured
Speaker 2: a particular moment in my life, but I could have
Speaker 2: pinned it to so many that I felt a red
Speaker 2: door not open and a yellow door open that was
Speaker 2: far better than the red door I ever imagined. And
Speaker 2: the yellow door was one that I would never ever
Speaker 2: have come up with even if I tried my hardest,
Speaker 2: if I tried to come up with it myself, and
Speaker 2: there was definitely a spiritual mentor guiding me towards the
Speaker 2: opening of other doors that I may not have thought of.
Speaker 2: And so every single part of what you said, I
Speaker 2: could very very clearly visualize it absolutely. And so what
Speaker 2: you're saying, or what I'm gathering from that for our audience,
Speaker 2: who hopefully did it as well, is that if you
Speaker 2: actually reflect upon your life, you notice that you've already
Speaker 2: lived the adventure, and so the adventure has already been
Speaker 2: alive for you. And if you can notice that and
Speaker 2: remember it, then you can recognize that this next red
Speaker 2: door that you are now stuck on to have a
Speaker 2: spiritual experience of it and look for that yellow door,
Speaker 2: is going to be a healthy and more powerful way
Speaker 2: to live.
Speaker 1: The disappointment of the stuck red door. Kicking the red
Speaker 1: door is actually the beginning of your discovery of the
Speaker 1: yellow door. So the next time there's a very disappointing, depressing,
Speaker 1: shut red door, you're invited to ask, Hey, I wonder
Speaker 1: where I might see the yellow door. Eyes wide open.
Speaker 1: We're already on a great spiritual adventure. When we choose
Speaker 1: to listen to trail angels, when we pay attention to synchronicity,
Speaker 1: when we listen to the whisper of the voice of
Speaker 1: God in our heart and our prayer life, for in
Speaker 1: our meditation life, then we have a choice to participate
Speaker 1: in the sacred adventure. Ge how many people say to me,
Speaker 1: you know, I see synchronicities, but I don't know if
Speaker 1: they're real. I see trail angels, but I don't really
Speaker 1: know what it means. What do I do with that? Well,
Speaker 1: when we pay attention to synchronicity and say, way, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, you know, I was just thinking of Jay,
Speaker 1: and then I got this wonderful invitation to join them
Speaker 1: on the podcast. I was just reading Jay's book, and
Speaker 1: now I met someone who's also reading Jay's book. When
Speaker 1: we notice the confluence in our lives that are synchronicities
Speaker 1: and say, hey, wait a minute, that's real, we authorize
Speaker 1: ourselves as knowers, as spiritual knowers, we awaken and say
Speaker 1: that synchronicity is real. Let me reflect point two on
Speaker 1: what this might mean right here, right now in terms
Speaker 1: of what I was just thinking, what I was just doing. Three,
Speaker 1: Let me act on this synchronicity right, authorize ourselves, reflect
Speaker 1: and act. Once we act, Jay, we are participating in
Speaker 1: the miracle. We are contributors in our road of life.
Speaker 1: The spiritual adventure heats up. It is that much more
Speaker 1: splendid when we say yes to the yellow door. I'm
Speaker 1: going to cross into it. I don't hope for people
Speaker 1: that they get their red door. I hope for people
Speaker 1: that we get our yellow door. But we do have
Speaker 1: to say yes to the guidance. Thank you, trail Angel. Wow,
Speaker 1: I'll go somewhere I've never gone before. I'll cross the
Speaker 1: threshold of that yellow door. And what's on the other
Speaker 1: side is not what I wanted. It is so much better.
Speaker 1: It is someone who loves me in a way I
Speaker 1: didn't know I could be loved. It is a school
Speaker 1: that's more ripe for me. Not my first choice, not
Speaker 1: my fifth choice. It was the perfect choice. Or it's
Speaker 1: a mentor, a guide who saw a possibility I didn't
Speaker 1: see in myself.
Speaker 2: If someone's listening right now and they're feeling completely lost
Speaker 2: in stock and out of touch with that spirit yourself,
Speaker 2: where would you suggest they stopped.
Speaker 1: The whisper of a hunch that's already in you telling
Speaker 1: you say yes to the trail angel that you intuit.
Speaker 1: Red door stuck for a reason. Hey, what if you
Speaker 1: really take seriously your deep inner wisdom, that little whisper
Speaker 1: of a hunch. What if you really take seriously that synchronoicity?
Speaker 1: And many people will say, you know, I thought that
Speaker 1: that synchronicity was real, and my boyfriend told me I
Speaker 1: was crazy. Or I thought that this spiritual voice I
Speaker 1: was hearing was real and people told me I was nuts.
Speaker 1: But you know what, what if instead you just for
Speaker 1: one moment, honor the wisdom that is born inside of you,
Speaker 1: that you are a splendid spiritual being, already built to
Speaker 1: see and know and be touched by God's presence. You're
Speaker 1: ready to go. Once we authorize ourselves as spiritual knowers,
Speaker 1: then the red carpet rolls out before us, because we
Speaker 1: then are in dialogue with a loving, guiding universe. We
Speaker 1: then are being guided, And that's an entirely different life.
Speaker 1: That's a spiritual adventure.
Speaker 2: Can you tell me about how having a spiritual life
Speaker 2: positively effects on mental health?
Speaker 1: Yes, Well, a spiritual life says no matter what comes
Speaker 1: to me, whether it's what I wanted or didn't want.
Speaker 1: It could be, you know, my partner betrays me. It
Speaker 1: could be I didn't succeed at work as I had intended.
Speaker 1: It could be that my best friends has gotten busy
Speaker 1: and doesn't have time for me. The disappointments, or they
Speaker 1: could be more serious. Traumise fall in all of our lives,
Speaker 1: but our ability to then say Okay, even in my
Speaker 1: darkest hour, I know that I'm not falling through an abyss.
Speaker 1: I'm not falling through a black hole. There's a buoyancy.
Speaker 1: I'm caught well, who caught us? That's the universe, that's God,
Speaker 1: who caught you. Even in our darkest tower, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I should go left, right or center. You
Speaker 1: don't need to know. Hand it over. You don't need
Speaker 1: to make life's biggest decisions. Hand them over to the
Speaker 1: deep force of life, and your direction is revealed. But
Speaker 1: you do have to make a choice, And the choice
Speaker 1: is to pay attention, authorize your knowing, and then act.
Speaker 2: What do you mean behind the ova? Because I feel well?
Speaker 2: Does that mean I do nothing? Does that mean I.
Speaker 1: A very good point? So every one of us is
Speaker 1: born with two forms of knowing achieving awareness, which is
Speaker 1: tactic strategy, how to close the deal. An awaken awareness,
Speaker 1: through which we perceive life's guidance, the deeper direction and
Speaker 1: love in life. We need both. We can set our
Speaker 1: north star through an awakened understanding. Ah. The synchronicity is
Speaker 1: guiding me to come and follow the path to the right.
Speaker 1: But how do I turn right?
Speaker 2: While?
Speaker 1: I need tactics and strategy, any gift from God, a
Speaker 1: vision of who I'm to become. I'm a healer. I'm
Speaker 1: someone who's going to serve. I'm someone who's going to
Speaker 1: take care of children. I'm someone who wants to invent
Speaker 1: and create then needs to be executed. Achieving awareness is
Speaker 1: how we lay down our contributions. Awaken awareness is how
Speaker 1: we find our direction. Achieving awareness allows us to implement
Speaker 1: to really make a difference. Spirituality has two directions. One
Speaker 1: is the verse through which we experience inspiration, guidance, and love.
Speaker 1: The other is the horizontal through which we lay down
Speaker 1: and contribute love and guidance. Inspiration comes off and through awakening,
Speaker 1: contribution takes, tactics takes strategy. Children of the Light need
Speaker 1: wonderful sets of skills.
Speaker 2: I love that approach. I'm so glad you said we
Speaker 2: need both. I've always felt that sometimes spirituality and religion
Speaker 2: have both had this bad misconception where people see it
Speaker 2: as a crutch because it's like, oh, yeah, well, I'm
Speaker 2: just going to hand everything over to the universe and
Speaker 2: I'm not going to do anything about it, And that
Speaker 2: almost feels spiritual. It sounds detached, but actually it isn't.
Speaker 2: It's almost irresponsible.
Speaker 1: Well, how one another is a spiritual choice, right, just
Speaker 1: as we're loved and guide it by source, by the universe,
Speaker 1: we can choose to be loving and guiding to one another.
Speaker 1: Both are forms of an awakened relationship. An awakened relationship
Speaker 1: to behold God and a relationship to behold God in you.
Speaker 1: If I see you, my brother, as an expression like
Speaker 1: a ray from the same sun of God or the universe,
Speaker 1: then our relationship becomes an awakened relationship. We can have
Speaker 1: an awakened relationship with God. We can have awakened relationship
Speaker 1: to one another. It's very easy to stay on the
Speaker 1: mountaintop where it feels whole and glorious and bright. But Jay,
Speaker 1: what you've done in choosing to come down the mountain
Speaker 1: and be whole and bright here on earth towards fellow
Speaker 1: living beings, is itself a profound act of awakened spirituality?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, for me, i'd actually say that it was.
Speaker 2: I was fortunate because I gained more conviction in the
Speaker 2: teachings that I learned during my time as a monk
Speaker 2: in the real world, because putting them into practice was
Speaker 2: far more the real test and the real exam. It's
Speaker 2: almost like I learned all of these things in school,
Speaker 2: and then when I came to the real world and
Speaker 2: actually had applied them and I saw them work, it
Speaker 2: only gave me more faith and conviction that what I
Speaker 2: had learned was valuable and deep and profound. Whereas if
Speaker 2: you only ever used them in the training ground, you
Speaker 2: don't ever get to see how powerful they are.
Speaker 1: If that makes sense, Relational spirituality is so will you
Speaker 1: tell a story or the example, was there a moment
Speaker 1: where you saw karma happen?
Speaker 2: Or One of my favorite statements from the Vedic traditions
Speaker 2: is that when you protect your purpose, your purpose protects you.
Speaker 2: And I remember reading and studying that for a while,
Speaker 2: and I was always trying to dissect this statement to
Speaker 2: understand what it meant. And I was always fascinated by
Speaker 2: the word protect because I think in the Western world
Speaker 2: we always talk about living our purpose or finding our
Speaker 2: purpose or discover your purpose, and hear the ancient Eastern
Speaker 2: wisdom was saying, protect your purpose, which means you already
Speaker 2: have it, right, you protect what you have. You don't
Speaker 2: protect something you don't own. So this idea that you
Speaker 2: already had a purpose and your job was to protect it.
Speaker 2: I started to notice all the ways in which I
Speaker 2: wasn't protecting my purpose. And when I was in the
Speaker 2: world of work, I saw that in the world of work,
Speaker 2: they were trying to get us to be a certain way.
Speaker 2: But there was a part of me inside me that
Speaker 2: was like, but that's not who you are. Like, this
Speaker 2: is who you are. This is your talent, this is
Speaker 2: your gift, this is your skill, this is your values.
Speaker 2: Be that and that inner voice of knowing, that that soft,
Speaker 2: quiet voice that was like, no, don't just become you know,
Speaker 2: the what do you call it. Don't just become the
Speaker 2: robot version of yourself. Focus on becoming the true version
Speaker 2: of yourself. And that took a lot of courage and
Speaker 2: stress because everyone around you is doing the same thing
Speaker 2: and you're pulling away, but all that as protecting my
Speaker 2: purpose and having lived there and now living my purpose fully,
Speaker 2: I saw that if I didn't protect it at that time,
Speaker 2: I would have just given it away and foregone my purpose.
Speaker 1: Is that purpose built into you? Is that a divine purpose?
Speaker 2: I believe so. I believe so because I didn't come
Speaker 2: up with it one day. It didn't, you know, it
Speaker 2: wasn't something that I sat down and figured out. It
Speaker 2: was something that was revealed. And I think a lot
Speaker 2: of what I've pursued in my life has been revealed
Speaker 2: through in a connection. Not there are stain Yeah, there
Speaker 2: are strategic elements of the vehicle through which it's disseminated.
Speaker 2: So for example, the podcast, I felt excited about doing
Speaker 2: a podcast, but I also saw that a podcast was
Speaker 2: a great way of connecting with people and having amazing
Speaker 2: conversations like this one. And so that becomes the achieved awareness,
Speaker 2: as you called it, the strategic part. But the desire
Speaker 2: to want to spread wisdom that was not strategic at all.
Speaker 2: That was an inner calling. I didn't. I didn't come
Speaker 2: up with that like that. It wasn't my intelligence that went, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's what I'm meant to do. It was revealed, if
Speaker 2: that makes.
Speaker 1: Sense profoundly, and we all have our spiritual calling. As
Speaker 1: you put so beautifully, you are a natural communicator. We
Speaker 1: all have our gifts, and we also have our areas
Speaker 1: that are not gifts. In balance, that is not a
Speaker 1: win and a lose. Those are both winds because both
Speaker 1: our strengths and our not strengths allow us to discern
Speaker 1: our true calling. Where As a child of infinite worth,
Speaker 1: as a soul on earth, as a being of God
Speaker 1: of infinite worth, how do I discern my calling?
Speaker 2: Oh? How do I just?
Speaker 1: And I think what you've said so beautifully, our calling
Speaker 1: is revealed. There's a deep inner wisdom when we listen
Speaker 1: to the whisper of the hunch inside of us. There
Speaker 1: is a purpose to us, much greater than our traits,
Speaker 1: than our successes, than our outwardness. There's soul has a purpose.
Speaker 2: How do we become better listeners to that inner guidance?
Speaker 2: Because I feel that the more we ignore it, the
Speaker 2: quieter it gets. And a lot of us, for many
Speaker 2: years have had to ignore it, whether it was because
Speaker 2: of parent expectations, or outward forces, or just the busyness
Speaker 2: of life, and all of a sudden. You're now thirty
Speaker 2: years old, forty years old, fifty years old, and you're thinking,
Speaker 2: I don't even know what I'm meant to do. Like
Speaker 2: they're talking about revealing and finding, but I don't have
Speaker 2: a clue. What do we do? How do we listen? Better?
Speaker 1: Maybe do another practice? Okay, I love beautiful. This is
Speaker 1: a practice I always think my teacher from the late
Speaker 1: doctor Gary Weaver, I'll invite you again ninety seconds to
Speaker 1: take two brass clear out your inner space. I invite
Speaker 1: you to set before you at table. This is your table,
Speaker 1: and to your table you may invite anyone living or
Speaker 1: deceased who truly has your best interest in mind, anybody
Speaker 1: living or deceased you truly has your best interest in mind,
Speaker 1: And with them all sitting there, ask them if they
Speaker 1: love you, ask them if they love you. And now
Speaker 1: you may invite your higher self, the part of you
Speaker 1: that is so much more than anything you may have
Speaker 1: done or not done, anything you have or don't have,
Speaker 1: your true eternal higher self, and ask you if you
Speaker 1: love you, ask you if you love you. And now
Speaker 1: finally you may invite your higher power. Whatever your word, however,
Speaker 1: you know your higher power and ask if they love you?
Speaker 1: Ask if they love you? And now, with all of
Speaker 1: those people sitting here right now, what do they need
Speaker 1: to share? What do they need to tell you? Now?
Speaker 1: What do you need to know? What do they say
Speaker 1: to you? Now? When you're ready, I invite you back.
Speaker 1: How did you experience that?
Speaker 2: It was really clear who I picked at the table?
Speaker 2: That was easy. And then who was there My spiritual
Speaker 2: teacher and his spiritual teacher who passed away who I
Speaker 2: never met. So those are the two people that just so,
Speaker 2: my spiritual teacher is still alive, and then his teacher
Speaker 2: who I never met, but they were both at the table,
Speaker 2: and I definitely feel loved by them, like that's not
Speaker 2: even a it's not it's like beyond. I feel overflowing,
Speaker 2: overwhelmed with the amount of love I feel from both
Speaker 2: of them. And then when you ask me the question
Speaker 2: of do I love myself? I felt very grateful that
Speaker 2: I have the ability to do that. And then when
Speaker 2: you asked me about what I need to hear from them,
Speaker 2: and felt very clear to me that I mean for me,
Speaker 2: it was you know to and you're doing what I'm
Speaker 2: doing to be continue to be a vessel in an
Speaker 2: instrument for this wisdom and work that I'm doing and
Speaker 2: to know that I'm always protected. And so it was
Speaker 2: very clear, and I'm so excited to hear what my
Speaker 2: audience gained from their reflection from that, because I feel
Speaker 2: what you gave us there was a really really beautiful
Speaker 2: way of listening, which feels like no matter whether you
Speaker 2: consider yourself spiritual or not, you'd be able to connect
Speaker 2: to that because the idea of having dinner or being
Speaker 2: at a table with people you know and love and
Speaker 2: love you is something that feels very real. I love
Speaker 2: that as an exercise for people to listen more deeply.
Speaker 2: It's that's really brilliant. It's so beautiful from your teacher
Speaker 2: as well. So I give from l Yeah fair, Yeah,
Speaker 2: what an incredible meditation. I really want you all who
Speaker 2: are listening and watching at home to share with me
Speaker 2: your reflections as I'm sharing mine through these meditations, because
Speaker 2: it's Yeah, I'm really excited to hear what people gain
Speaker 2: from them. And I'm assuming that this exercise can be
Speaker 2: done at any time when people are feeling disconnected from
Speaker 2: that in a voice.
Speaker 1: At any time if we have a big decision to make,
Speaker 1: or if we're feeling despairing and alone, we can call counsel.
Speaker 1: Counsel is always present and ready to convene. Those who
Speaker 1: truly have your best interest in mind, living or deceased
Speaker 1: will always show up, and who shows up may change
Speaker 1: depending on where we are in the road of life,
Speaker 1: what guidance we might need. For example, my youngest child
Speaker 1: is an adventurer. She ran a two hundred mile ultra marathon.
Speaker 1: She walked across Japan. Who watches over her is her
Speaker 1: great grandfather, my grandfather Bill, himself an outdoorsman, he would
Speaker 1: likely show up at her council. But my other child,
Speaker 1: who's twenty three and living in New York and making movies,
Speaker 1: who would show up at her as probably her artistic
Speaker 1: Greek grandmother, who herself loved language and story. So we're
Speaker 1: loved by all of our ancestors. But we do have guides.
Speaker 1: We do have profoundly present sacred guides, living and deceased.
Speaker 1: These are spiritual relationships. And Jay, it's so interesting as
Speaker 1: we look through the lens of science. The same way
Speaker 1: that a connection to God protects us against depression, a
Speaker 1: relationship to our ancestors protects us against depression. Wow, every
Speaker 1: single person at the table, who loves us, who guides us,
Speaker 1: who protects us, is a real relationship. And when we
Speaker 1: awaken to the true sacred relationships surrounding us, we are
Speaker 1: guided into a far greater spiritual adventure and we are
Speaker 1: less depressed and addicted because the bumps in the road,
Speaker 1: those are absolutely essential for the deeper path that we
Speaker 1: each of us journeys.
Speaker 2: I love them so glad we did that. Thank you
Speaker 2: for sharing that movie. I was thinking about it. From
Speaker 2: the scientific perspective. You've done You've done brain scans what
Speaker 2: people recalled profound spiritual experiences. Could you give us some
Speaker 2: examples of those? And what did you see happening in
Speaker 2: the brain?
Speaker 1: Jee We asked people of all different paid traditions. So
Speaker 1: some people were Christian, others were Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, spiritual
Speaker 1: but not religious. And no matter what tradition someone may
Speaker 1: observe or not observe spiritual but not religious, the same
Speaker 1: neural circuits run in our brain when we encounter God,
Speaker 1: the deep force of life. We asked people a very
Speaker 1: simple question. No one was confused by the question. We
Speaker 1: asked people gen z really. We asked, tell us about
Speaker 1: a time where you were really struggling in life where
Speaker 1: you felt disconnected or frustrated or lost, or you felt
Speaker 1: not enough, that you'd failed, or were somehow unworthy, felt
Speaker 1: like a loser. Nobody was confused by that question. And
Speaker 1: then part two we said, and in your struggle, you
Speaker 1: turned to God. You walked through nature, you meditated or prayed,
Speaker 1: or suddenly, perhaps even unsolicited, you felt touched by sacred
Speaker 1: presence and the road of life took a turn. Tell
Speaker 1: us about a time that started out difficult, but through
Speaker 1: the inspiration and guidance of God, took a different turn.
Speaker 1: We've asked this question of hundreds of young adults. No
Speaker 1: one's ever been confused. But about half say, wow, I'm
Speaker 1: so glad you asked, because no one's ever asked me
Speaker 1: that before. A spiritually non conversant society is silencing our
Speaker 1: whole rising generation of gen Z. They are exquisitely gifted,
Speaker 1: and they are not being listened to. We welcome people
Speaker 1: into the MRI machine. They tell the story that they've
Speaker 1: told so many times about being touched by their higher presence.
Speaker 1: They tell the story that they'd previously shared with us
Speaker 1: about being touched by the higher presence, and we then
Speaker 1: play back their own story in their own voice, in
Speaker 1: their ears inside the MRI machine, and what we saw
Speaker 1: is extraordinary. As we walk through a spiritual experience, the
Speaker 1: same neural correlates come online in every single person. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if I'm Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Catholic, spiritual but
Speaker 1: not religious. Nature is my cathedral. The same neural corelds
Speaker 1: run and they are the bonding network. We perceive that suddenly,
Speaker 1: at that inflection point where we feel God's presence, we
Speaker 1: are loved and held. The bonding network comes up online. Suddenly,
Speaker 1: at the inflection point, we know that we are guided,
Speaker 1: and suddenly the parietal starts putting in and out hard boundaries,
Speaker 1: letting us know that we are never alone, loved and guided,
Speaker 1: never alone. Every single one of us is able to
Speaker 1: perceive that we are loved, held, guided, and never alone.
Speaker 1: What did these stories sound like? You know, I just
Speaker 1: got turned down at seven out of eight colleges. I'm
Speaker 1: feeling like such a loser. I'm never going to go
Speaker 1: to college like my parents and my grandparents wanted me to.
Speaker 1: And I'm walking down the street feeling completely unworthy. I
Speaker 1: really wanted to be a nurse, I'm not getting into
Speaker 1: nursing school eight out of nine rejections. Nursing school may
Speaker 1: not be in the cards for me. But then I
Speaker 1: see light in the leaves, and I know I will
Speaker 1: be a healer in the way that God has intended
Speaker 1: for me. The profound rearrangement of meaning, the aha, the awakening,
Speaker 1: the illumination that speaks to a deeper, wiser part of ourselves.
Speaker 1: Or I was going to get married. I dated a
Speaker 1: boy for three years in college. I even had a
Speaker 1: promise ring. We were going to get married the year
Speaker 1: after we graduated, and then the week before graduation, he
Speaker 1: called it off. I've never felt so unloved and unlovable.
Speaker 1: I felt so unattractive, so undesirable. But then I lent
Speaker 1: home and sitting in the pews of my childhood house
Speaker 1: of worship by my parents and by my grandparents, I
Speaker 1: suddenly felt my family's love. And then I felt a
Speaker 1: greater love. I felt God's love, and I knew, yes,
Speaker 1: I will love again. Jay. So many young people stop
Speaker 1: at the pain, so many of us, and can happen
Speaker 1: to any of us. Stop at the pain. But the
Speaker 1: pain is actually an invitation. It's a banging at the
Speaker 1: door to listen for the illumination, and the brain is
Speaker 1: built just like a catch in the Catchersmith sure as
Speaker 1: day to receive the guidance to catch the illumination.
Speaker 2: The bugw Ghito, which is the text of India, the
Speaker 2: primary spiritual text of India. It's based on a battlefield.
Speaker 2: It's a historic story about the best archer in the
Speaker 2: world who's on a battlefield and he's having to fight
Speaker 2: his family, which he's really sad about, doesn't want to,
Speaker 2: and he's actually feeling anxious, and that's the beginning of
Speaker 2: his awakening conversation with God called Krishna, who's his chariot here,
Speaker 2: who's actually directing and driving his chariot on the battlefield,
Speaker 2: and they have this divine conversation that lasts these seven
Speaker 2: hundred verses of the Barga gheta forty five minute conversation,
Speaker 2: and it's all about learning, but it all starts like
Speaker 2: anxiety is the beginning of inquiry. And what I find
Speaker 2: fascinating about that, having studied it for many years, is
Speaker 2: that we live in a world where we think of
Speaker 2: anxiety and these things as bad, where we've got to
Speaker 2: suppress them or push them away or never have them again,
Speaker 2: when in fact, it's almost like life is designed in
Speaker 2: a way to get them to ask the right questions.
Speaker 2: And we almost because sometimes it's so painful. We don't
Speaker 2: know how to rise to a deeper question because it
Speaker 2: feels so hard. So talk to me about that and
Speaker 2: reflect on that for me, and how do we do that?
Speaker 1: Jan and that, Yes, depression is the opening to transcendence.
Speaker 1: Depression does not make us smaller when we say, yes,
Speaker 1: what is life showing me now? What questions come to
Speaker 1: my heart that I wouldn't have asked otherwise? Why am
Speaker 1: I feeling so anxious? What do I fear losing? Why
Speaker 1: does it hurt so badly? Did I? Maybe you know?
Speaker 1: There's a blind spot, just like we have a blind
Speaker 1: spot in our car between the person that I want
Speaker 1: to be and think I am and the person that
Speaker 1: I may actually be living out, And that blind spot
Speaker 1: is the zone for growth. That's our opportunity. When there's
Speaker 1: a big blind spot, Suffering is an invitation to help
Speaker 1: narrow the blind spot. How can I be more loving
Speaker 1: or maybe need to be more autonomous? Whatever the welcome
Speaker 1: gift is. The blind spot is not a moral failing
Speaker 1: is an invitation for growth and spiritual growth. Well, the
Speaker 1: same is true in our relationship to God or the
Speaker 1: Higher Power. There's a blind spot between the sense of
Speaker 1: the world as we know it and the profound, sacred
Speaker 1: world as it really is. Suffering is an invitation to
Speaker 1: narrow the blind spot and move more, ever more into
Speaker 1: a world that is one in which we see God's guidance.
Speaker 1: Know each other from a spiritual You are my brother,
Speaker 1: you are my sister. It doesn't matter if you happen
Speaker 1: to have similar different views politically or about anything else.
Speaker 1: For that matter, you're my brother. The last thing I'd
Speaker 1: want to do is limit our lives to other people's ideas,
Speaker 1: when in fact we have an ultimate opportunity for an authentic, direct,
Speaker 1: spiritual relationship with every single person around us.
Speaker 2: Do you believe everything happens for a reason.
Speaker 1: I believe that we can shift from asking why is
Speaker 1: this happening to me? To how is this happening for me? So,
Speaker 1: despite its origin, every moment is a opportunity for profound
Speaker 1: spiritual awakening. We can bring a spiritual lens and say, ah,
Speaker 1: I can feel God's presence even now in this moment
Speaker 1: of trauma and quaking. I do not fall through the abyss.
Speaker 1: God is holding me. I can bring my deep perception
Speaker 1: of the guidance written into life and say I've never
Speaker 1: encountered this before. You know, my father just died. I
Speaker 1: don't know how to live in this world without my father.
Speaker 1: But wait a minute, my father can be a conduit
Speaker 1: to God the Father, God the Mother and start to
Speaker 1: evermore see the guidance written into life. So when we
Speaker 1: have and it's a choice, a spiritual response to whatever comes,
Speaker 1: we can ask the question, how is this happening for me?
Speaker 2: And that's a great way of checking in with our
Speaker 2: intuition as well.
Speaker 1: I'm listening to our intuition, that little whisper of a hunch.
Speaker 1: You know, Jay, there are regions in the brain for intuition,
Speaker 1: there are regions in the brain for mystical awareness. These
Speaker 1: are valid, hardwired forms of knowing. When we ignore this
Speaker 1: surefire knowledge, it's to our parilem those around us. We're
Speaker 1: being given guidance, and certainly we're being pointed in life's
Speaker 1: pointing us to the double door for a much more
Speaker 1: interesting life. So you know it's worth asking, Hey, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, what was the most important decision that you
Speaker 1: ever made in your life? Was it about your family?
Speaker 1: Was it about your business? Was it a moral decision?
Speaker 1: What was the most important decision that you ever made
Speaker 1: in your life? And was that made narrowly from adding
Speaker 1: up the pros and cons and making a long list
Speaker 1: of the eighteen points? Or did you turn to a
Speaker 1: deeper form of knowing, intuition, inspiration, a mystical awareness, being
Speaker 1: touched in meditation or prayer life? Was there an awakened
Speaker 1: knowing that guided your most important decision?
Speaker 2: And how do you know the difference? How do you
Speaker 2: know if you're listening to your gut, your fear.
Speaker 1: The more we pay attention to our awakened awareness, the
Speaker 1: more we become pitch perfect. So at first it might
Speaker 1: feel a little rusty or a little awkward, But the
Speaker 1: more we say, yes, that guidance feels real, I'm going
Speaker 1: to act on it, And then sure enough, the proof
Speaker 1: is in the pudding when we do act on synchronicity,
Speaker 1: a hunch, a mystical awareness, who should come around the corner.
Speaker 1: But the answer to our quandary, there is no difference
Speaker 1: between internal awareness and external unfolding consciousness is in us,
Speaker 1: through us, and around us. When we listen to the
Speaker 1: guidance so called Internally, we are on the path to
Speaker 1: the answers to our quandaries externally.
Speaker 2: You've used God quite often in our conversation today.
Speaker 1: My word is God.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I wanted to ask you do you have
Speaker 2: to believe in God to be spiritual?
Speaker 1: M I think to be spiritual we only need to
Speaker 1: listen to how the deepest force in life touches and
Speaker 1: guides us. What you call that deepest force in life
Speaker 1: and how you fashion that conceptually is very secondary. It's
Speaker 1: way downstream from the foundational catch and the catcher's myth
Speaker 1: of perception, of awareness of the love and guidance. To
Speaker 1: be spiritual is to pay attention to the love and
Speaker 1: guidance that's already there. And in fact, many people say,
Speaker 1: you know, actually the most important decision of my life
Speaker 1: that I did make through my intuition. Somehow, I just
Speaker 1: knew in my heart that we should move or not move,
Speaker 1: that we should have a child or not have a child.
Speaker 1: I just knew in my heart. Listening to our awakened
Speaker 1: awareness brings an entirely different life when we listen to
Speaker 1: that whisper of a hunch, when we pay attention to synchronosities,
Speaker 1: listening to our awakened awareness brings forward another life. Why
Speaker 1: because consciousness is in us, through us and around us.
Speaker 1: Awakened away fareness allows us to hear the guidance that
Speaker 1: has everything to do with the on the ground, real
Speaker 1: physical reality that we're about to encounter, whether that's a
Speaker 1: premonition or a guidance to find the people in our lives.
Speaker 1: We and our own family Jay, we struggled. My husband
Speaker 1: and I struggled for five years looking for our child.
Speaker 1: We could not find our child, and it was profoundly
Speaker 1: depressing to me, and my husband was so depressed. I
Speaker 1: found him on the floor one night. He was shaking.
Speaker 1: My big strong husband was literally crying and shaking because
Speaker 1: no children had come into our lives. I went to
Speaker 1: every top fertility doctor in the country. I went to
Speaker 1: the team that had the highest rates of conception. I
Speaker 1: went to the team up and down the East coast
Speaker 1: that invented in vitro, and yet nobody came. And it
Speaker 1: was only once I started paying attention to the synchronicities
Speaker 1: and the guidance the unprobabilistic event in my life and
Speaker 1: then started having mystical experiences that to which I said, yes,
Speaker 1: this is real information, that we followed the golden thread
Speaker 1: and found our child on the other side of the earth,
Speaker 1: a beautiful boy who was, of course, our spiritual child. Now,
Speaker 1: if I just took spirituality as a nice feeling or
Speaker 1: something that happens inside of me, or as a way
Speaker 1: of coping, it would have nothing to say about an
Speaker 1: action plant in the world. But spirituality is highly practical,
Speaker 1: actionable guidance through which we can fulfill our deepest calling,
Speaker 1: our true path, and support the calling of those around us.
Speaker 1: My son would still be in an orphanage if I
Speaker 1: didn't think synchronicities were real. My husband and I would
Speaker 1: not be parents if I didn't think synchronicities were real.
Speaker 1: Spirituality is not just a nice thing or I seen
Speaker 1: on the cake. It is the bedrocket is the only
Speaker 1: landscape through which we can live our lives in a
Speaker 1: whole and radiant way.
Speaker 2: And that's also you accepting that yellow door, even in
Speaker 2: that scenario.
Speaker 1: The glorious yellow.
Speaker 2: Door, because spirituality doesn't mean everything you want, and like
Speaker 2: you talked about earlier with the grocery list, spirituality doesn't
Speaker 2: mean that it happens how I want it to happen.
Speaker 2: When it happens, like, that's not spirituality.
Speaker 1: No, it's not a transaction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which I think is so much of the misconception
Speaker 2: of not only how spirituality is spoken about today, but
Speaker 2: people's belief that if I'm spiritual.
Speaker 1: Well, that's the ego driving the bus, right If I
Speaker 1: think that because I'm spiritual, I'm going to get pregnant
Speaker 1: right away. If I think that because I'm spiritual, my
Speaker 1: hopes and dreams are going to all come true, that's
Speaker 1: actually put in myself in the driver's seat and saying
Speaker 1: me and me alone, I know the way. But spirituality
Speaker 1: actually is the ability to look and see what the
Speaker 1: universe is saying and then act. I mean, we don't
Speaker 1: sit home ice cream and do nothing. A spiritualitie allows
Speaker 1: us to see where the universe is guiding us and
Speaker 1: then do something about it. Paying attention to synchronicity and
Speaker 1: then acting allows us to be part of the miracle.
Speaker 1: Listening to a mystical experience, knowing that a visitation is real,
Speaker 1: and then acting allows us to collaborate in the miracle,
Speaker 1: allows us to be actors in a divine journey.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about two practical things, because you said
Speaker 2: spirituality is actually practical. I want to talk about two
Speaker 2: areas of our life that I think a lot of
Speaker 2: our audience struggles with or is looking for. And so
Speaker 2: let's start with love. First of all, So much of
Speaker 2: our audience is looking for love. People are exhausted, we're
Speaker 2: dating right now, struggling with There's plenty of fish in
Speaker 2: the sea. There's just ultimate, unlimited options. How can becoming
Speaker 2: more spiritual help you find love?
Speaker 1: Oh? Jay, many people say, I listened to this gut instinct.
Speaker 1: I'd never been to that bar before, I'd never been since,
Speaker 1: but I just felt like somehow I should go. You know,
Speaker 1: my friend was lonely. She asked me to meet her,
Speaker 1: and it was the right thing to do when I went.
Speaker 1: And sure enough, that night I met the guy who
Speaker 1: I eventually married. And he never went to that bar either.
Speaker 1: Far too unprobabilistic to have happened by chance, or you
Speaker 1: know what. I've always been kind of sheepish about those platforms.
Speaker 1: I didn't know if i'd go on, but I finally did.
Speaker 1: And do you know what, my husband never wanted to
Speaker 1: use those platforms either, but he did, and we found
Speaker 1: each other these unprobabilistic meetings, these guided inspired really meant
Speaker 1: to be. Guided inspired meetings are extraordinary for igniting love,
Speaker 1: are extraordinary for guiding us against all odds to find
Speaker 1: each other in a big universe, through all space and time.
Speaker 1: But then that's only part one. That love is divinely guided.
Speaker 1: Part two is that we then need to put divinity
Speaker 1: into the relationship. It is a big roll up the
Speaker 1: sleeves and do our job. Love someone even when they're difficult,
Speaker 1: Love someone more deeply when they're at their most irascible
Speaker 1: and struggling. No, you know, is there something I'm doing
Speaker 1: right now in the relationship that's starving the relationship. I'll
Speaker 1: give you an example. You know, let's start at home.
Speaker 1: I remember my husband and I went through good you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't just three days, maybe three weeks pushing a
Speaker 1: month of standoffishness, you know, not arguing, just distance. And
Speaker 1: I was thinking, you know, why does it feel so empty,
Speaker 1: so stale in here? Why is there a latent tension
Speaker 1: in the air, you know. And you know we'd even
Speaker 1: sort of find a way to not eat dinner at
Speaker 1: the same time together, you know, and he'd eat his
Speaker 1: special meal and idy vice. Specially, mel had a sense
Speaker 1: Jay that somehow I didn't know the way back to him,
Speaker 1: and he didn't know the way back to me. So
Speaker 1: I effectively took our standoff to counsel. I asked my
Speaker 1: higher power, and for me, the word is God. I
Speaker 1: prayed to God and I said, you know there is
Speaker 1: this standoff. You know, please fill my heart with love.
Speaker 1: Might you show me how we can find our way
Speaker 1: back to each other? God? And what came Jay was
Speaker 1: an image of my husband looking nourished and ruddy and
Speaker 1: fully fed. And I realized I had been starving him
Speaker 1: for my end. I'd been starving him emotionally. I'd been
Speaker 1: so busy with my own thing. I'd been so unwilling
Speaker 1: to pick up the rope on whatever was dogging him.
Speaker 1: God gave me an image the universe presented before me,
Speaker 1: an image of possibility of how I might more nourish
Speaker 1: my husband with love. We don't need to to take
Speaker 1: our failings. Our shortcomings are blind spots as moral failure.
Speaker 1: Our struggles are an invitation to turn to life, turn
Speaker 1: to God, turn to our higher power, and say, might
Speaker 1: you fill my heart with love? And show me an
Speaker 1: image of possibility, and the direction is indeed very surprising.
Speaker 1: It is a yellow door pointing us somewhere an answer
Speaker 1: to the problem. Psychology has really gotten it wrong. Psychology
Speaker 1: says that if I'm feeling guilty about the standoff with
Speaker 1: my husband, or if I'm feeling angry about the thin
Speaker 1: emotional connection right now we might be sharing, I should
Speaker 1: somehow come up with happier thoughts about myself or happier
Speaker 1: thoughts about us in our marriage. Much of cognitive therapy
Speaker 1: as a debate to feel better, bigger, stronger, But actually,
Speaker 1: just as when I touch a hot stove, I feel
Speaker 1: a heat, that's real. Our emotions are exquisite detectors of
Speaker 1: the truth and our lives. We can take that truth,
Speaker 1: even if it's a little bitter to the taste, and
Speaker 1: hand that over to the force of life and say,
Speaker 1: with deep love, please, will you show me possibility? Might
Speaker 1: I ask for directions source of life who I call God,
Speaker 1: And the image that comes, or the synchronicity to unfold,
Speaker 1: or the unlikely turn of events is indeed the opening
Speaker 1: of the yellow door. It expands us and our perception
Speaker 1: to awaken and be more loving.
Speaker 2: What if you have spiritual and your partner is in
Speaker 2: Can it work?
Speaker 1: Yes? It is very important that spirituality not make us
Speaker 1: judgmental about the people around us. You know, I think
Speaker 1: very often I hear I went on a retreat, or
Speaker 1: maybe I tried psilocybin, or I've been working on my
Speaker 1: meditation life and my partner's just not spiritual enough anymore.
Speaker 1: I have surpassed him. Right, The spiritual road is not
Speaker 1: one in which you dust people and leave them behind.
Speaker 1: It's one in which you go back and get them. Now.
Speaker 1: It may or may not be that your partner wants
Speaker 1: to pursue a spiritual life, but can you love them
Speaker 1: from a spiritual place in your heart? Could you be
Speaker 1: married to a spiritual civilian? And that's a question about
Speaker 1: the depth and breadth of your own heart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, does it make you harder because I feel like
Speaker 2: there's a lot of Now what you hear a lot
Speaker 2: of is oh, well, you know, if they're not spiritual,
Speaker 2: I can't be with them. If they don't go to therapy,
Speaker 2: I can't be with them. Because people are wanting people
Speaker 2: to have a certain level of emotional maturity or emotional
Speaker 2: intelligence that they hope comes with spirituality or going to therapy.
Speaker 1: Yes, I know many people feel that way. Most people
Speaker 1: feel that way, but that's actually not my view. My
Speaker 1: view is that can we love someone for who they
Speaker 1: are and where they are, particularly if we've made a
Speaker 1: commitment as a family, or if we've made some type
Speaker 1: of lifelong commitment. It doesn't say to death do us
Speaker 1: part doesn't mean until you have surpassed them in your growth.
Speaker 1: To death to us part means that this is not
Speaker 1: a contract. Marriage isn't a deal, it's a calling. Can
Speaker 1: you love someone for who they are in their journey?
Speaker 1: We don't need to marry our identical twin, and we
Speaker 1: don't need to make a lifelong commitment to an identical twin.
Speaker 1: In fact, life's much more interesting when we compliment each other.
Speaker 1: My husband and I have been married for thirty years.
Speaker 1: I've had one spouse, one house, and one job, from
Speaker 1: which anything else is possible. When we get the bedrock
Speaker 1: of our lives set firm, then we can really erect
Speaker 1: a meaningful life together. We're not identical twins. My husband
Speaker 1: and I have different interests, we have different vocabularies, we
Speaker 1: probably have different maps of reality. But Jay I absolutely
Speaker 1: adore him and I know he loves me, not because
Speaker 1: he's just like me, really, but because he isn't.
Speaker 2: I can relate to that with me and my wife too. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: even though we both have a similar spiritual practice, the
Speaker 2: way we practice it is so different and the way
Speaker 2: we live it in the world is so different, and
Speaker 2: the way we express it is so different. And I
Speaker 2: couldn't agree with you more that to me when I
Speaker 2: was trained in spirituality, spirituality and non judgment are almost
Speaker 2: synonymous to me in how you practice it, Like you
Speaker 2: can't be spiritually enlightened or you can't be spiritual and
Speaker 2: be judgmental. Those two things just don't live together. And
Speaker 2: it's fascinating to me how when we start to become
Speaker 2: spiritual or how judgmental we can be, because it defeats
Speaker 2: the whole purpose of everything you're doing as a spiritual person.
Speaker 2: You're trying to become more compassionate to yourself and others,
Speaker 2: more loving to yourself and others, not passively, but expanding
Speaker 2: your radius of care and how much you can understand
Speaker 2: and comprehend. But so often it does exactly the opposite.
Speaker 2: I had a really good example of this. I invite
Speaker 2: I don't know if you know who she is. But
Speaker 2: I invited Julia Fox onto my podcast. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: if you're aware of who she is, and if not,
Speaker 2: I can give you a bit of background. So Julia
Speaker 2: Fox is known as an actress and a model today,
Speaker 2: but her background is that she grew up in an
Speaker 2: abusive home, became a sex worker in her teens, then
Speaker 2: became a dominatrix, then left that world, became an actress,
Speaker 2: a model, and is now three years celibate, three years sober,
Speaker 2: and takes care of She's a single mom to a
Speaker 2: young son. I'd read her book and I was blown
Speaker 2: away by her transformation and saw it as truly spiritual
Speaker 2: in work that she's done on discovering herself and finding
Speaker 2: herself through all of these phases of life. And it's
Speaker 2: really interesting because before people had heard this version of her,
Speaker 2: I brought her out on stage at an event in
Speaker 2: New York at Madison Square Garden at the Theater, and
Speaker 2: the audience was like, Hey, why would you bring out
Speaker 2: Julia Fox? Like there was this judgment and I because
Speaker 2: I could feel it, and I said, hey, just listen
Speaker 2: to all the end of this conversation and then you
Speaker 2: can decide how you feel it's your choice, but stay
Speaker 2: with me. And we spoke, and then at the end
Speaker 2: of it, the amount of people that came up to
Speaker 2: me and said, Jim, I'm so sorry I judged at
Speaker 2: the beginning, but actually I learned so much from her.
Speaker 2: And she's so smart, and she's so eloquent, and she
Speaker 2: seems like such a wonderful person.
Speaker 1: And when from you, j they learned love, They learned radical, true,
Speaker 1: unconditional love. And from her, Julia, they learned that the
Speaker 1: spirit is far greater than our struggles, the traps we
Speaker 1: may have been in our past. Our spirit is infinite.
Speaker 1: And look how she said yes and listened to the
Speaker 1: guidance and saw the love. What an extraordinary teaching. Incredible.
Speaker 1: You know, it's so easy to say okay in my partnership.
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example. I share in the awakened
Speaker 1: brain that in the journey to find Isaiah, there were
Speaker 1: very I'm very grateful for some very sacred mystical visitations.
Speaker 1: Now I didn't say, oh, I've had mystical visitations and honey,
Speaker 1: you haven't, therefore I'm ahead on the path. No, I
Speaker 1: think the mystical visitation to one member of the partnership
Speaker 1: is to be shared by both. So if you happen
Speaker 1: to be perhaps more spiritually perceptive, if you happen to
Speaker 1: be on a more intense or palpable or vivid spiritual path,
Speaker 1: then you have the opportunity to bring that home and
Speaker 1: share that guidance, offer that love to the partnership. You know,
Speaker 1: the data shows that very often families are enriched and
Speaker 1: made spiritual by one lead partner, and someone else in
Speaker 1: the partnership is bringing something else. My kids murred that
Speaker 1: back to me. They said, you know, mommy's on a
Speaker 1: path and mommy is so spiritual. But if it were
Speaker 1: just mommy, we'd be living in a tent or something.
Speaker 1: But if it were just Daddy, it'd be way too strict.
Speaker 1: We think you're a good balance.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. Absolutely absolutely, If someone's dating, how can they
Speaker 2: stop avoiding the voice inside of them that tells them
Speaker 2: this is the wrong person. Because I feel like we
Speaker 2: often justify someone is right for us because of the
Speaker 2: outward boxes that they tick, or the fact that our
Speaker 2: family and friends think they're amazing, But inside of ourselves
Speaker 2: we knew it, and then when they leave us, it
Speaker 2: feels like we were double dumped because you already knew it,
Speaker 2: but then they left us.
Speaker 1: Well, Jay, I think you're pointing to the importance of
Speaker 1: hearing the deep inner wisdom. Every one of us has
Speaker 1: a spiritual compass that always points to the truth. The
Speaker 1: more we listen and pay attention to the inner spiritual compass,
Speaker 1: the more we become pitch perfect in hearing the guidance.
Speaker 1: But if we're just a little rusty here, we're getting
Speaker 1: our feet wet. We can always take the question to counsel.
Speaker 1: Take the question is this guy right for me? To
Speaker 1: your counsel, Ask those who truly have your best interest
Speaker 1: in mind, your higher self and your higher power. Hey,
Speaker 1: what say you? Because counsel is there to answer any question,
Speaker 1: to bring guidance at any juncture in the road. And
Speaker 1: in fact, we can bring a problem to counsel. We
Speaker 1: can bring a person to counsel. Counsel is a place
Speaker 1: in our soul, in our neurowiring, where we can return
Speaker 1: to receive an awakened response, to receive awakened guidance. Once
Speaker 1: we practice counsel, I suggest to people an invitation to
Speaker 1: try counsel. Every time, every day I offer people the
Speaker 1: invitation to practice counsel every day, because then we become
Speaker 1: accustomed to returning into the place of transcendent relationship. We
Speaker 1: become a little bit more nuanced in ability to hear guidance,
Speaker 1: and ultimately we become more aware of the guidance within ourselves,
Speaker 1: which is the voice of God the universe.
Speaker 2: Let's shift to talk about money. Yes, because you just
Speaker 2: mentioned there that your kids said, Hey, if we just
Speaker 2: said mom, we'd live in a tent. Yes, if we
Speaker 2: had dad, it'd be too strict. So it's a good balance.
Speaker 2: What is the practical connection between spirituality and money.
Speaker 1: Our spiritual perception allows us to walk our true path,
Speaker 1: our true calling, and when we do, there is abundance.
Speaker 1: It's not our preordained mail order vision of abundance. It
Speaker 1: is big, a abundance that comes in many forms. It
Speaker 1: comes in oftentimes meaningful relationships. It comes in a sense
Speaker 1: of fullness and sparkle in the world. It comes with
Speaker 1: fullness in our heart, and very often when we are
Speaker 1: on our authentic path, we find that the finances end
Speaker 1: up getting covered. I don't mean to preach a prosperity
Speaker 1: message where oh, you'll get loads of money if you're
Speaker 1: spiritual spirituality is not a transaction, but spirituality will align
Speaker 1: us with our path through which the road rises up
Speaker 1: to meet us, and we very often do find that
Speaker 1: we are provided for.
Speaker 2: What mistakes do you think spiritual people make when it
Speaker 2: comes to money.
Speaker 1: I think the biggest mistake early in the spiritual path
Speaker 1: is to sequester our spiritual life as being separate from
Speaker 1: our work life. But in fact, how we show up
Speaker 1: at work is a spiritual endeavor, even if we don't
Speaker 1: like the job, even if we may not in five
Speaker 1: years or ten years be doing the same professional for
Speaker 1: the same profession we do now when we show up
Speaker 1: with an authentic spiritual voice and say, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to make in a moral decision, even
Speaker 1: though my boss is leaning on me. I do think
Speaker 1: there is a purpose in the fact that this client
Speaker 1: right now has told me that his wife is dying.
Speaker 1: I feel in my heart love for the other side
Speaker 1: of the steel, and I don't want to exploit them
Speaker 1: or take advantage of them. When we bring our spiritual
Speaker 1: heart to work, we make more ethical decisions, and in
Speaker 1: the end we make win win descis an awakened decision
Speaker 1: is a win win decision. It is far more sustainable
Speaker 1: and yes, more outwardly profitable in the long run. So
Speaker 1: the biggest mistake we can make is to leave our
Speaker 1: spiritual selves at home and as a boss. The biggest
Speaker 1: mistake we can make further down the line in our
Speaker 1: careers is to silence the spiritual voice of people sitting
Speaker 1: at the work table.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I have a lot of friends who'd consider themselves
Speaker 2: to be spiritual. Many of them are depressed and not
Speaker 2: financially secure. When you tell me that people are spiritual,
Speaker 2: are less depressed and they should have an abundance opportunity,
Speaker 2: I don't always see that translate into reality, and I'm
Speaker 2: trying to understand where they're tripping up or going wrong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oftentimes I hear spirituality is in the ashramp. Spirituality
Speaker 1: is in removing myself from commerce or the bank or
Speaker 1: the career that I've pursued for twenty five years. I
Speaker 1: would say just the opposite. Spirituality is bringing your deepest
Speaker 1: wisdom and soulfulness into the bank, the profession of twenty years.
Speaker 1: When we separate ourselves out of the flow of life,
Speaker 1: we've taken ourselves out of the energy field. We've taken
Speaker 1: ourselves out of the majestic symphony. That is the embodied
Speaker 1: spiritual reality. Society isn't unspiritual. Everyone's born in spiritual. Society
Speaker 1: is the embodied spiritual reality. Now, how much are we
Speaker 1: going to cultivate that reality? And what are we going
Speaker 1: to bring to it? How are we going to show up?
Speaker 1: I think we end up depressed and poor when we
Speaker 1: isolate ourselves, when we sequester ourselves, and certainly when we
Speaker 1: feel holier than that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like that approach because going back
Speaker 2: to the Gita, because Origins an archer, he's a warrior.
Speaker 2: He's told by God to do his duty, which is
Speaker 2: to protect and to fight. And that's quite a remarkable
Speaker 2: direction from God to be saying you should fight, rather
Speaker 2: than Origins actually saying I think I should just go
Speaker 2: to the forest to meditate and I don't need this
Speaker 2: land and it doesn't matter, and God's like, no, you
Speaker 2: need to protect future generations and you need to be
Speaker 2: ahead of it, and you're doing your duty. You were
Speaker 2: born a warrior and so carry out that duty.
Speaker 1: Yes, were you born a warrior? Me?
Speaker 2: Probably a little bit? Yeah, lit a bit of that
Speaker 2: for sure, Yes, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: And I relate to that too. Trying to make change
Speaker 1: within major institutions, and it is foundationally spiritual. You in
Speaker 1: the center of society. I've been doing this work in
Speaker 1: science and in academia and in the Pentagon. I think
Speaker 1: that when we work from a deep spiritual awareness, then
Speaker 1: we're actually part of a mission. And it can be
Speaker 1: at times spiritual fight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it can be.
Speaker 1: At times, spirituality is highly embodied. Spirituality has everything to
Speaker 1: do about fighting the good fight, standing up for what's right.
Speaker 1: Spirituality has everything to do with building and creating something
Speaker 1: that is inherently good. So spirituality is not just the
Speaker 1: contemplative practice, and it's not just being soft and gentle.
Speaker 1: There are times were righteous indignation, a firm back, speaking
Speaker 1: up for what's true, fighting to build something, to create
Speaker 1: a land that has spiritual values is a highly profound
Speaker 1: act of devotion. Spirituality is not something that's quiet and mousey.
Speaker 1: Fruitulity is very often something that is active and strong
Speaker 1: and uncompromising.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people right now, when they
Speaker 2: look at the world, they think that there's nothing spiritual
Speaker 2: obviously about what's going on. How do you think about that?
Speaker 1: Oh, I think we're having birthing pains for an extraordinary
Speaker 1: collective awakening. I think that I'm tremendously full of empirically
Speaker 1: grounded hope. Just as each and every one of us
Speaker 1: moves through suffering to transcendence, that depression leads to transcendence awakening.
Speaker 1: I think as a society, we're on the brink of
Speaker 1: awakening into a far more spiritual center field way of
Speaker 1: living and treating each other. We're on the brink of
Speaker 1: a much more spiritual society. What do you think.
Speaker 2: I think people ask better questions and get more committed
Speaker 2: to doing amazing work in the world when things are
Speaker 2: not going great. So I think that when we see
Speaker 2: pain in the world and we feel motivated to want
Speaker 2: to make a change and contribute, I see so many
Speaker 2: people who are getting more involved in charity work and
Speaker 2: getting more involved in philanthropy. I see so many people
Speaker 2: who are wanting to go out and make a difference.
Speaker 2: To me, that's spiritual that sometimes the alarm clock gets
Speaker 2: louder and louder and louder to wake us up, because otherwise,
Speaker 2: if it's on snooze, we kind of get complacent. And
Speaker 2: so I always feel that anxiety and tragedy and it's
Speaker 2: a painful reality and I wish we didn't function that way,
Speaker 2: but humans almost wait for things to get really bad
Speaker 2: before we do something about it.
Speaker 1: And if you don't know what to do, you can,
Speaker 1: just as I shared in my marital challenge, right hand
Speaker 1: it over. Seek direction from the source, meditate on it, pray,
Speaker 1: see what inspiration comes. If the old way of working
Speaker 1: isn't going to give us a good answer, then open up,
Speaker 1: perhaps to a spiritual direction. And I see to your point, Jay,
Speaker 1: a lot of people, Yes they keep their day job,
Speaker 1: Yes they still show up, but they're showing up in
Speaker 1: a different way. And suddenly I just heard from a
Speaker 1: fellow who'd been a trader on Wall Street for twenty years.
Speaker 1: He said, you know, I've had a spiritual awakening recently,
Speaker 1: and now I'm showing up on the trading floor in
Speaker 1: an entirely different way. And I noticed the young guys
Speaker 1: are coming to me and they're asking for advice, advice
Speaker 1: with their partners, advice with their bosses. There must be
Speaker 1: something that I'm giving off, some sort of piece, some
Speaker 1: sort of solidity, some type of enlightenment that welcomes others
Speaker 1: to seek guidance. So if everyone showed up at work,
Speaker 1: that way we have a different commercial system, we'd have
Speaker 1: a different society when we each cross the bridge than together.
Speaker 1: We really are making a different type of awaken society.
Speaker 2: I think the challenge people genuinely feel is we're so
Speaker 2: exhausted from our lives and our days. We always think, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: when I have more energy, I'll do that. When I
Speaker 2: have a bit of peace, I'll do that. What do
Speaker 2: you think about that?
Speaker 1: I think that your spiritual life is the only path
Speaker 1: towards gaining energy and peace and direction. So even if
Speaker 1: I'm completely exhausted, every morning, I force myself to walk
Speaker 1: out the door, go outside and open into my morning
Speaker 1: meditation and prayer. Now there are days where it is
Speaker 1: more profound than others. But if I miss a day,
Speaker 1: it becomes a very different type of day. If I
Speaker 1: misspracticing in the morning, the daan folds very differently. I
Speaker 1: have to say, ooh bit about noon, excuse me, step
Speaker 1: outside and even though it's noon or one o'clock, do
Speaker 1: my morning prayers. For me is an opening to connect
Speaker 1: in dialogue with the universe. If I miss it, then
Speaker 1: I'm working from a place of ego, of want. What
Speaker 1: do I want from me? What I want for my family.
Speaker 1: If I go outside and start loving God, please open
Speaker 1: my heart and fill me with love that I might
Speaker 1: be present to you. You use your words. Today's a
Speaker 1: dialogue with the universe.
Speaker 2: You've said that children are born as pure souls. Yes,
Speaker 2: do you think everyone is born good?
Speaker 1: Everyone's born a knower. We know this through lens, the
Speaker 1: lens of science. So we can look at twin studies
Speaker 1: and know that every single person is born with a
Speaker 1: natural capacity for spiritual awareness, and every single person throughout
Speaker 1: our studies we know is through MRI studies. We know
Speaker 1: every single person is born with circuits in the brain
Speaker 1: for spiritual awareness. What does this look like in the child?
Speaker 1: Science shows us that in less socialized otherwise, a young
Speaker 1: child naturally perceives continuity of consciousness or spirit after death
Speaker 1: unless told oh no, no, that's not real. A young
Speaker 1: child naturally perceives that We can directly know. We don't
Speaker 1: need to have been told or read it or seen it.
Speaker 1: We can have direct access to consciousness. Science calls this
Speaker 1: implicit spiritual cognition. I say the child's born and knower. Now,
Speaker 1: what happens in school is that the child says, oh,
Speaker 1: I know the answer to that, and the teacher says,
Speaker 1: what what do you mean? Point on the page where
Speaker 1: does it say? Where did you read that? You need
Speaker 1: to cite in reference? How you know that? And the
Speaker 1: child says, no, I just knew that. Exchange says to
Speaker 1: the child that direct knowing is somehow less real. That
Speaker 1: the type of knowing that we raise as prime to
Speaker 1: which we give primacy, the type of knowing that we
Speaker 1: value here in school is one that comes from someone else.
Speaker 1: But actually, the most important knowledge we have doesn't come
Speaker 1: from someone else. It is an original, authentic knowing within ourselves.
Speaker 1: That's how we know, our own calling, our own purpose,
Speaker 1: our own direction. School has socialized us out of our
Speaker 1: natural spiritual awareness. School has foreclosed the direction and guidance
Speaker 1: that is built into life the child comes in and
Speaker 1: know where. The child comes in listening and paying attention
Speaker 1: to their inner spiritual compass, And in school we learn, oh, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's not real. You need to have been told that
Speaker 1: by someone else.
Speaker 2: What can parents do to protect that?
Speaker 1: It is essential that parents protect their child's natural spiritual awareness.
Speaker 1: Parents can say, hey, you said you just knew that.
Speaker 1: How wonderful was that? Direct knowing? You just knew or
Speaker 1: child might come to us as parents and say something like,
Speaker 1: you know, I felt Grandma's presence even though she's dead.
Speaker 1: I really felt Grandma's presence, And you can say, wow,
Speaker 1: Grandpa really loved you. It makes sense that she'd be
Speaker 1: watching over you. We don't need to have all the
Speaker 1: grand answers as parents, but to protect the child's natural spirituality,
Speaker 1: we need to authorize them our children as knowers. Wow,
Speaker 1: you had a dream that Daddy and I were going
Speaker 1: to travel around the world, and today we told you that. Wow,
Speaker 1: you had a hunch that your sister was going to
Speaker 1: come home from school early, and then it happened. You
Speaker 1: had direct knowing. Wow, honor and authorize your child's direct knowing,
Speaker 1: because everyone else in society is telling them it isn't real.
Speaker 1: We have poisoned a generation with something that's called radical materialism.
Speaker 1: It says it's only real if you can touch it
Speaker 1: or kick it. But actually there's a great deal of
Speaker 1: information in the unseen, and the child has access to
Speaker 1: that information by saying to the child, oh, no, that
Speaker 1: feeling you have in your gut instinct, that's just your intuition. No, no, wow,
Speaker 1: that's the gift of your intuition. What you made that up?
Speaker 1: You imagined it? No, no, no imagination like touching a
Speaker 1: hot stove. Images, what's true? You figured that out in
Speaker 1: your important imagination. Authorize, authorize, authorized.
Speaker 2: What's that? I really like that? How important is spirituality
Speaker 2: at home from a scientific.
Speaker 1: Perspective, tremendously important. The child is born a naturally spiritual being.
Speaker 1: But this is one third of an endowment, two thirds
Speaker 1: cultivated by us as parents and grandparents. It can be
Speaker 1: by a devoted, loving mentor a member of a faith community.
Speaker 1: It could be by a coach or a counselor. But
Speaker 1: when we pair true, deep love, authentic love with transparency,
Speaker 1: opening the window and sharing our own spiritual life, the
Speaker 1: child is embraced and their spiritual core is formed. As
Speaker 1: a parent, as I say, we can do four things
Speaker 1: as a parent to strengthen our children's spirituality. The first
Speaker 1: is call it out. Use a language that speaks to synchronicity,
Speaker 1: mystical experiences, Talk about the spiritual reality, and give it
Speaker 1: a language through which the child gains a roadmap of
Speaker 1: a spiritual, sacred reality. If we say it's real, it's real. Two,
Speaker 1: invite your child into your own life share the stories.
Speaker 1: When I was sixteen and I really didn't know if
Speaker 1: God existed, I was really depressed. When you were born,
Speaker 1: I knew there was much more than just skin and
Speaker 1: bones to us. Speak authentically about your own journey from
Speaker 1: a spiritual perspective, the knowing, truthful knowing of your own heart.
Speaker 1: When you share your autoenic spiritual story, the child knows
Speaker 1: that actually are life journey is a spiritual journey. The
Speaker 1: third thing we can do, very important, is to invite
Speaker 1: our children to share their own spiritual experiences. Say that
Speaker 1: our relationship, our family goes down to that bedrock. Spiritual
Speaker 1: life is part of who we are. Whether it's God
Speaker 1: brought us together the universe from across the world brought
Speaker 1: you to me, my beautiful spiritual child, or when Daddy
Speaker 1: and Mommy got married and we both brought our kids,
Speaker 1: we knew that God had made this full, abundant family.
Speaker 1: Talk about who we are as a family from the
Speaker 1: deepest spiritual perspective. And the fourth piece all four important.
Speaker 1: The fourth is non negotiable, which is invite your child
Speaker 1: into a practice of transcendence. Whether it's prayer, loving God,
Speaker 1: open my heart. Now you finish the prayer. Do you
Speaker 1: want to sit by my side? And while we meditate
Speaker 1: through which you're invoking the sacred consciousness feeled like a
Speaker 1: little intenna. They're starting to pick it up. Share transcendent practice.
Speaker 1: When we as parents share transcendent practice, we allow our
Speaker 1: children the rest of their lives to get back to source.
Speaker 1: The brain is more of an antenna than a factory.
Speaker 1: We were born able to receive consciousness much more like
Speaker 1: an antenna than a factory that makes thoughts or makes spirituality.
Speaker 1: The child's will antenna. Teach them how to raise it,
Speaker 1: Teach them that what comes through their antenna is real,
Speaker 1: and show them that you can always raise the antenna
Speaker 1: and feel the presence of love, feel the presence of guidance.
Speaker 2: I think that's so different from what I feel. A
Speaker 2: lot of people who grew up in a spiritual or
Speaker 2: religious home experience which is force, force of practice, force
Speaker 2: of belief, force of ritual without reason, force of turning
Speaker 2: up and showing up whether you cared or not.
Speaker 1: And now now they don't like the whole thing, They
Speaker 1: don't like any of it. Yeah, that rebounds, Yes, these
Speaker 1: are invitations.
Speaker 2: What's the difference between spirituality and religion well.
Speaker 1: As you probably know, for about two thirds of people
Speaker 1: in the States, and it's pretty true across post industrial countries.
Speaker 1: Spirituality and religion go hand in hand for about two
Speaker 1: thirds of people, and about one third of people say
Speaker 1: I am spiritual, but I'm not religious. Whether or not
Speaker 1: we're religious, we are all in born spiritual beings. Religion
Speaker 1: is whether I'm Catholic, or Hindu or Jewish, is a
Speaker 1: gift of our parents and grandparents. Religion, the sacred texts
Speaker 1: ceremony is environmentally transmitted. Spirituality is innate. Now, Jay, I
Speaker 1: think in support of the child's own natural spirituality, we can,
Speaker 1: as parents take on a child centered point of view,
Speaker 1: listen to the child's spiritual experiences and say wow, offer
Speaker 1: in the first person, speaking for only myself a spiritual voice. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, I used to take hikes with my children
Speaker 1: in the forest when they were young, and when we
Speaker 1: came to a fork in the road, I always said
Speaker 1: Robert Frost poem to roads diverge in a yellow wood,
Speaker 1: and sorry I could not follow both and be one traveler.
Speaker 1: Long I stood, and of course it's the road less traveled.
Speaker 1: It's about listening to your inner wisdom. And making an authentic,
Speaker 1: original choice yours went by.
Speaker 2: I love that poem.
Speaker 1: Dozens of times Robert Frost shared in the woods at
Speaker 1: the juncture where the road forked. And sure enough, years later,
Speaker 1: my children walking through the woods will approach a fork
Speaker 1: in the road and say, this is the point where
Speaker 1: mommy recites Robert Frost and cries. They're aware there's a choice,
Speaker 1: there's a choice in the road. Now when I cry,
Speaker 1: I didn't cry because I thought it would be an
Speaker 1: effective way for them to remember the Robert frostbam. It
Speaker 1: was a genuine, authentic sense that the most important thing
Speaker 1: in life is to learn to make your own choices.
Speaker 1: They got the picture. When we're transparent, when we share
Speaker 1: what's really important to h on our own spiritual path,
Speaker 1: they know it's real. They get the picture, and then
Speaker 1: on their own terms they can claim.
Speaker 2: It because you weren't doing it to teach, you were
Speaker 2: just sharing it. Like there's such a difference. It's almost
Speaker 2: like we remember things when someone shares them as their
Speaker 2: inspiration versus when they say you need to do this.
Speaker 2: You need to know, Like I don't know if you
Speaker 2: turn around to your kids with that young angel said,
Speaker 2: this is a lesson and how you like in the future. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like that doesn't work on anyone. Like, if you
Speaker 2: share something you love, I'll remember that and you would
Speaker 2: for me too. But if I said, Lisa, you have
Speaker 2: to live life like this and this is where you've
Speaker 2: got to remember, all of a sudden, your defenses go
Speaker 2: up and you just switch off, especially as a kid.
Speaker 1: Jay, I was sharing the best thing I had, which
Speaker 1: was the joy of living an authentic, original life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and not borrowing my life from the playbook or someone
Speaker 1: else's life.
Speaker 2: Lisa, what does therapy do that spirituality can't And what
Speaker 2: does spirituality do that therapy can't?
Speaker 1: Yes, so, Jay. For thirty years, I've been working at
Speaker 1: the intersection of spirituality and psychotherapy, and I've published over
Speaker 1: two hundred articles on spirituality and mental health and recovery,
Speaker 1: many of which are in top peer review journals. Spirituality
Speaker 1: is essential to recovery from depression and addiction. Spirituality is
Speaker 1: protective against depression and addiction. There's nothing in the clinicals
Speaker 1: or social sciences as important to whole person formation as
Speaker 1: a strong spiritual core. So in my view, psychotherapy minus
Speaker 1: a spiritual core makes no sense. A Spiritual informed therapy
Speaker 1: is one in which the patient is authorized to open
Speaker 1: to the guidance in the universe, to raise their antenna
Speaker 1: and ask the question, what is life showing me now?
Speaker 1: What is this suffering revealing to me now? Is there
Speaker 1: a blind spot where I'm being perhaps inconsiderate or selfish?
Speaker 1: Is there a blind spot where I have yet to
Speaker 1: take ownership or autonomy of my life? Is there a
Speaker 1: way in which I'm not listening to the universe, and
Speaker 1: the universe is pounding louder and louder to your point
Speaker 1: until I hear That type of reflection is a reflection
Speaker 1: brought forth by suffering, but it is not purely a
Speaker 1: psychological question. It is one in which we were asking
Speaker 1: to see beyond what we know. Awakened awareness has information
Speaker 1: that has yet to unfold before us. Achieving awareness draws
Speaker 1: on all the information in our own lives and everyone
Speaker 1: else is to date. It is inherently based on the past.
Speaker 1: But intuition, mystical experience, and awakened knowing has information that
Speaker 1: has yet to unfold before us the yellow doors. That's
Speaker 1: why spirituality is essential to mental health, because what is
Speaker 1: suffering but a banging at the door to emerge beyond
Speaker 1: the person we've ever been before.
Speaker 2: They so can't wait for people to read the Awakened
Speaker 2: Brain and connect more with your work, because sitting with
Speaker 2: you today and going through your exercises and hearing about
Speaker 2: your ability to pull from science and from spirituality, it's
Speaker 2: such important work. And I'm so glad that you're such
Speaker 2: a good messenger of it, because it feels like it's
Speaker 2: being hidden from us, it feels like it's not as
Speaker 2: accessible as it should be, and you're bringing it out.
Speaker 2: So I'm so grateful for that.
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful for our conversation. And It's true, every
Speaker 1: single person listening already is spiritual. This is theirs. It's
Speaker 1: not only for the most pious or the most learned.
Speaker 1: No one owns this. You are spiritual, but it is
Speaker 1: your opportunity to awaken.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We end every episode of On Purpose with a
Speaker 2: final five. These questions have to be answered in one
Speaker 2: word to one sentence maximum, and so Lisa Milla, these
Speaker 2: are your final five. The first question is what is
Speaker 2: the best advice you've ever heard or received?
Speaker 1: Listen to your inner wisdom and bet against the pack.
Speaker 2: Nice I agree. Question number two, what is the worst
Speaker 2: advice you've ever heard or received.
Speaker 1: Do as I say?
Speaker 2: Question number three, what's the first thing you do in
Speaker 2: the morning and the last thing you do at night?
Speaker 1: Every morning I open the day through prayer that invites
Speaker 1: my heart to connect to God. And every day I
Speaker 1: close the day by thanking God for the guidance, the love,
Speaker 1: and the miracle of the adventure that was the day before.
Speaker 2: What do you pray to God for?
Speaker 1: I ask that I might align my heart with God's
Speaker 1: guidance and love, and that day serve God in love.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it'll look like, but I know
Speaker 1: if I'm in alignment.
Speaker 2: Fist and final question, Lisa, We asked this every guest
Speaker 2: who's ever been on the show. If you could create
Speaker 2: one law that everyone in the world had to follow,
Speaker 2: what would it be.
Speaker 1: Every single person in your path was sent by source.
Speaker 1: Treat them with an awakened heart.
Speaker 2: Doctor Lisa Miller. The book is called The Awakened Brain,
Speaker 2: The New Signs of Spirituality, and Our Quest for an
Speaker 2: Inspired Life. Go and grab your copy right now. I
Speaker 2: hope you listen to this conversation many times. My favorite
Speaker 2: thing you could do is please take a moment to
Speaker 2: do the two practices we did together with yourself, and
Speaker 2: then share it with a friend, because I feel those
Speaker 2: simple practices that Lisa so beautifully guided me through could
Speaker 2: be the unlock that you're looking for. I've always found
Speaker 2: that you need these tipping points in your journey, and
Speaker 2: Lisa gave us so many beautiful ones, But those two
Speaker 2: exercises particularly, I think could be doorways and gateways into
Speaker 2: your spiritual life if you've been struggling, if you felt
Speaker 2: like you've fallen off, if you're reconnecting, whichever part of
Speaker 2: the journey you're on. So thank you so much, Lisa,
Speaker 2: thank you for your time, and it's.
Speaker 1: Wonderful to connect with you. You have beautiful soul.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Bright Saul, very kind, truly, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: If you love this episode, you'll enjoy my interview with
Speaker 2: doctor Daniel Ahman on how to change your life by
Speaker 2: changing your brain. They don't do things until someone's mad
Speaker 2: at them to get it done.
Speaker 1: They need stress in order to get stuff done, and
Speaker 1: that just makes everybody around them stress.