July 7, 2025 • 29 mins
🎙️ Episode 17: Spirit
“When uncertainty and scarcity visit, you will be able to draw from the spirit that is a part of our everyday life.”
In today’s conversation, we explore what it means to bring spirit into daily family life. We reflect on how our personal spiritual practices may be invisible to our kids and discuss Dr. Lisa Miller’s research on how we are all innately spiritual beings.
We share:
- How, without religion, our spirituality has (unintentionally) become invisible within our home
- Our story of synchronistically meeting in midtown Manhattan
- Lisa Miller’s three practices for everyday spirituality
- How our daughter Hunter describes spirit in her own words
- A new bedtime ritual we’re trying this week
TMIT about Spirit: We are all innately spiritual beings. Our job is to model our own spiritual life with openness and humility, and to give others permission to explore their own.
Whether you identify as religious, spiritual, agnostic, or simply curious, this episode invites you to consider how spirit might become part of your family’s everyday rhythm.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
All right, you ready? Ready.
OK. Welcome to The Most Important
Thing. I'm Danielle DeMarco Neufeld.
And I'm Greg Neufeld, and together we're exploring how
ambitious busy families build culture at home.
Because after all, family is themost important thing.
Hi everybody, welcome back to The Most Important Thing,
episode 17 on Spirit. Spirit in the sky.
(00:20):
That's right, somewhere, everywhere.
This is the 8th episode in our wholehearted parenting journey
and the line from the manifesto is when uncertainty and scarcity
visit, you will be able to draw from the spirit that is a part
of our everyday life. It's beautiful.
Yeah. All these lines are beautiful.
They are, I know, so spirit, so spirit.
(00:43):
Where would you like to begin? Well, we're trying to teach our
kids about our spirituality or Yeah.
So I mean, for me, the objectiveis to bring it more into a part
of our everyday life. A, an analogy, a story, if you
will. To me, Spirit really showed up
(01:06):
for me when we went to the library this past weekend.
And up on the shelf was this beautiful neon colored, awesome
looking 900 page book that the kids gravitated towards right
away. And it was actually the book
that I was 97% of the way finished reading.
I subsequently finished it that night.
(01:26):
You got to say what book it is. It's.
It's part of the Dungeon CrawlerCarl series.
It's called the Butcher's Masquerade.
I guess it's #5 but because you're like, Oh my gosh, this is
the coolest book, Mommy, you have to get it.
And I was like, I have this book.
This is the book that I am reading, and I read it on Kindle
every night, so nobody really sees it.
And it's awesome and I love it and it's my own personal little
(01:49):
thing. But here I am hiding from all of
you this amazingly rich and wonderful thing that until it
was sitting on a shelf, I didn'teven think to talk to you about.
And that's really how I feel about my spiritual life as well.
It's this beautiful, rich, incredibly important, I mean,
honestly, probably the most important thing to me because if
(02:12):
I don't have a spiritual foundation that for me is close
to my higher power, I can't showup for my family.
And yet I don't really talk about it with anybody in our
family. And so I would like kind of in
this conversation for us to comeup with some ideas of how to
bring our spirituality, each of our own into the everyday in a
(02:35):
way. Not so that we can projected
onto our children, but to model that we are each innately
spiritual beings and to really authorize each of our children
to go on their own spiritual journey.
Yeah, I'm on board with that. And I do think that the analogy
(02:56):
is very strong here in that we each have spiritual practices
that the kids do not see. So how do we bring those out and
talk about them, but not just talk about them, embody them.
Really, really show. Show up in the world with our
kids and help them notice what we're seeing from a spiritual
(03:18):
connection perspective as those events or serendipity unfolds.
Right. Yeah.
I think it's important to note that we are not a religious
family. So I grew up Catholic and you
grew up Presbyterian, right? But your father was Jewish.
And we have not, though we do kind of culturally celebrate
(03:38):
Christmas. We don't have a House of worship
or a framework or language, if you will, or community really,
that someone like a, that a family that is religious does
share. And so this is yet another
opportunity for us to, well, to paint a blank canvas, right, And
to bring our intentionality to kind of create our own.
(04:01):
Yeah. I think we do both believe.
And I would say that neuroscience is currently
backing us up. So I did some research prior to
this episode and learned a bit about the work of Doctor Lisa
Miller, whose neuroscience studies are fMRI scans of the
brain. And they have shown that, well,
(04:21):
we are innately spiritual beingsand that the brain, whether
someone is standing on a mountaintop or kneeling in a
Pew, there is a part of the brain that lights up that is
directly related to spiritual experience and that everyone has
that part of the brain. And they have found that those
(04:44):
who have rich, deep spiritual life actually have more
developed cortical thickness in those areas that are also tied
to decision making and emotionalcontrol.
So what they have found is that if you have a deep spiritual
life, you have lower markers forthe risk of depression and
higher capacity for both empathyand compassion.
(05:07):
That's so cool. That is so cool.
So I think that what I take awayfrom this is really that we are
all innately spiritual beings and the way that we choose to
embody our spirituality, to engage with our spirituality can
look different and doesn't necessarily have to equate to
religion. I think that religion isn't if
(05:29):
if you find a religion that resonates with you, it gives you
so much of what Doctor Lisa Miller is talking about when it
comes to a strong spiritual life, right?
It gives you language, it gives you a framework, it gives you a
place to worship, it gives you community.
And so that is amazing. Maybe you like your family's
(05:51):
faith tradition. Maybe that works for you.
Maybe you've found something else that works for you.
Religion is a beautiful way to be a spiritual being, but it's
not the only way to be a spiritual being.
And I think that that's where you and I find ourselves today.
Just about everywhere. Interestingly, like I.
Know. Like we don't live in a gated
(06:13):
community here in Florida, so it's harder to connect with and
find other like minded families,but we're we are finding them
and we're finding them through the podcast, not just locally,
but all over. So that's an example of this in
in play, right? That's like the analogy there of
having a place of worship versusbeing spiritual, but a little
(06:35):
bit more of a wonder. Yeah.
I mean, I think with everything,like you identify as a rebel,
right? As someone who questions almost
all rules and really has a much stronger sense of right and
wrong internally as opposed to some type of external force, is
that fair to say? Whereas I am much more of an
upholder where I like to uphold my own internal rules, but also
(06:57):
external rules as well. And but marrying you, I think
I've become much more of a rebelin the sense that, you know, you
and I like to do a we are very intentional.
I think that is the number one word that our friends and family
would use when it comes to us. But you know, we were watching
our new favorite show, at least season 1 couples therapy the
(07:18):
other day. And one of the women on the
couch with her husband is a veryintentional person.
And the psychoanalyst asked her,she said, you know, you are, you
are obviously very intentional and you have a strong direction
on where you would like to take your life.
But as a psychoanalyst, I have to wonder what is the shadow
side of that? What is the fear that comes up
(07:42):
if you are not in control? And that really hit me.
It really hit me because I thinkthat we, well, I'll just speak
for myself and say that I do think that spirituality and this
idea of surrendering to my higher power is incredibly
important balance and perspective in my life because
(08:04):
it is the flip side of all the intentionality that we have.
And so it is probably though notsomething that I share with our
kids so much. And they probably see me more as
this like control freak because I keep these moments of grace
and surrender. They're really my own.
(08:26):
Can we go a little bit deeper onyour alignment with your higher
power and what your spiritual life looks like today?
Yeah, for sure. OK, the idea that what was the
book The War of Art? Do you remember this book?
I do. Isn't this the one that
originally gave you the term fight the resistance?
(08:46):
It is so fighting the resistancein art, in life means when you
don't want to do something, whenI don't want to do something,
question why that is and it get really curious about that and
then fight against it because itusually is going to be a
movement towards alignment with the universe.
There's so many reasons that I stay curious about resistance,
(09:12):
but the main one is because I know that when I sense that
resistance and I push against itand I open that door
successfully, that's when I feelmost connected to the universe.
So it helps me to not just fightthe resistance on any one
occasion, but to search for alignment and fight the
resistance on all occasions. So I guess what you're also
(09:33):
saying is that the universe is here, ready and willing to help
you and to conspire to help you,and sometimes you just have to
hop back into alignment. That's right.
So if I may, Doctor Lisa Miller has some ideas of how to bring
spirituality into everyday practice.
And I would love for us to consider them with our family as
an experiment. So the first one is serve other
(09:56):
people. Is the idea being that when you
go outside yourself, you are a living prayer of love, held,
guided and never alone? And I think that that is one
that we are working to develop with our family.
Is this service arm service engine, if you will.
But even everyday ways of serving other people, like if
there's someone sick in our community or someone needs us to
(10:18):
take care of their pet, things like that, really just, well, I
don't know. Is there anything you want to
say about that? No, I I agree.
I, I see that our kids gravitatenaturally towards active
service. And so I feel like maybe there's
something lost along the way in not developing that muscle for
me. And I'm not just a witness.
(10:40):
I I'm an active, curious participant.
Yeah. So I think that getting into the
habit of serving other people inboth big and small ways is the
closest is like a very quick wayto to feel connection to
something greater than yourself.OK, so the first one is serve
other people. The second, which is my
favorite, is to perceive synchronicity.
So thank the universe when you experience unique, most
(11:05):
improbable events. And those don't happen all the
time for me, but I do think thatthey happen way more often than
I realize. For sure.
These are like daily events I think.
OK, tell me more. I've got this little journal
prompt lately. So in the morning I write down
(11:25):
the lever for the day, which is the most important thing to get
done. And then in the evening I write
down 4 things. One is the insight, any insight
that I had. So that's a good place to to
look for the serendipity. 2 is the shift.
So like, what do I want to shiftinto tomorrow?
And sometimes that's just like, oh, you know, today was a lot of
creative thinking. Tomorrow I'd really need to do
(11:46):
blocking, tackling or this is we're recording on a Friday.
Friday was a great recording session day.
Tomorrow I just want to be with my family and not be checking my
phone or something like that. And then the relationship, which
is who or what do I want to havea relationship with?
Sometimes that's myself, sometimes that's a version of
myself, sometimes that's a different version or
(12:07):
relationship that that you and Ihave.
So like, instead of being Co host tomorrow, let's just be
whatever, right, Let's be parents.
And then the last one is recall.So I made this one up because I
realized that the day is just like blur together.
And so my recall is either a moment of the day or just like
I'll, I'll talk through the day and how it went.
(12:28):
And I usually find something that I forgot already.
And so I found that to be reallyinteresting, especially
reflecting at the end of the week, looking back at my week
and seeing these journal prompts.
So maybe for you, it's just, what's that one moment of
serendipity that I saw looking back at each day?
Yeah, OK, I like it. I'm also caught up a little bit
because I'm a word nerd and I said synchronicity and you said
(12:50):
serendipity. And so I'd like to actually talk
about the difference between thetwo of those.
OK, So I'll tell you the definitions and you can tell me
like how you perceive the differences.
But so synchronicity is a very specific Carl Jung term that
means meaningful coincidence. So it's when events occurred
together in a way that feels connected, even though there's
(13:10):
no clear like causal relationship.
So it's mysterious and spiritualwhere the universe is trying to
tell you something. Serendipity.
I don't think it has any psychological relevance.
It's a happy accident, a chance event that turns out to be
beneficial, and it's more of like a lucky, playful, light
hearted type of thing. Yeah, I think I use them
probably interchangeably becauseI believe that you can't control
(13:33):
either. But as Paul Graham says, you can
create more surface area for luck, and that is what I believe
being in alignment with the universe actually means is doing
the next right thing for even when it's a hard thing to create
more surface area for lucky events or synchronous events to
happen to you because you can't 'cause them to happen.
Sure. Yeah.
I guess I think of serendipity as like when we happen to run
(13:56):
into our friends at the farmers market, that feels like a happy
accident. Like I'm so happy that I got to
see their faces on a Saturday morning.
I wouldn't say that it was a deep spiritual experience.
It was just like it was a great highlight in my day.
Synchronicity is like the fact that you and I met at Zuma on
Wednesday, April 8th, 2015, whenneither of us were supposed to
be there. Like that is synchronicity.
(14:17):
Yeah, that's very true. Does synchronicity have to be
big events though? It has to be deeply meaningful
events. OK, so then yeah, those aren't
everyday. Like we had one not even mutual
friend, like third degree connection of mine kind of
thing, and friend of yours. Like we had been in similar
spots, probably in New York Cityone or two other times in our
(14:40):
lives, but neither of us were supposed to be there.
And if we hadn't met that night,it's not like we would have met
the next week or the next week or the next week.
Like that was truly a once in a lifetime opportunity.
It really was that we both happened to show up and just
gravitated towards one another immediately.
So true. In front of DJ Jade.
(15:01):
I mean, there's so many more crazy things about that story.
I had just gotten off a plane earlier that day.
I buried my grandmother, not notliterally, but she had passed
away couple weeks prior. I was right here in Delray when
when my grandmother was sick andI was visiting her in the
(15:22):
hospital just up the road. And I decided to make all these
big decisions after that becauseI finally felt the weight of all
of my ancestors lifted off of me.
My parents weren't around. All of my grandparents had
passed. She was the last remaining 1,
and I decided I need to live life for myself.
And so I made some really big decisions.
And when I finally came back to New York 3 weeks later, Danielle
(15:47):
was right there and it was unbelievable.
Do you want to say the other thing?
You can say the other thing. What's the other thing?
The other thing that I was married, Yes.
Yeah, I was married. And I knew in my heart of hearts
that that was me looking for continued family now that
(16:08):
everyone was dying. The only reason I was going to
get married was because my dad was still alive and he didn't
even live to see it. And eight months into a
marriage, I was like, I'm sorry,I just can't do this.
I don't want to have children with this person.
And I came back to New York to, to tie up those loose ends.
Otherwise I would have stayed inFlorida.
(16:29):
And later that night, like having done the hard things,
fighting the resistance, pushingthrough all of the
uncomfortableness, all of the blowback from extended family
and, you know, people getting really concerned about me and
decisions that I was making. And I was just like, Nope, I'm
(16:50):
doing this for myself. And I was living.
Yeah, that was probably the mostaligned I've I've ever felt.
Yeah. So hopping back into alignment
with the universe, having explicit difficult conversations
with people that you cared aboutand really naming what you
needed like literally same day turn around.
I mean, I think about our meeting kind of the most
(17:13):
perfectly imperfect time for youever.
Like in what universe is are youtelling someone that you would
like an annulment by day and meeting your future wife by
night? It's wild, it's so wild.
Wouldn't even make a good movie because it's not believable.
I. Know and I don't consider myself
to be at the type of person who would have gone on a date with
(17:35):
you had that not been known you know what I mean had it not been
explicit that you were moving towards annulment proceed
proceedings well. I think it was, you know that
and you met a bunch of my friends who were just like, so
happy to have me, just just likehappy to see me living in
alignment after. Yeah, it was.
Palpable. I was, I was in a really dark
place for a long time. And you know, as we talked about
on the last episode, like, you know, there's that's a that's
(17:58):
been a pattern and I didn't understand it until much more
recently. So it's the alignment that I've
been feeling with the universe is really the purest sense of
like of am I feeling like I can look myself in the mirror and
say that I'm happy with all the choices that I made.
And today, I mean, unquestionably.
(18:20):
But ten years ago, like up untilI met you, I had just started to
turn the corner and make those changes after a really dark
period of seeing both of my parents die, like 2 grandmothers
die, and being in a relationshipthat didn't serve me, but that I
needed to get out of the New York City spiral that was
(18:42):
otherwise going to bring me down.
So yeah, synchronicity. Synchronicity, OK, so serve
other people perceive synchronicity.
And then the third one is to pause and feel the sacred in
nature or in memories. So basically she says like say
wow a lot. And so I think this is a great
opportunity for us to share our spirituality with our children
(19:04):
is really definitely episode 2 family stories, right?
But being in nature together andexperiencing awe and wonder and
just the power of things outsideof ourselves is also a great
opportunity to share our spirituality.
Yes, absolutely. We're in a great place for it.
What else do we want to say? I feel very connected to the
(19:25):
universe because of you and thisfamily.
And I feel very connected to this family because of the
universe. It's like this, this is a
relationship that we do have with the higher power,
everything that happens with this family.
I love that, Yeah. So when it comes to
spirituality, I would like to spend more time sharing that
(19:51):
with all of you. If I think about our last
episode was on joy and I was like, I want to take some of my
joy back because it feels a little bit too connected to all
of you. I'm kind of saying the opposite
when it comes to my spirit, my sense of spirit and
spirituality, which is that I feel like I have made it such a
deeply personal and unique thingthat I would like to spend more
time being a little bit more showy about it.
(20:12):
Like sharing it with all of you in in a, in an attempt to really
authorize our children to have their own spiritual journey.
I think for a little while there, I have been concerned up
until this episode really that my lack of sharing with our
children has caused them to havea spiritual gap.
(20:32):
And I, I don't think that's actually the case anymore.
So you know, just because we arenot having them say prayers at
night or having them go to church on Sunday or doing
different rites of passage, all of which are beautiful for those
that that it resonates with. This past Friday, I asked Hunter
what God means to her. It was actually hilarious.
(20:54):
We were out on the climbing Domeafter a Friday night family meal
and I said, Hunter, what does God mean to you?
And this neighbor was like walking by, walking her dog at
that right at that exact moment.And must have thought that I was
so cringe like absolutely. Because who hears?
And I heard her scoff and laugh,But I mean, it was a laughable
thing. I am.
I am that mom. I'm that mom that asks what God
(21:17):
means to you on a Friday night while you're playing.
So it's fine. I own it.
But it was it was hilarious. Anyway, so and so when we did
kind of open up that conversation with our kids
leading with Hunter being the oldest, I was profoundly
inspired by what I heard, which was really that help me
encapsulate it, if you will. But she said that God, she first
(21:39):
of all, she used the word spirit, which I thought was
awesome. And we haven't used that word
spirit in in talking with her, but she said that you know what?
I feel God all around me and I feel spirit everywhere.
And it's kind of the opposite ofyou, mommy.
Like I can touch you or I can. What did she say?
She said, I can see you, but I can't feel you.
(22:00):
Whereas with spirit, I can't seeit, but I can always feel it.
Wow, it's awesome. And then she said, you know,
mom, I feel like Spirit is leading me when I have big
emotions that that is when I feel closest to God, right?
(22:24):
And then we were talking a bit more and I said, well, what do
you do when you want to tap intoGod or Spirit?
And she said, I breathe. She said, well, I always
breathe, but I breathe with intention.
And that's how I connect to Spirit.
Something's working. I mean, so if that, I mean that
is her own compass. And I'm so excited, like I'm
(22:45):
just so grateful. And I guess exhaling because I,
I do feel like this is somethingI've been avoiding.
But we are all innately spiritual beings and we don't, I
guess I was really worried that if we didn't give them a
religion, they would not have a spiritual connection.
And that's not what I'm finding.No, not at all.
Not at all. So that feels good, yeah.
(23:08):
I think the last thing to bring up, if I may, is 1 important
lesson from the Boundaries episode that I think carries
over here. There's a lot of people in our
children's lives who are religious, and what we've asked
of them is that they just talk about religion from their
perspective. They never share anything about
(23:30):
matter of fact. Right.
It gets back to this idea of allowing the children to explore
their own spiritual lives, right?
And I think that all of the adults and all of the religious
folks in their lives have been very respectful of this request,
which is that they will share what God means to them, maybe
what heaven and hell mean, but in a way that is deeply
personal, as opposed to one thatis telling the children that
(23:55):
that is how they must believe aswell.
Yeah, exactly. And I always thought it was odd
growing up 'cause we we went to the Presbyterian Church, but it
was only my mom, my brother and I that would go and my dad would
not go except for Christmas Eve.And I do feel like in a family
where you're exploring, where weare exploring spirituality
(24:18):
together, it's important to explore together.
We've tried going to some different services as a family.
And I think that it's important that we all went together, even
if any of us were feeling some resistance me about it.
It's really important. And and that's the thing that I
want to model for my kids is to know that they are loved and to
(24:39):
know that I'm there to support their exploration.
And I, I show up with an open mind, even if it's not
necessarily a space that I feel comfortable exploring.
I want to be there to hold theirhand as they explore it for
themselves. Yeah, that's thank you for doing
that. Really, thank you.
Because I do think that this, itdoesn't have to be that deep is
what I want to say is that like we can all explore together.
(25:02):
And if we go to a House of worship, that doesn't mean that
you are immediately indoctrinated into the culture,
right and into the religion. We can explore and have a a deep
respect for for other religions,for religions in general without
feeling like it has to be the one that resonates with us.
I mean, for me, there is so muchin any House of worship that I
(25:23):
have ever been in when it comes to singing and being part of a
community that is so spiritual that I'm happy to to take what I
like and leave the rest, if you will.
And sometimes we show up for other people right inside and
outside this family. And sometimes we show up because
we're going through something and we are really in need of a,
(25:44):
a space that is safe and welcoming and full of love.
Yeah. That's right.
Yeah. It's it's really a beautiful
thing to just be in it together.Absolutely.
So what can we commit to when itcomes to the spirit that is a
part of our everyday lives? The dialogue with our kids is, I
would say, the most important because understanding more about
when the spirit shows up for Hunter and what she's been
(26:07):
feeling. I mean, this is a kid that can
go, they can't go to the doctor's office, but that can
get on stage in front of hundreds of people no problem
and thrives in that environment.So just trying to understand
from her where she's really feeling that higher power.
I I want to do more of what about you?
Yeah, I really like this idea ofexploring together.
I'm thinking about the latest season of White Lotus, where the
(26:30):
daughter was like, actively wanting to become a Buddhist,
and no one in her family really wanted to support her, and they
were very scared. And that's kind of like the
antithesis of what I want. I truly, deeply want my children
to explore their own spiritual journey, and I am excited to see
how it's different from mine. Honestly, I think that I can
(26:51):
learn a lot from what resonates with them and I look forward to.
Absolutely just no pina clottis I know.
Yikes. Yeah.
So definitely committing to that.
And then also, I think this ideaof awe and wonder, talking more
about synchronicity, but then also just saying wow a lot and
(27:11):
really naming it when I feel connected because I do feel
connected to the universe and tomy higher power all the time,
especially especially at sunrise.
And lately Jade and Hunter have been coming with me for my
Winston walks and I think that that would be a great time to
share with them so I can commit to that as well.
Yeah, sounds great. Cool.
(27:33):
OK, great. I love talking about Spirit.
Thanks for connecting with me onthis.
Yeah, me too. I want to keep exploring this
topic with you too, not just with the kids.
OK. Yeah, that sounds great.
Yeah, I think there's more to do.
That's a really good point. Do you have any ideas?
Part of it we're doing already. Like the most important thing,
(27:55):
yeah. But and part and this is an
outlet for exploring more together.
I don't know what the other partis.
OK, I have an idea, but you can tell me if you don't want to do
it. But could we just like try it
tonight? So the the poem that was read at
our wedding is from a book called The Prophet by Khalil
Gibran. What do you think about maybe
(28:17):
reading a passage of that like before bed when we get in bed
each night? What if you could we try that
tonight? Just like reading it, maybe
reflecting upon it for like a couple of minutes before bed?
Yeah. I mean, I must say I've been
getting a little fatigued by we have a evening practice where we
go through each one of our values.
Have 12 values and we talk about1:00 every night for one month
and we've been doing that for like 6 years, six or seven years
(28:39):
I guess. I I think it might be time to to
try something like this. Like a little book club?
Yeah, OK. I love the book club.
I think I'll, I'll be more present for that as well then,
OK, as opposed to something thatthat needs to be reflecting on
the on the whole day. Let's just like, show up and be
curious. Yeah, and like.
Learn something new. Kind of more pull versus push,
(28:59):
if you will, something that's coming to us and to reflect
upon. OK, that sounds great.
Let's try it tonight. Cool, I'll get the book out.
OK, yay, yay. OK, love you goosy.
Love you goosy. Hey guys, if you're still here,
you're definitely our kind of person.
Thanks for spending this time with us on The Most Important
Thing. If this episode resonated with
you, we'd love for you to followus wherever you get your
(29:20):
podcasts and share it with someone else.
Building family culture on purpose.
All right, you ready? Ready.
OK. Welcome to The Most Important
Thing. I'm Danielle DeMarco Neufeld.
And I'm Greg Neufeld, and together we're exploring how
ambitious busy families build culture at home.
Because after all, family is themost important thing.
Hi everybody, welcome back to The Most Important Thing,
episode 17 on Spirit. Spirit in the sky.
(00:20):
That's right, somewhere, everywhere.
This is the 8th episode in our wholehearted parenting journey
and the line from the manifesto is when uncertainty and scarcity
visit, you will be able to draw from the spirit that is a part
of our everyday life. It's beautiful.
Yeah. All these lines are beautiful.
They are, I know, so spirit, so spirit.
(00:43):
Where would you like to begin? Well, we're trying to teach our
kids about our spirituality or Yeah.
So I mean, for me, the objectiveis to bring it more into a part
of our everyday life. A, an analogy, a story, if you
will. To me, Spirit really showed up
(01:06):
for me when we went to the library this past weekend.
And up on the shelf was this beautiful neon colored, awesome
looking 900 page book that the kids gravitated towards right
away. And it was actually the book
that I was 97% of the way finished reading.
I subsequently finished it that night.
(01:26):
You got to say what book it is. It's.
It's part of the Dungeon CrawlerCarl series.
It's called the Butcher's Masquerade.
I guess it's #5 but because you're like, Oh my gosh, this is
the coolest book, Mommy, you have to get it.
And I was like, I have this book.
This is the book that I am reading, and I read it on Kindle
every night, so nobody really sees it.
And it's awesome and I love it and it's my own personal little
(01:49):
thing. But here I am hiding from all of
you this amazingly rich and wonderful thing that until it
was sitting on a shelf, I didn'teven think to talk to you about.
And that's really how I feel about my spiritual life as well.
It's this beautiful, rich, incredibly important, I mean,
honestly, probably the most important thing to me because if
(02:12):
I don't have a spiritual foundation that for me is close
to my higher power, I can't showup for my family.
And yet I don't really talk about it with anybody in our
family. And so I would like kind of in
this conversation for us to comeup with some ideas of how to
bring our spirituality, each of our own into the everyday in a
(02:35):
way. Not so that we can projected
onto our children, but to model that we are each innately
spiritual beings and to really authorize each of our children
to go on their own spiritual journey.
Yeah, I'm on board with that. And I do think that the analogy
(02:56):
is very strong here in that we each have spiritual practices
that the kids do not see. So how do we bring those out and
talk about them, but not just talk about them, embody them.
Really, really show. Show up in the world with our
kids and help them notice what we're seeing from a spiritual
(03:18):
connection perspective as those events or serendipity unfolds.
Right. Yeah.
I think it's important to note that we are not a religious
family. So I grew up Catholic and you
grew up Presbyterian, right? But your father was Jewish.
And we have not, though we do kind of culturally celebrate
(03:38):
Christmas. We don't have a House of worship
or a framework or language, if you will, or community really,
that someone like a, that a family that is religious does
share. And so this is yet another
opportunity for us to, well, to paint a blank canvas, right, And
to bring our intentionality to kind of create our own.
(04:01):
Yeah. I think we do both believe.
And I would say that neuroscience is currently
backing us up. So I did some research prior to
this episode and learned a bit about the work of Doctor Lisa
Miller, whose neuroscience studies are fMRI scans of the
brain. And they have shown that, well,
(04:21):
we are innately spiritual beingsand that the brain, whether
someone is standing on a mountaintop or kneeling in a
Pew, there is a part of the brain that lights up that is
directly related to spiritual experience and that everyone has
that part of the brain. And they have found that those
(04:44):
who have rich, deep spiritual life actually have more
developed cortical thickness in those areas that are also tied
to decision making and emotionalcontrol.
So what they have found is that if you have a deep spiritual
life, you have lower markers forthe risk of depression and
higher capacity for both empathyand compassion.
(05:07):
That's so cool. That is so cool.
So I think that what I take awayfrom this is really that we are
all innately spiritual beings and the way that we choose to
embody our spirituality, to engage with our spirituality can
look different and doesn't necessarily have to equate to
religion. I think that religion isn't if
(05:29):
if you find a religion that resonates with you, it gives you
so much of what Doctor Lisa Miller is talking about when it
comes to a strong spiritual life, right?
It gives you language, it gives you a framework, it gives you a
place to worship, it gives you community.
And so that is amazing. Maybe you like your family's
(05:51):
faith tradition. Maybe that works for you.
Maybe you've found something else that works for you.
Religion is a beautiful way to be a spiritual being, but it's
not the only way to be a spiritual being.
And I think that that's where you and I find ourselves today.
Just about everywhere. Interestingly, like I.
Know. Like we don't live in a gated
(06:13):
community here in Florida, so it's harder to connect with and
find other like minded families,but we're we are finding them
and we're finding them through the podcast, not just locally,
but all over. So that's an example of this in
in play, right? That's like the analogy there of
having a place of worship versusbeing spiritual, but a little
(06:35):
bit more of a wonder. Yeah.
I mean, I think with everything,like you identify as a rebel,
right? As someone who questions almost
all rules and really has a much stronger sense of right and
wrong internally as opposed to some type of external force, is
that fair to say? Whereas I am much more of an
upholder where I like to uphold my own internal rules, but also
(06:57):
external rules as well. And but marrying you, I think
I've become much more of a rebelin the sense that, you know, you
and I like to do a we are very intentional.
I think that is the number one word that our friends and family
would use when it comes to us. But you know, we were watching
our new favorite show, at least season 1 couples therapy the
(07:18):
other day. And one of the women on the
couch with her husband is a veryintentional person.
And the psychoanalyst asked her,she said, you know, you are, you
are obviously very intentional and you have a strong direction
on where you would like to take your life.
But as a psychoanalyst, I have to wonder what is the shadow
side of that? What is the fear that comes up
(07:42):
if you are not in control? And that really hit me.
It really hit me because I thinkthat we, well, I'll just speak
for myself and say that I do think that spirituality and this
idea of surrendering to my higher power is incredibly
important balance and perspective in my life because
(08:04):
it is the flip side of all the intentionality that we have.
And so it is probably though notsomething that I share with our
kids so much. And they probably see me more as
this like control freak because I keep these moments of grace
and surrender. They're really my own.
(08:26):
Can we go a little bit deeper onyour alignment with your higher
power and what your spiritual life looks like today?
Yeah, for sure. OK, the idea that what was the
book The War of Art? Do you remember this book?
I do. Isn't this the one that
originally gave you the term fight the resistance?
(08:46):
It is so fighting the resistancein art, in life means when you
don't want to do something, whenI don't want to do something,
question why that is and it get really curious about that and
then fight against it because itusually is going to be a
movement towards alignment with the universe.
There's so many reasons that I stay curious about resistance,
(09:12):
but the main one is because I know that when I sense that
resistance and I push against itand I open that door
successfully, that's when I feelmost connected to the universe.
So it helps me to not just fightthe resistance on any one
occasion, but to search for alignment and fight the
resistance on all occasions. So I guess what you're also
(09:33):
saying is that the universe is here, ready and willing to help
you and to conspire to help you,and sometimes you just have to
hop back into alignment. That's right.
So if I may, Doctor Lisa Miller has some ideas of how to bring
spirituality into everyday practice.
And I would love for us to consider them with our family as
an experiment. So the first one is serve other
(09:56):
people. Is the idea being that when you
go outside yourself, you are a living prayer of love, held,
guided and never alone? And I think that that is one
that we are working to develop with our family.
Is this service arm service engine, if you will.
But even everyday ways of serving other people, like if
there's someone sick in our community or someone needs us to
(10:18):
take care of their pet, things like that, really just, well, I
don't know. Is there anything you want to
say about that? No, I I agree.
I, I see that our kids gravitatenaturally towards active
service. And so I feel like maybe there's
something lost along the way in not developing that muscle for
me. And I'm not just a witness.
(10:40):
I I'm an active, curious participant.
Yeah. So I think that getting into the
habit of serving other people inboth big and small ways is the
closest is like a very quick wayto to feel connection to
something greater than yourself.OK, so the first one is serve
other people. The second, which is my
favorite, is to perceive synchronicity.
So thank the universe when you experience unique, most
(11:05):
improbable events. And those don't happen all the
time for me, but I do think thatthey happen way more often than
I realize. For sure.
These are like daily events I think.
OK, tell me more. I've got this little journal
prompt lately. So in the morning I write down
(11:25):
the lever for the day, which is the most important thing to get
done. And then in the evening I write
down 4 things. One is the insight, any insight
that I had. So that's a good place to to
look for the serendipity. 2 is the shift.
So like, what do I want to shiftinto tomorrow?
And sometimes that's just like, oh, you know, today was a lot of
creative thinking. Tomorrow I'd really need to do
(11:46):
blocking, tackling or this is we're recording on a Friday.
Friday was a great recording session day.
Tomorrow I just want to be with my family and not be checking my
phone or something like that. And then the relationship, which
is who or what do I want to havea relationship with?
Sometimes that's myself, sometimes that's a version of
myself, sometimes that's a different version or
(12:07):
relationship that that you and Ihave.
So like, instead of being Co host tomorrow, let's just be
whatever, right, Let's be parents.
And then the last one is recall.So I made this one up because I
realized that the day is just like blur together.
And so my recall is either a moment of the day or just like
I'll, I'll talk through the day and how it went.
(12:28):
And I usually find something that I forgot already.
And so I found that to be reallyinteresting, especially
reflecting at the end of the week, looking back at my week
and seeing these journal prompts.
So maybe for you, it's just, what's that one moment of
serendipity that I saw looking back at each day?
Yeah, OK, I like it. I'm also caught up a little bit
because I'm a word nerd and I said synchronicity and you said
(12:50):
serendipity. And so I'd like to actually talk
about the difference between thetwo of those.
OK, So I'll tell you the definitions and you can tell me
like how you perceive the differences.
But so synchronicity is a very specific Carl Jung term that
means meaningful coincidence. So it's when events occurred
together in a way that feels connected, even though there's
(13:10):
no clear like causal relationship.
So it's mysterious and spiritualwhere the universe is trying to
tell you something. Serendipity.
I don't think it has any psychological relevance.
It's a happy accident, a chance event that turns out to be
beneficial, and it's more of like a lucky, playful, light
hearted type of thing. Yeah, I think I use them
probably interchangeably becauseI believe that you can't control
(13:33):
either. But as Paul Graham says, you can
create more surface area for luck, and that is what I believe
being in alignment with the universe actually means is doing
the next right thing for even when it's a hard thing to create
more surface area for lucky events or synchronous events to
happen to you because you can't 'cause them to happen.
Sure. Yeah.
I guess I think of serendipity as like when we happen to run
(13:56):
into our friends at the farmers market, that feels like a happy
accident. Like I'm so happy that I got to
see their faces on a Saturday morning.
I wouldn't say that it was a deep spiritual experience.
It was just like it was a great highlight in my day.
Synchronicity is like the fact that you and I met at Zuma on
Wednesday, April 8th, 2015, whenneither of us were supposed to
be there. Like that is synchronicity.
(14:17):
Yeah, that's very true. Does synchronicity have to be
big events though? It has to be deeply meaningful
events. OK, so then yeah, those aren't
everyday. Like we had one not even mutual
friend, like third degree connection of mine kind of
thing, and friend of yours. Like we had been in similar
spots, probably in New York Cityone or two other times in our
(14:40):
lives, but neither of us were supposed to be there.
And if we hadn't met that night,it's not like we would have met
the next week or the next week or the next week.
Like that was truly a once in a lifetime opportunity.
It really was that we both happened to show up and just
gravitated towards one another immediately.
So true. In front of DJ Jade.
(15:01):
I mean, there's so many more crazy things about that story.
I had just gotten off a plane earlier that day.
I buried my grandmother, not notliterally, but she had passed
away couple weeks prior. I was right here in Delray when
when my grandmother was sick andI was visiting her in the
(15:22):
hospital just up the road. And I decided to make all these
big decisions after that becauseI finally felt the weight of all
of my ancestors lifted off of me.
My parents weren't around. All of my grandparents had
passed. She was the last remaining 1,
and I decided I need to live life for myself.
And so I made some really big decisions.
And when I finally came back to New York 3 weeks later, Danielle
(15:47):
was right there and it was unbelievable.
Do you want to say the other thing?
You can say the other thing. What's the other thing?
The other thing that I was married, Yes.
Yeah, I was married. And I knew in my heart of hearts
that that was me looking for continued family now that
(16:08):
everyone was dying. The only reason I was going to
get married was because my dad was still alive and he didn't
even live to see it. And eight months into a
marriage, I was like, I'm sorry,I just can't do this.
I don't want to have children with this person.
And I came back to New York to, to tie up those loose ends.
Otherwise I would have stayed inFlorida.
(16:29):
And later that night, like having done the hard things,
fighting the resistance, pushingthrough all of the
uncomfortableness, all of the blowback from extended family
and, you know, people getting really concerned about me and
decisions that I was making. And I was just like, Nope, I'm
(16:50):
doing this for myself. And I was living.
Yeah, that was probably the mostaligned I've I've ever felt.
Yeah. So hopping back into alignment
with the universe, having explicit difficult conversations
with people that you cared aboutand really naming what you
needed like literally same day turn around.
I mean, I think about our meeting kind of the most
(17:13):
perfectly imperfect time for youever.
Like in what universe is are youtelling someone that you would
like an annulment by day and meeting your future wife by
night? It's wild, it's so wild.
Wouldn't even make a good movie because it's not believable.
I. Know and I don't consider myself
to be at the type of person who would have gone on a date with
(17:35):
you had that not been known you know what I mean had it not been
explicit that you were moving towards annulment proceed
proceedings well. I think it was, you know that
and you met a bunch of my friends who were just like, so
happy to have me, just just likehappy to see me living in
alignment after. Yeah, it was.
Palpable. I was, I was in a really dark
place for a long time. And you know, as we talked about
on the last episode, like, you know, there's that's a that's
(17:58):
been a pattern and I didn't understand it until much more
recently. So it's the alignment that I've
been feeling with the universe is really the purest sense of
like of am I feeling like I can look myself in the mirror and
say that I'm happy with all the choices that I made.
And today, I mean, unquestionably.
(18:20):
But ten years ago, like up untilI met you, I had just started to
turn the corner and make those changes after a really dark
period of seeing both of my parents die, like 2 grandmothers
die, and being in a relationshipthat didn't serve me, but that I
needed to get out of the New York City spiral that was
(18:42):
otherwise going to bring me down.
So yeah, synchronicity. Synchronicity, OK, so serve
other people perceive synchronicity.
And then the third one is to pause and feel the sacred in
nature or in memories. So basically she says like say
wow a lot. And so I think this is a great
opportunity for us to share our spirituality with our children
(19:04):
is really definitely episode 2 family stories, right?
But being in nature together andexperiencing awe and wonder and
just the power of things outsideof ourselves is also a great
opportunity to share our spirituality.
Yes, absolutely. We're in a great place for it.
What else do we want to say? I feel very connected to the
(19:25):
universe because of you and thisfamily.
And I feel very connected to this family because of the
universe. It's like this, this is a
relationship that we do have with the higher power,
everything that happens with this family.
I love that, Yeah. So when it comes to
spirituality, I would like to spend more time sharing that
(19:51):
with all of you. If I think about our last
episode was on joy and I was like, I want to take some of my
joy back because it feels a little bit too connected to all
of you. I'm kind of saying the opposite
when it comes to my spirit, my sense of spirit and
spirituality, which is that I feel like I have made it such a
deeply personal and unique thingthat I would like to spend more
time being a little bit more showy about it.
(20:12):
Like sharing it with all of you in in a, in an attempt to really
authorize our children to have their own spiritual journey.
I think for a little while there, I have been concerned up
until this episode really that my lack of sharing with our
children has caused them to havea spiritual gap.
(20:32):
And I, I don't think that's actually the case anymore.
So you know, just because we arenot having them say prayers at
night or having them go to church on Sunday or doing
different rites of passage, all of which are beautiful for those
that that it resonates with. This past Friday, I asked Hunter
what God means to her. It was actually hilarious.
(20:54):
We were out on the climbing Domeafter a Friday night family meal
and I said, Hunter, what does God mean to you?
And this neighbor was like walking by, walking her dog at
that right at that exact moment.And must have thought that I was
so cringe like absolutely. Because who hears?
And I heard her scoff and laugh,But I mean, it was a laughable
thing. I am.
I am that mom. I'm that mom that asks what God
(21:17):
means to you on a Friday night while you're playing.
So it's fine. I own it.
But it was it was hilarious. Anyway, so and so when we did
kind of open up that conversation with our kids
leading with Hunter being the oldest, I was profoundly
inspired by what I heard, which was really that help me
encapsulate it, if you will. But she said that God, she first
(21:39):
of all, she used the word spirit, which I thought was
awesome. And we haven't used that word
spirit in in talking with her, but she said that you know what?
I feel God all around me and I feel spirit everywhere.
And it's kind of the opposite ofyou, mommy.
Like I can touch you or I can. What did she say?
She said, I can see you, but I can't feel you.
(22:00):
Whereas with spirit, I can't seeit, but I can always feel it.
Wow, it's awesome. And then she said, you know,
mom, I feel like Spirit is leading me when I have big
emotions that that is when I feel closest to God, right?
(22:24):
And then we were talking a bit more and I said, well, what do
you do when you want to tap intoGod or Spirit?
And she said, I breathe. She said, well, I always
breathe, but I breathe with intention.
And that's how I connect to Spirit.
Something's working. I mean, so if that, I mean that
is her own compass. And I'm so excited, like I'm
(22:45):
just so grateful. And I guess exhaling because I,
I do feel like this is somethingI've been avoiding.
But we are all innately spiritual beings and we don't, I
guess I was really worried that if we didn't give them a
religion, they would not have a spiritual connection.
And that's not what I'm finding.No, not at all.
Not at all. So that feels good, yeah.
(23:08):
I think the last thing to bring up, if I may, is 1 important
lesson from the Boundaries episode that I think carries
over here. There's a lot of people in our
children's lives who are religious, and what we've asked
of them is that they just talk about religion from their
perspective. They never share anything about
(23:30):
matter of fact. Right.
It gets back to this idea of allowing the children to explore
their own spiritual lives, right?
And I think that all of the adults and all of the religious
folks in their lives have been very respectful of this request,
which is that they will share what God means to them, maybe
what heaven and hell mean, but in a way that is deeply
personal, as opposed to one thatis telling the children that
(23:55):
that is how they must believe aswell.
Yeah, exactly. And I always thought it was odd
growing up 'cause we we went to the Presbyterian Church, but it
was only my mom, my brother and I that would go and my dad would
not go except for Christmas Eve.And I do feel like in a family
where you're exploring, where weare exploring spirituality
(24:18):
together, it's important to explore together.
We've tried going to some different services as a family.
And I think that it's important that we all went together, even
if any of us were feeling some resistance me about it.
It's really important. And and that's the thing that I
want to model for my kids is to know that they are loved and to
(24:39):
know that I'm there to support their exploration.
And I, I show up with an open mind, even if it's not
necessarily a space that I feel comfortable exploring.
I want to be there to hold theirhand as they explore it for
themselves. Yeah, that's thank you for doing
that. Really, thank you.
Because I do think that this, itdoesn't have to be that deep is
what I want to say is that like we can all explore together.
(25:02):
And if we go to a House of worship, that doesn't mean that
you are immediately indoctrinated into the culture,
right and into the religion. We can explore and have a a deep
respect for for other religions,for religions in general without
feeling like it has to be the one that resonates with us.
I mean, for me, there is so muchin any House of worship that I
(25:23):
have ever been in when it comes to singing and being part of a
community that is so spiritual that I'm happy to to take what I
like and leave the rest, if you will.
And sometimes we show up for other people right inside and
outside this family. And sometimes we show up because
we're going through something and we are really in need of a,
(25:44):
a space that is safe and welcoming and full of love.
Yeah. That's right.
Yeah. It's it's really a beautiful
thing to just be in it together.Absolutely.
So what can we commit to when itcomes to the spirit that is a
part of our everyday lives? The dialogue with our kids is, I
would say, the most important because understanding more about
when the spirit shows up for Hunter and what she's been
(26:07):
feeling. I mean, this is a kid that can
go, they can't go to the doctor's office, but that can
get on stage in front of hundreds of people no problem
and thrives in that environment.So just trying to understand
from her where she's really feeling that higher power.
I I want to do more of what about you?
Yeah, I really like this idea ofexploring together.
I'm thinking about the latest season of White Lotus, where the
(26:30):
daughter was like, actively wanting to become a Buddhist,
and no one in her family really wanted to support her, and they
were very scared. And that's kind of like the
antithesis of what I want. I truly, deeply want my children
to explore their own spiritual journey, and I am excited to see
how it's different from mine. Honestly, I think that I can
(26:51):
learn a lot from what resonates with them and I look forward to.
Absolutely just no pina clottis I know.
Yikes. Yeah.
So definitely committing to that.
And then also, I think this ideaof awe and wonder, talking more
about synchronicity, but then also just saying wow a lot and
(27:11):
really naming it when I feel connected because I do feel
connected to the universe and tomy higher power all the time,
especially especially at sunrise.
And lately Jade and Hunter have been coming with me for my
Winston walks and I think that that would be a great time to
share with them so I can commit to that as well.
Yeah, sounds great. Cool.
(27:33):
OK, great. I love talking about Spirit.
Thanks for connecting with me onthis.
Yeah, me too. I want to keep exploring this
topic with you too, not just with the kids.
OK. Yeah, that sounds great.
Yeah, I think there's more to do.
That's a really good point. Do you have any ideas?
Part of it we're doing already. Like the most important thing,
(27:55):
yeah. But and part and this is an
outlet for exploring more together.
I don't know what the other partis.
OK, I have an idea, but you can tell me if you don't want to do
it. But could we just like try it
tonight? So the the poem that was read at
our wedding is from a book called The Prophet by Khalil
Gibran. What do you think about maybe
(28:17):
reading a passage of that like before bed when we get in bed
each night? What if you could we try that
tonight? Just like reading it, maybe
reflecting upon it for like a couple of minutes before bed?
Yeah. I mean, I must say I've been
getting a little fatigued by we have a evening practice where we
go through each one of our values.
Have 12 values and we talk about1:00 every night for one month
and we've been doing that for like 6 years, six or seven years
(28:39):
I guess. I I think it might be time to to
try something like this. Like a little book club?
Yeah, OK. I love the book club.
I think I'll, I'll be more present for that as well then,
OK, as opposed to something thatthat needs to be reflecting on
the on the whole day. Let's just like, show up and be
curious. Yeah, and like.
Learn something new. Kind of more pull versus push,
(28:59):
if you will, something that's coming to us and to reflect
upon. OK, that sounds great.
Let's try it tonight. Cool, I'll get the book out.
OK, yay, yay. OK, love you goosy.
Love you goosy. Hey guys, if you're still here,
you're definitely our kind of person.
Thanks for spending this time with us on The Most Important
Thing. If this episode resonated with
you, we'd love for you to followus wherever you get your
(29:20):
podcasts and share it with someone else.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
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The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
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The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.