Dr. Lisa Miller: Feeling Lost, Stuck or Anxious? (Use THIS Spiritual Framework to Finally Move Forward With Clarity)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Of spiritual life is eighty percent protective against addiction, ninety
percent protective against the epidemic of our time depression.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Why should someone who's never considered themselves spiritual even consider
tapping into their spirituality?

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Spirituality can fulfill our deepest calling. It allows us to
see where the universe is guiding us and then do
something about it.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Do you believe everything happens for a reason?

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Shift from asking why is this happening to me? To
how is this happening for me?

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hey? Everyone, welcome back to on Purpose, the place you
come to become the happier, healthier, and more healed. Today's
guest and on Purpose is doctor Lisa Miller, psychologist, Columbia
professor and author of The Awakened Brain. We're going to
explore the science of spirituality and how connecting with something
bigger can transform your mental health, resilience, and sense of purpose.

(01:00):
If you felt stuck or disconnected, this conversation will help
you see life through a more awakened mind. If you're
listening and loving the conversation, please do go and grab
a copy of The Awakened Brain. The New Science of
Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life by doctor
Lisa Miller. Please welcome to On Purpose, Lisa. Lisa, it's

(01:21):
great to have you here.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Ja, It's so great to be here. Your whole studio
feels full of peace and love.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Oh well, that makes me very happy. Thank you for
saying that. It means the world to me. My first
question for you is if someone was to listen to
our conversation today and to apply the things you share
and say, how would their life change?

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Immediately we can awaken to the reality that every single
one of us is loved, held, guided, and never alone.
This is not a belief, This is our inborn, natural
spiritual awareness.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
One of the things I find interesting about your work
and why I wanted to have you on the show,
is because I've always felt for a long time that
there are a lot of people who identify with being
scientific and may not feel spiritual, and then there are
other people who identify as being spiritual but don't feel scientific.
And the reality is that science and spirituality are far

(02:16):
closer in their work and their ability to synchronize than
we actually believe. And I love that you bring these
two together. Can you talk to me about how you've
been studying spirituality in a scientific way? And how science
can back up the claim you just made that we
could live a life knowing that we're not alone, that
we cared for, that God, the universe, a higher power

(02:39):
is always there with us. How does science show that?

Speaker 1 (02:41):
So, Jay, You're so right. For the longest time, we've
had two camps of people. One camp said, I am
a very scientific person. I only take to be true
that which is rigorously shown by science. So what is
this spirituality stuff? And then the other camp said, I
am a deeply spiritual, perhaps spiritual and religious. I know
this in my heart to be true. I don't care

(03:03):
what science can or cannot show. Finally, science and spirituality
do go hand in hand. Science is only a lens.
It's a lens of witness, whether it's a telescope or
a microscope or an MRI study. And we can point
our lens at a great number of questions, including the
impact of lived human spirituality onto the rest of our lives,

(03:28):
and including the deep nature of spirituality in every single
one of us, and the journey through which across our
lifespans spirituality burgeons and develops. Science is actually not antithetical
to spirituality. Science can contribute to a deepening of spirituality.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Absolutely. Why do you think people right now were moving
away from organized religion and moving towards spirituality.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Well, there's definitely a trend right now that particularly gen
Z is so hungry for spiritual life because sadly, over
the past two or three decades, our culture has gotten
more and more silent. More. Really, we've had an ice
age over the past three decades of spiritual life in
the center of society. Our public square has experienced an

(04:18):
ice age of thirty years. When it comes to spiritual life.
There is now a whole generation gen Z that is saying,
you know, I know there's more. I feel this tremendous love,
and I wonder where to take it, what to do
with it. My deep inner wisdom, my gut instinct is
telling me information and there's nowhere in school that I've
learned where this information comes from. The only way to

(04:42):
realize who we are is to own our birthright, which
is our inborn natural spirituality. Spirituality is not a belief,
It is an inborn deep seat of perception. Spirituality is
not a theory or a belief. Spirituality is a per
perception that is hardwired in our brain. Spirituality, according to science,

(05:05):
we know three things about spiritual life. One, every human
being on earth is born naturally spiritual, no matter what
our tradition, whether I'm Hindu, Catholic, Jewish, or spiritual not religious,
Every single human being on earth is born in naturally
spiritual being. Two, there are even circuits in the brain,

(05:26):
one spiritual brain, and everyone on earth has it. Three.
Although spirituality is inborn, it is one third and born
two thirds environmentally shaped, which means we are invited to
do our part in strengthening the muscle, in building our
gift of natural spiritual awareness. The question is not am

(05:48):
I spiritual? You already are spiritual. The question, the real
question is how do you wish to accept the invitation?
How do you wish to build your spiritual life?

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Why should who's never considered themselves spiritual up until this
point even consider tapping into their spirituality? Why should they
do it?

Speaker 1 (06:07):
The data is so strong that it blinds the eye.
A strong spiritual life is eighty percent protective against addiction,
ninety percent protective against depression when we're otherwise at high risk,
eighty two percent protective against the epidemic of our time,
which tragically is suicide. A young person's more likely to

(06:27):
die by suicide than by what used to be the
number one cause of death, which was auto accidents. We
have an epidemic of the diseases of despair in most
post industrial countries, and yet we also have the antidote,
which is strengthening the muscle of our natural spiritual awareness.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
Talk to me about the link between spirituality and depression.
What does someone who has a spiritual life, what are
they doing that's making them less depressed.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Depression is often viewed only as a medical illness, but
that's actually an error. Very often people say, you know,
I have depression or I have addiction. That's a medical
biological condition in my brain. Spirituality is something else that's
sort of ethereal. Actually, spirituality has circuits in the brain.
Any deep, profound human capacity has circuits in the brain.

(07:19):
The question is, how can we strengthen our natural spirituality body,
mind and soul, brain, mind and soul. How can we
awaken our brain to move through depression, through addiction to
a more profound understanding of life. Depression is often the
knock at the door for spiritual awakening. Depression doesn't mean

(07:42):
we're off the path. Depression means we are on the path. Anxiety,
even trauma, can be the first phase towards looking more
deeply at life, widening our lens, starting to feel a
presence in our heart, authorize our inner knowing. Suffering makes
us more sensitive, Suffering makes us ask bigger questions. Ultimately,

(08:04):
suffering widens the lens, and suddenly we see, we let
into the aperture a frequency of light we hadn't seen before,
which is the fact that every single bit of our
lives is cast in divinity. From the view of science.
When depression is met with a spiritual response, what God
do you ask of me? What higher power are you

(08:25):
revealing to me? How might I love more deeply despite betrayal?
How might I forgive and therefore release myself from the
entrapment of anger. When we cultivate a spiritual response to depression,
to sorrow, betrayal, we literally strengthen regions of the brain
for spiritual awareness. Next time around, next time there's a

(08:48):
hailstorm and I encounter depression, despair, betrayal, a spiritual response
is built and ready in the brain. We are more
able to bring to life's challenges a spiritual way of knowing.
We are more prepared to bring an awakened perception to
life's disappointments and hardships.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
The way you talk about spirituality right now, it sounds
like a response, a way of responding distressed trauma and pain.
How would you define what being spiritual means and looks
like as a whole as opposed to just that response.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
Through the lens of science. Spirituality is an inborn perception,
but it is one third inborn, two thirds incoming upon
us to cultivate. From a lens of science, spirituality is
an inborn seat of awareness through which we perceive that
we are loved, we are guided, and we are never alone.

(09:43):
And for each of those core components of spiritual awareness,
there's a circuit in the brain. We are loved and
held is the bonding network, same bonding network through which
as young children we felt loved and held by our parents,
our grandparents. We are guided. There's a shift from a
very narrow I've got to have it dorsal to a

(10:04):
bottom up ventral, big wide lens attention network. Never alone,
the parietal that puts in and out hard boundaries that
lets us know we're alone, in distinct and unique and
at every instant also part of this great unit of reality,
the family of life. Loved, held, guided, never alone is

(10:25):
the deep natural spiritual perception built into every single one
of our brains. It's now up to us to awaken
our brain and bear witness to the actual love, guidance
in presence that's written into life, the divinity written into life.
Who I call God, but everyone has their sacred name

(10:45):
Jesus Fashem allowed the universe. The most interesting finding in science,
I think, is that just as the brain is wired
to perceive, we are loved, held, guided, and never alone
to perceive something real, which is the nature of life,
shows up to be loving, holding, guiding, and never leave

(11:06):
us alone. It's simply up to us, then, to strengthen
our perception. Every day of our lives. We have the
opportunity to be in a deep dialogue with the Divinity
in life, but we have to build the muscle of
spiritual awareness. We have to awaken our brain.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
What about someone who says I don't have time for spirituality,
I don't really need it. I'm fine. What are they
missing out on?

Speaker 1 (11:29):
On the one hand, spirituality is protective against some of
the most prevalent forms of suffering. Right now, depression, addiction,
even suicide. But even if it were not for its
mental health benefits, spirituality in and of itself opens the
double door to an entirely different journey through life. If
you want to roll out the red carpet in your life,

(11:51):
deepen your seat of spiritual awareness, awaken your brain, and
suddenly we move from a very narrow understanding of who
am I? How well have I done? Do I have
enough money? Am I well known enough? All the sort
of markers of outwardness, to a profound dialogue with life,

(12:13):
not what do I want? And how am I going
to get it? Which I call achieving awareness. We are
liberated from achieving awareness, and we can then start to ask, Hey,
what is life showing me now? What is the universe
revealing to me? Now? Life becomes less of a shopping
list and less of a hallway of trophies, and instead

(12:33):
life becomes a very awesome, surprising adventure. We don't get
the life we want, that would be way too small
a life. We get the life if we're an open
system awakened that is far greater, a much bigger life.
We get an inspired life.

Speaker 2 (12:49):
And I think that's what's hard for people because the
hallway of trophies or the grocery list feels tangible, and
you know what that means, and so it's within our control.
And when something's within our control, we feel more directed
towards it, Whereas when we hear about a quest or
a journey or inspiration, it feels so vague that you're like, well,

(13:10):
what does that even mean?

Speaker 1 (13:11):
May we do a practice?

Speaker 2 (13:12):
Of course?

Speaker 1 (13:13):
Okay, lovely, this is a practice that honors exactly Jay,
what you just said, the difference between our laundry list,
our grocery list, our trophy hall and instead, what really
is the road of life? Okay, good, let's let's it
ninety seconds. Okay, I invite you to take two breaths
and clear out your innerspace. I invite you to think

(13:38):
of a time where you wanted something so badly that
red door was yours. It was him or hurt or
them to say, yes, it was that job, that school,
that home. So you did everything right, planned it A
plus B plus C, researched it, ready to close the deal.
You reach for your red door. It stuck, and you

(14:01):
can't believe it stuck because you've done everything right A
plus B plus C. You might kick the door, be
angry or even depressed. But because the red door is stuck,
you shift twenty forty one hundred and ten degrees over there.
Over there is a wide, open, splendid yellow door. You

(14:24):
might have never heard of yellow doors, didn't know they exist.
On the other side of the open yellow door is
a landscape you had yet to imagine. Someone who makes
you feel alive, a job where your boss sees you
in a way you didn't even know you were capable.
A community where you finally belong. The yellow door was

(14:45):
not what you had wanted. It was better, far better.
The yellow door was far better and better for you.
So now as you sit back and you think, wow,
stuck red door, hairpin turned taking me to that surprising,
wide open yellow door that has everything to do with

(15:06):
who you are and where you are today. Was there
anyone there at that hairpin turn? A trail angel pointing
you to the yellow door. It could have been a
counselor or a therapist. It could have been summoning you meant
for two minutes at the coffee shop, or a story
from a friend or grandparent. The trail angel pointing you

(15:28):
to the open yellow door, and Finally, sitting way back,
stuck red door, hairpin turn, trail angel, wide open yellow
door that has so much to do with who you are.
How really are the most important parts of our lives found? Sure,

(15:49):
we have to do our part and plan and try,
But is it really through radical control that our lives
are formed? Or are we less makers of our path
and more discovers of our journey? Where in your road

(16:10):
of life is your higher power God? The force is
your higher power in the wide opening yellow door, and
the stuck red door is your higher power in the
trail angel and your ability to be an open system
in dialogue with the deepest force of life through which
we are guided and loved. Is it possible you've already

(16:36):
been on a spiritual journey, a great adventure, and I
invite you back.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
Did you relate absolutely so many times?

Speaker 1 (16:57):
Was there a red door in a yellow door?

Speaker 2 (16:58):
You might have? Absolutely? For sure. I could I pictured
a particular moment in my life, but I could have
pinned it to so many that I felt a red
door not open and a yellow door open that was
far better than the red door I ever imagined. And
the yellow door was one that I would never ever
have come up with even if I tried my hardest,

(17:20):
if I tried to come up with it myself, and
there was definitely a spiritual mentor guiding me towards the
opening of other doors that I may not have thought of.
And so every single part of what you said, I
could very very clearly visualize it absolutely. And so what
you're saying, or what I'm gathering from that for our audience,

(17:42):
who hopefully did it as well, is that if you
actually reflect upon your life, you notice that you've already
lived the adventure, and so the adventure has already been
alive for you. And if you can notice that and
remember it, then you can recognize that this next red
door that you are now stuck on to have a

(18:04):
spiritual experience of it and look for that yellow door,
is going to be a healthy and more powerful way
to live.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
The disappointment of the stuck red door. Kicking the red
door is actually the beginning of your discovery of the
yellow door. So the next time there's a very disappointing, depressing,
shut red door, you're invited to ask, Hey, I wonder
where I might see the yellow door. Eyes wide open.

(18:32):
We're already on a great spiritual adventure. When we choose
to listen to trail angels, when we pay attention to synchronicity,
when we listen to the whisper of the voice of
God in our heart and our prayer life, for in
our meditation life, then we have a choice to participate
in the sacred adventure. Ge how many people say to me,

(18:55):
you know, I see synchronicities, but I don't know if
they're real. I see trail angels, but I don't really
know what it means. What do I do with that? Well,
when we pay attention to synchronicity and say, way, wait
a minute, you know, I was just thinking of Jay,
and then I got this wonderful invitation to join them
on the podcast. I was just reading Jay's book, and
now I met someone who's also reading Jay's book. When

(19:16):
we notice the confluence in our lives that are synchronicities
and say, hey, wait a minute, that's real, we authorize
ourselves as knowers, as spiritual knowers, we awaken and say
that synchronicity is real. Let me reflect point two on
what this might mean right here, right now in terms

(19:37):
of what I was just thinking, what I was just doing. Three,
Let me act on this synchronicity right, authorize ourselves, reflect
and act. Once we act, Jay, we are participating in
the miracle. We are contributors in our road of life.
The spiritual adventure heats up. It is that much more

(19:59):
splendid when we say yes to the yellow door. I'm
going to cross into it. I don't hope for people
that they get their red door. I hope for people
that we get our yellow door. But we do have
to say yes to the guidance. Thank you, trail Angel. Wow,
I'll go somewhere I've never gone before. I'll cross the
threshold of that yellow door. And what's on the other

(20:21):
side is not what I wanted. It is so much better.
It is someone who loves me in a way I
didn't know I could be loved. It is a school
that's more ripe for me. Not my first choice, not
my fifth choice. It was the perfect choice. Or it's
a mentor, a guide who saw a possibility I didn't
see in myself.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
If someone's listening right now and they're feeling completely lost
in stock and out of touch with that spirit yourself,
where would you suggest they stopped.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
The whisper of a hunch that's already in you telling
you say yes to the trail angel that you intuit.
Red door stuck for a reason. Hey, what if you
really take seriously your deep inner wisdom, that little whisper
of a hunch. What if you really take seriously that synchronoicity?

(21:12):
And many people will say, you know, I thought that
that synchronicity was real, and my boyfriend told me I
was crazy. Or I thought that this spiritual voice I
was hearing was real and people told me I was nuts.
But you know what, what if instead you just for
one moment, honor the wisdom that is born inside of you,

(21:33):
that you are a splendid spiritual being, already built to
see and know and be touched by God's presence. You're
ready to go. Once we authorize ourselves as spiritual knowers,
then the red carpet rolls out before us, because we
then are in dialogue with a loving, guiding universe. We
then are being guided, And that's an entirely different life.

(21:54):
That's a spiritual adventure.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
Can you tell me about how having a spiritual life
positively effects on mental health?

Speaker 1 (22:00):
Yes, Well, a spiritual life says no matter what comes
to me, whether it's what I wanted or didn't want.
It could be, you know, my partner betrays me. It
could be I didn't succeed at work as I had intended.
It could be that my best friends has gotten busy
and doesn't have time for me. The disappointments, or they
could be more serious. Traumise fall in all of our lives,

(22:22):
but our ability to then say Okay, even in my
darkest hour, I know that I'm not falling through an abyss.
I'm not falling through a black hole. There's a buoyancy.
I'm caught well, who caught us? That's the universe, that's God,
who caught you. Even in our darkest tower, I don't
know if I should go left, right or center. You
don't need to know. Hand it over. You don't need

(22:45):
to make life's biggest decisions. Hand them over to the
deep force of life, and your direction is revealed. But
you do have to make a choice, And the choice
is to pay attention, authorize your knowing, and then act.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
What do you mean behind the ova? Because I feel well?
Does that mean I do nothing? Does that mean I.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
A very good point? So every one of us is
born with two forms of knowing achieving awareness, which is
tactic strategy, how to close the deal. An awaken awareness,
through which we perceive life's guidance, the deeper direction and
love in life. We need both. We can set our
north star through an awakened understanding. Ah. The synchronicity is

(23:24):
guiding me to come and follow the path to the right.
But how do I turn right?

Speaker 2 (23:29):
While?

Speaker 1 (23:29):
I need tactics and strategy, any gift from God, a
vision of who I'm to become. I'm a healer. I'm
someone who's going to serve. I'm someone who's going to
take care of children. I'm someone who wants to invent
and create then needs to be executed. Achieving awareness is
how we lay down our contributions. Awaken awareness is how

(23:51):
we find our direction. Achieving awareness allows us to implement
to really make a difference. Spirituality has two directions. One
is the verse through which we experience inspiration, guidance, and love.
The other is the horizontal through which we lay down
and contribute love and guidance. Inspiration comes off and through awakening,

(24:12):
contribution takes, tactics takes strategy. Children of the Light need
wonderful sets of skills.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
I love that approach. I'm so glad you said we
need both. I've always felt that sometimes spirituality and religion

(24:41):
have both had this bad misconception where people see it
as a crutch because it's like, oh, yeah, well, I'm
just going to hand everything over to the universe and
I'm not going to do anything about it, And that
almost feels spiritual. It sounds detached, but actually it isn't.
It's almost irresponsible.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
Well, how one another is a spiritual choice, right, just
as we're loved and guide it by source, by the universe,
we can choose to be loving and guiding to one another.
Both are forms of an awakened relationship. An awakened relationship
to behold God and a relationship to behold God in you.

(25:19):
If I see you, my brother, as an expression like
a ray from the same sun of God or the universe,
then our relationship becomes an awakened relationship. We can have
an awakened relationship with God. We can have awakened relationship
to one another. It's very easy to stay on the
mountaintop where it feels whole and glorious and bright. But Jay,

(25:43):
what you've done in choosing to come down the mountain
and be whole and bright here on earth towards fellow
living beings, is itself a profound act of awakened spirituality?

Speaker 2 (25:55):
Well, I mean, for me, i'd actually say that it was.
I was fortunate because I gained more conviction in the
teachings that I learned during my time as a monk
in the real world, because putting them into practice was
far more the real test and the real exam. It's
almost like I learned all of these things in school,

(26:18):
and then when I came to the real world and
actually had applied them and I saw them work, it
only gave me more faith and conviction that what I
had learned was valuable and deep and profound. Whereas if
you only ever used them in the training ground, you
don't ever get to see how powerful they are.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
If that makes sense, Relational spirituality is so will you
tell a story or the example, was there a moment
where you saw karma happen?

Speaker 2 (26:39):
Or One of my favorite statements from the Vedic traditions
is that when you protect your purpose, your purpose protects you.
And I remember reading and studying that for a while,
and I was always trying to dissect this statement to
understand what it meant. And I was always fascinated by
the word protect because I think in the Western world

(27:00):
we always talk about living our purpose or finding our
purpose or discover your purpose, and hear the ancient Eastern
wisdom was saying, protect your purpose, which means you already
have it, right, you protect what you have. You don't
protect something you don't own. So this idea that you
already had a purpose and your job was to protect it.
I started to notice all the ways in which I

(27:21):
wasn't protecting my purpose. And when I was in the
world of work, I saw that in the world of work,
they were trying to get us to be a certain way.
But there was a part of me inside me that
was like, but that's not who you are. Like, this
is who you are. This is your talent, this is
your gift, this is your skill, this is your values.
Be that and that inner voice of knowing, that that soft,

(27:42):
quiet voice that was like, no, don't just become you know,
the what do you call it. Don't just become the
robot version of yourself. Focus on becoming the true version
of yourself. And that took a lot of courage and
stress because everyone around you is doing the same thing
and you're pulling away, but all that as protecting my
purpose and having lived there and now living my purpose fully,

(28:05):
I saw that if I didn't protect it at that time,
I would have just given it away and foregone my purpose.

Speaker 1 (28:11):
Is that purpose built into you? Is that a divine purpose?

Speaker 2 (28:15):
I believe so. I believe so because I didn't come
up with it one day. It didn't, you know, it
wasn't something that I sat down and figured out. It
was something that was revealed. And I think a lot
of what I've pursued in my life has been revealed
through in a connection. Not there are stain Yeah, there
are strategic elements of the vehicle through which it's disseminated.

(28:38):
So for example, the podcast, I felt excited about doing
a podcast, but I also saw that a podcast was
a great way of connecting with people and having amazing
conversations like this one. And so that becomes the achieved awareness,
as you called it, the strategic part. But the desire
to want to spread wisdom that was not strategic at all.
That was an inner calling. I didn't. I didn't come

(29:01):
up with that like that. It wasn't my intelligence that went, yeah,
that's what I'm meant to do. It was revealed, if
that makes.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
Sense profoundly, and we all have our spiritual calling. As
you put so beautifully, you are a natural communicator. We
all have our gifts, and we also have our areas
that are not gifts. In balance, that is not a
win and a lose. Those are both winds because both
our strengths and our not strengths allow us to discern

(29:29):
our true calling. Where As a child of infinite worth,
as a soul on earth, as a being of God
of infinite worth, how do I discern my calling?

Speaker 2 (29:40):
Oh? How do I just?

Speaker 1 (29:41):
And I think what you've said so beautifully, our calling
is revealed. There's a deep inner wisdom when we listen
to the whisper of the hunch inside of us. There
is a purpose to us, much greater than our traits,
than our successes, than our outwardness. There's soul has a purpose.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
How do we become better listeners to that inner guidance?
Because I feel that the more we ignore it, the
quieter it gets. And a lot of us, for many
years have had to ignore it, whether it was because
of parent expectations, or outward forces, or just the busyness
of life, and all of a sudden. You're now thirty
years old, forty years old, fifty years old, and you're thinking,

(30:22):
I don't even know what I'm meant to do. Like
they're talking about revealing and finding, but I don't have
a clue. What do we do? How do we listen? Better?

Speaker 1 (30:29):
Maybe do another practice? Okay, I love beautiful. This is
a practice I always think my teacher from the late
doctor Gary Weaver, I'll invite you again ninety seconds to
take two brass clear out your inner space. I invite

(30:52):
you to set before you at table. This is your table,
and to your table you may invite anyone living or
deceased who truly has your best interest in mind, anybody
living or deceased you truly has your best interest in mind,

(31:21):
And with them all sitting there, ask them if they
love you, ask them if they love you. And now
you may invite your higher self, the part of you
that is so much more than anything you may have

(31:43):
done or not done, anything you have or don't have,
your true eternal higher self, and ask you if you
love you, ask you if you love you. And now
finally you may invite your higher power. Whatever your word, however,

(32:07):
you know your higher power and ask if they love you?
Ask if they love you? And now, with all of
those people sitting here right now, what do they need
to share? What do they need to tell you? Now?

(32:30):
What do you need to know? What do they say
to you? Now? When you're ready, I invite you back.

(33:08):
How did you experience that?

Speaker 2 (33:10):
It was really clear who I picked at the table?
That was easy. And then who was there My spiritual
teacher and his spiritual teacher who passed away who I
never met. So those are the two people that just so,
my spiritual teacher is still alive, and then his teacher
who I never met, but they were both at the table,
and I definitely feel loved by them, like that's not

(33:32):
even a it's not it's like beyond. I feel overflowing,
overwhelmed with the amount of love I feel from both
of them. And then when you ask me the question
of do I love myself? I felt very grateful that
I have the ability to do that. And then when
you asked me about what I need to hear from them,

(33:54):
and felt very clear to me that I mean for me,
it was you know to and you're doing what I'm
doing to be continue to be a vessel in an
instrument for this wisdom and work that I'm doing and
to know that I'm always protected. And so it was
very clear, and I'm so excited to hear what my

(34:16):
audience gained from their reflection from that, because I feel
what you gave us there was a really really beautiful
way of listening, which feels like no matter whether you
consider yourself spiritual or not, you'd be able to connect
to that because the idea of having dinner or being
at a table with people you know and love and
love you is something that feels very real. I love

(34:40):
that as an exercise for people to listen more deeply.
It's that's really brilliant. It's so beautiful from your teacher
as well. So I give from l Yeah fair, Yeah,
what an incredible meditation. I really want you all who
are listening and watching at home to share with me
your reflections as I'm sharing mine through these meditations, because

(35:00):
it's Yeah, I'm really excited to hear what people gain
from them. And I'm assuming that this exercise can be
done at any time when people are feeling disconnected from
that in a voice.

Speaker 1 (35:11):
At any time if we have a big decision to make,
or if we're feeling despairing and alone, we can call counsel.
Counsel is always present and ready to convene. Those who
truly have your best interest in mind, living or deceased
will always show up, and who shows up may change
depending on where we are in the road of life,

(35:32):
what guidance we might need. For example, my youngest child
is an adventurer. She ran a two hundred mile ultra marathon.
She walked across Japan. Who watches over her is her
great grandfather, my grandfather Bill, himself an outdoorsman, he would
likely show up at her council. But my other child,

(35:53):
who's twenty three and living in New York and making movies,
who would show up at her as probably her artistic
Greek grandmother, who herself loved language and story. So we're
loved by all of our ancestors. But we do have guides.
We do have profoundly present sacred guides, living and deceased.

(36:15):
These are spiritual relationships. And Jay, it's so interesting as
we look through the lens of science. The same way
that a connection to God protects us against depression, a
relationship to our ancestors protects us against depression. Wow, every
single person at the table, who loves us, who guides us,
who protects us, is a real relationship. And when we

(36:39):
awaken to the true sacred relationships surrounding us, we are
guided into a far greater spiritual adventure and we are
less depressed and addicted because the bumps in the road,
those are absolutely essential for the deeper path that we
each of us journeys.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
I love them so glad we did that. Thank you
for sharing that movie. I was thinking about it. From
the scientific perspective. You've done You've done brain scans what
people recalled profound spiritual experiences. Could you give us some
examples of those? And what did you see happening in
the brain?

Speaker 1 (37:15):
Jee We asked people of all different paid traditions. So
some people were Christian, others were Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, spiritual
but not religious. And no matter what tradition someone may
observe or not observe spiritual but not religious, the same
neural circuits run in our brain when we encounter God,

(37:35):
the deep force of life. We asked people a very
simple question. No one was confused by the question. We
asked people gen z really. We asked, tell us about
a time where you were really struggling in life where
you felt disconnected or frustrated or lost, or you felt
not enough, that you'd failed, or were somehow unworthy, felt

(37:58):
like a loser. Nobody was confused by that question. And
then part two we said, and in your struggle, you
turned to God. You walked through nature, you meditated or prayed,
or suddenly, perhaps even unsolicited, you felt touched by sacred
presence and the road of life took a turn. Tell

(38:18):
us about a time that started out difficult, but through
the inspiration and guidance of God, took a different turn.
We've asked this question of hundreds of young adults. No
one's ever been confused. But about half say, wow, I'm
so glad you asked, because no one's ever asked me
that before. A spiritually non conversant society is silencing our

(38:39):
whole rising generation of gen Z. They are exquisitely gifted,
and they are not being listened to. We welcome people
into the MRI machine. They tell the story that they've
told so many times about being touched by their higher presence.
They tell the story that they'd previously shared with us
about being touched by the higher presence, and we then

(39:00):
play back their own story in their own voice, in
their ears inside the MRI machine, and what we saw
is extraordinary. As we walk through a spiritual experience, the
same neural correlates come online in every single person. It
doesn't matter if I'm Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Catholic, spiritual but

(39:20):
not religious. Nature is my cathedral. The same neural corelds
run and they are the bonding network. We perceive that suddenly,
at that inflection point where we feel God's presence, we
are loved and held. The bonding network comes up online. Suddenly,
at the inflection point, we know that we are guided,

(39:42):
and suddenly the parietal starts putting in and out hard boundaries,
letting us know that we are never alone, loved and guided,
never alone. Every single one of us is able to
perceive that we are loved, held, guided, and never alone.
What did these stories sound like? You know, I just
got turned down at seven out of eight colleges. I'm

(40:04):
feeling like such a loser. I'm never going to go
to college like my parents and my grandparents wanted me to.
And I'm walking down the street feeling completely unworthy. I
really wanted to be a nurse, I'm not getting into
nursing school eight out of nine rejections. Nursing school may
not be in the cards for me. But then I
see light in the leaves, and I know I will
be a healer in the way that God has intended

(40:27):
for me. The profound rearrangement of meaning, the aha, the awakening,
the illumination that speaks to a deeper, wiser part of ourselves.
Or I was going to get married. I dated a
boy for three years in college. I even had a
promise ring. We were going to get married the year
after we graduated, and then the week before graduation, he

(40:50):
called it off. I've never felt so unloved and unlovable.
I felt so unattractive, so undesirable. But then I lent
home and sitting in the pews of my childhood house
of worship by my parents and by my grandparents, I
suddenly felt my family's love. And then I felt a
greater love. I felt God's love, and I knew, yes,

(41:13):
I will love again. Jay. So many young people stop
at the pain, so many of us, and can happen
to any of us. Stop at the pain. But the
pain is actually an invitation. It's a banging at the
door to listen for the illumination, and the brain is

(41:33):
built just like a catch in the Catchersmith sure as
day to receive the guidance to catch the illumination.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
The bugw Ghito, which is the text of India, the
primary spiritual text of India. It's based on a battlefield.
It's a historic story about the best archer in the
world who's on a battlefield and he's having to fight
his family, which he's really sad about, doesn't want to,
and he's actually feeling anxious, and that's the beginning of

(42:05):
his awakening conversation with God called Krishna, who's his chariot here,
who's actually directing and driving his chariot on the battlefield,
and they have this divine conversation that lasts these seven
hundred verses of the Barga gheta forty five minute conversation,
and it's all about learning, but it all starts like

(42:27):
anxiety is the beginning of inquiry. And what I find
fascinating about that, having studied it for many years, is
that we live in a world where we think of
anxiety and these things as bad, where we've got to
suppress them or push them away or never have them again,
when in fact, it's almost like life is designed in
a way to get them to ask the right questions.

(42:47):
And we almost because sometimes it's so painful. We don't
know how to rise to a deeper question because it
feels so hard. So talk to me about that and
reflect on that for me, and how do we do that?

Speaker 1 (42:59):
Jan and that, Yes, depression is the opening to transcendence.
Depression does not make us smaller when we say, yes,
what is life showing me now? What questions come to
my heart that I wouldn't have asked otherwise? Why am
I feeling so anxious? What do I fear losing? Why

(43:21):
does it hurt so badly? Did I? Maybe you know?
There's a blind spot, just like we have a blind
spot in our car between the person that I want
to be and think I am and the person that
I may actually be living out, And that blind spot
is the zone for growth. That's our opportunity. When there's

(43:42):
a big blind spot, Suffering is an invitation to help
narrow the blind spot. How can I be more loving
or maybe need to be more autonomous? Whatever the welcome
gift is. The blind spot is not a moral failing
is an invitation for growth and spiritual growth. Well, the
same is true in our relationship to God or the
Higher Power. There's a blind spot between the sense of

(44:05):
the world as we know it and the profound, sacred
world as it really is. Suffering is an invitation to
narrow the blind spot and move more, ever more into
a world that is one in which we see God's guidance.
Know each other from a spiritual You are my brother,
you are my sister. It doesn't matter if you happen
to have similar different views politically or about anything else.

(44:28):
For that matter, you're my brother. The last thing I'd
want to do is limit our lives to other people's ideas,
when in fact we have an ultimate opportunity for an authentic, direct,
spiritual relationship with every single person around us.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
Do you believe everything happens for a reason.

Speaker 1 (44:46):
I believe that we can shift from asking why is
this happening to me? To how is this happening for me? So,
despite its origin, every moment is a opportunity for profound
spiritual awakening. We can bring a spiritual lens and say, ah,
I can feel God's presence even now in this moment

(45:09):
of trauma and quaking. I do not fall through the abyss.
God is holding me. I can bring my deep perception
of the guidance written into life and say I've never
encountered this before. You know, my father just died. I
don't know how to live in this world without my father.
But wait a minute, my father can be a conduit
to God the Father, God the Mother and start to

(45:33):
evermore see the guidance written into life. So when we
have and it's a choice, a spiritual response to whatever comes,
we can ask the question, how is this happening for me?

Speaker 2 (45:46):
And that's a great way of checking in with our
intuition as well.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
I'm listening to our intuition, that little whisper of a hunch.
You know, Jay, there are regions in the brain for intuition,
there are regions in the brain for mystical awareness. These
are valid, hardwired forms of knowing. When we ignore this
surefire knowledge, it's to our parilem those around us. We're
being given guidance, and certainly we're being pointed in life's

(46:12):
pointing us to the double door for a much more
interesting life. So you know it's worth asking, Hey, wait
a minute, what was the most important decision that you
ever made in your life? Was it about your family?
Was it about your business? Was it a moral decision?
What was the most important decision that you ever made

(46:34):
in your life? And was that made narrowly from adding
up the pros and cons and making a long list
of the eighteen points? Or did you turn to a
deeper form of knowing, intuition, inspiration, a mystical awareness, being
touched in meditation or prayer life? Was there an awakened
knowing that guided your most important decision?

Speaker 2 (46:57):
And how do you know the difference? How do you
know if you're listening to your gut, your fear.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
The more we pay attention to our awakened awareness, the
more we become pitch perfect. So at first it might
feel a little rusty or a little awkward, But the
more we say, yes, that guidance feels real, I'm going
to act on it, And then sure enough, the proof
is in the pudding when we do act on synchronicity,
a hunch, a mystical awareness, who should come around the corner.

(47:24):
But the answer to our quandary, there is no difference
between internal awareness and external unfolding consciousness is in us,
through us, and around us. When we listen to the
guidance so called Internally, we are on the path to
the answers to our quandaries externally.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
You've used God quite often in our conversation today.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
My word is God.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
Yes, and I wanted to ask you do you have
to believe in God to be spiritual?

Speaker 1 (47:52):
M I think to be spiritual we only need to
listen to how the deepest force in life touches and
guides us. What you call that deepest force in life
and how you fashion that conceptually is very secondary. It's
way downstream from the foundational catch and the catcher's myth

(48:14):
of perception, of awareness of the love and guidance. To
be spiritual is to pay attention to the love and
guidance that's already there. And in fact, many people say,
you know, actually the most important decision of my life
that I did make through my intuition. Somehow, I just
knew in my heart that we should move or not move,

(48:37):
that we should have a child or not have a child.
I just knew in my heart. Listening to our awakened
awareness brings an entirely different life when we listen to
that whisper of a hunch, when we pay attention to synchronosities,
listening to our awakened awareness brings forward another life. Why
because consciousness is in us, through us and around us.

(48:59):
Awakened away fareness allows us to hear the guidance that
has everything to do with the on the ground, real
physical reality that we're about to encounter, whether that's a
premonition or a guidance to find the people in our lives.
We and our own family Jay, we struggled. My husband
and I struggled for five years looking for our child.

(49:22):
We could not find our child, and it was profoundly
depressing to me, and my husband was so depressed. I
found him on the floor one night. He was shaking.
My big strong husband was literally crying and shaking because
no children had come into our lives. I went to
every top fertility doctor in the country. I went to

(49:43):
the team that had the highest rates of conception. I
went to the team up and down the East coast
that invented in vitro, and yet nobody came. And it
was only once I started paying attention to the synchronicities
and the guidance the unprobabilistic event in my life and
then started having mystical experiences that to which I said, yes,

(50:07):
this is real information, that we followed the golden thread
and found our child on the other side of the earth,
a beautiful boy who was, of course, our spiritual child. Now,
if I just took spirituality as a nice feeling or
something that happens inside of me, or as a way
of coping, it would have nothing to say about an

(50:30):
action plant in the world. But spirituality is highly practical,
actionable guidance through which we can fulfill our deepest calling,
our true path, and support the calling of those around us.
My son would still be in an orphanage if I
didn't think synchronicities were real. My husband and I would
not be parents if I didn't think synchronicities were real.

(50:53):
Spirituality is not just a nice thing or I seen
on the cake. It is the bedrocket is the only
landscape through which we can live our lives in a
whole and radiant way.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
And that's also you accepting that yellow door, even in
that scenario.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
The glorious yellow.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
Door, because spirituality doesn't mean everything you want, and like
you talked about earlier with the grocery list, spirituality doesn't
mean that it happens how I want it to happen.
When it happens, like, that's not spirituality.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
No, it's not a transaction.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
Yeah, which I think is so much of the misconception
of not only how spirituality is spoken about today, but
people's belief that if I'm spiritual.

Speaker 1 (51:32):
Well, that's the ego driving the bus, right If I
think that because I'm spiritual, I'm going to get pregnant
right away. If I think that because I'm spiritual, my
hopes and dreams are going to all come true, that's
actually put in myself in the driver's seat and saying
me and me alone, I know the way. But spirituality

(51:53):
actually is the ability to look and see what the
universe is saying and then act. I mean, we don't
sit home ice cream and do nothing. A spiritualitie allows
us to see where the universe is guiding us and
then do something about it. Paying attention to synchronicity and
then acting allows us to be part of the miracle.
Listening to a mystical experience, knowing that a visitation is real,

(52:16):
and then acting allows us to collaborate in the miracle,
allows us to be actors in a divine journey.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
So let's talk about two practical things, because you said
spirituality is actually practical. I want to talk about two
areas of our life that I think a lot of
our audience struggles with or is looking for. And so
let's start with love. First of all, So much of
our audience is looking for love. People are exhausted, we're
dating right now, struggling with There's plenty of fish in

(53:02):
the sea. There's just ultimate, unlimited options. How can becoming
more spiritual help you find love?

Speaker 1 (53:09):
Oh? Jay, many people say, I listened to this gut instinct.
I'd never been to that bar before, I'd never been since,
but I just felt like somehow I should go. You know,
my friend was lonely. She asked me to meet her,
and it was the right thing to do when I went.
And sure enough, that night I met the guy who
I eventually married. And he never went to that bar either.

(53:31):
Far too unprobabilistic to have happened by chance, or you
know what. I've always been kind of sheepish about those platforms.
I didn't know if i'd go on, but I finally did.
And do you know what, my husband never wanted to
use those platforms either, but he did, and we found
each other these unprobabilistic meetings, these guided inspired really meant

(53:52):
to be. Guided inspired meetings are extraordinary for igniting love,
are extraordinary for guiding us against all odds to find
each other in a big universe, through all space and time.
But then that's only part one. That love is divinely guided.
Part two is that we then need to put divinity

(54:12):
into the relationship. It is a big roll up the
sleeves and do our job. Love someone even when they're difficult,
Love someone more deeply when they're at their most irascible
and struggling. No, you know, is there something I'm doing
right now in the relationship that's starving the relationship. I'll

(54:33):
give you an example. You know, let's start at home.
I remember my husband and I went through good you know,
it wasn't just three days, maybe three weeks pushing a
month of standoffishness, you know, not arguing, just distance. And
I was thinking, you know, why does it feel so empty,
so stale in here? Why is there a latent tension
in the air, you know. And you know we'd even

(54:54):
sort of find a way to not eat dinner at
the same time together, you know, and he'd eat his
special meal and idy vice. Specially, mel had a sense
Jay that somehow I didn't know the way back to him,
and he didn't know the way back to me. So
I effectively took our standoff to counsel. I asked my
higher power, and for me, the word is God. I

(55:18):
prayed to God and I said, you know there is
this standoff. You know, please fill my heart with love.
Might you show me how we can find our way
back to each other? God? And what came Jay was
an image of my husband looking nourished and ruddy and
fully fed. And I realized I had been starving him

(55:39):
for my end. I'd been starving him emotionally. I'd been
so busy with my own thing. I'd been so unwilling
to pick up the rope on whatever was dogging him.
God gave me an image the universe presented before me,
an image of possibility of how I might more nourish
my husband with love. We don't need to to take

(56:02):
our failings. Our shortcomings are blind spots as moral failure.
Our struggles are an invitation to turn to life, turn
to God, turn to our higher power, and say, might
you fill my heart with love? And show me an
image of possibility, and the direction is indeed very surprising.

(56:22):
It is a yellow door pointing us somewhere an answer
to the problem. Psychology has really gotten it wrong. Psychology
says that if I'm feeling guilty about the standoff with
my husband, or if I'm feeling angry about the thin
emotional connection right now we might be sharing, I should
somehow come up with happier thoughts about myself or happier

(56:43):
thoughts about us in our marriage. Much of cognitive therapy
as a debate to feel better, bigger, stronger, But actually,
just as when I touch a hot stove, I feel
a heat, that's real. Our emotions are exquisite detectors of
the truth and our lives. We can take that truth,
even if it's a little bitter to the taste, and

(57:04):
hand that over to the force of life and say,
with deep love, please, will you show me possibility? Might
I ask for directions source of life who I call God,
And the image that comes, or the synchronicity to unfold,
or the unlikely turn of events is indeed the opening
of the yellow door. It expands us and our perception

(57:25):
to awaken and be more loving.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
What if you have spiritual and your partner is in
Can it work?

Speaker 1 (57:33):
Yes? It is very important that spirituality not make us
judgmental about the people around us. You know, I think
very often I hear I went on a retreat, or
maybe I tried psilocybin, or I've been working on my
meditation life and my partner's just not spiritual enough anymore.
I have surpassed him. Right, The spiritual road is not

(57:54):
one in which you dust people and leave them behind.
It's one in which you go back and get them. Now.
It may or may not be that your partner wants
to pursue a spiritual life, but can you love them
from a spiritual place in your heart? Could you be
married to a spiritual civilian? And that's a question about

(58:15):
the depth and breadth of your own heart.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
Yeah, does it make you harder because I feel like
there's a lot of Now what you hear a lot
of is oh, well, you know, if they're not spiritual,
I can't be with them. If they don't go to therapy,
I can't be with them. Because people are wanting people
to have a certain level of emotional maturity or emotional
intelligence that they hope comes with spirituality or going to therapy.

Speaker 1 (58:37):
Yes, I know many people feel that way. Most people
feel that way, but that's actually not my view. My
view is that can we love someone for who they
are and where they are, particularly if we've made a
commitment as a family, or if we've made some type
of lifelong commitment. It doesn't say to death do us
part doesn't mean until you have surpassed them in your growth.

(59:01):
To death to us part means that this is not
a contract. Marriage isn't a deal, it's a calling. Can
you love someone for who they are in their journey?
We don't need to marry our identical twin, and we
don't need to make a lifelong commitment to an identical twin.
In fact, life's much more interesting when we compliment each other.

(59:22):
My husband and I have been married for thirty years.
I've had one spouse, one house, and one job, from
which anything else is possible. When we get the bedrock
of our lives set firm, then we can really erect
a meaningful life together. We're not identical twins. My husband
and I have different interests, we have different vocabularies, we

(59:44):
probably have different maps of reality. But Jay I absolutely
adore him and I know he loves me, not because
he's just like me, really, but because he isn't.

Speaker 2 (59:57):
I can relate to that with me and my wife too. Yes, yeah,
even though we both have a similar spiritual practice, the
way we practice it is so different and the way
we live it in the world is so different, and
the way we express it is so different. And I
couldn't agree with you more that to me when I
was trained in spirituality, spirituality and non judgment are almost

(01:00:20):
synonymous to me in how you practice it, Like you
can't be spiritually enlightened or you can't be spiritual and
be judgmental. Those two things just don't live together. And
it's fascinating to me how when we start to become
spiritual or how judgmental we can be, because it defeats
the whole purpose of everything you're doing as a spiritual person.

(01:00:43):
You're trying to become more compassionate to yourself and others,
more loving to yourself and others, not passively, but expanding
your radius of care and how much you can understand
and comprehend. But so often it does exactly the opposite.
I had a really good example of this. I invite
I don't know if you know who she is. But
I invited Julia Fox onto my podcast. I'm not sure

(01:01:04):
if you're aware of who she is, and if not,
I can give you a bit of background. So Julia
Fox is known as an actress and a model today,
but her background is that she grew up in an
abusive home, became a sex worker in her teens, then
became a dominatrix, then left that world, became an actress,
a model, and is now three years celibate, three years sober,

(01:01:28):
and takes care of She's a single mom to a
young son. I'd read her book and I was blown
away by her transformation and saw it as truly spiritual
in work that she's done on discovering herself and finding
herself through all of these phases of life. And it's
really interesting because before people had heard this version of her,
I brought her out on stage at an event in

(01:01:49):
New York at Madison Square Garden at the Theater, and
the audience was like, Hey, why would you bring out
Julia Fox? Like there was this judgment and I because
I could feel it, and I said, hey, just listen
to all the end of this conversation and then you
can decide how you feel it's your choice, but stay
with me. And we spoke, and then at the end
of it, the amount of people that came up to

(01:02:10):
me and said, Jim, I'm so sorry I judged at
the beginning, but actually I learned so much from her.
And she's so smart, and she's so eloquent, and she
seems like such a wonderful person.

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
And when from you, j they learned love, They learned radical, true,
unconditional love. And from her, Julia, they learned that the
spirit is far greater than our struggles, the traps we
may have been in our past. Our spirit is infinite.
And look how she said yes and listened to the
guidance and saw the love. What an extraordinary teaching. Incredible.

(01:02:43):
You know, it's so easy to say okay in my partnership.
I'll give you an example. I share in the awakened
brain that in the journey to find Isaiah, there were
very I'm very grateful for some very sacred mystical visitations.
Now I didn't say, oh, I've had mystical visitations and honey,

(01:03:03):
you haven't, therefore I'm ahead on the path. No, I
think the mystical visitation to one member of the partnership
is to be shared by both. So if you happen
to be perhaps more spiritually perceptive, if you happen to
be on a more intense or palpable or vivid spiritual path,

(01:03:24):
then you have the opportunity to bring that home and
share that guidance, offer that love to the partnership. You know,
the data shows that very often families are enriched and
made spiritual by one lead partner, and someone else in
the partnership is bringing something else. My kids murred that

(01:03:44):
back to me. They said, you know, mommy's on a
path and mommy is so spiritual. But if it were
just mommy, we'd be living in a tent or something.
But if it were just Daddy, it'd be way too strict.
We think you're a good balance.

Speaker 2 (01:03:59):
That's amazing. Absolutely absolutely, If someone's dating, how can they
stop avoiding the voice inside of them that tells them
this is the wrong person. Because I feel like we
often justify someone is right for us because of the
outward boxes that they tick, or the fact that our
family and friends think they're amazing, But inside of ourselves

(01:04:20):
we knew it, and then when they leave us, it
feels like we were double dumped because you already knew it,
but then they left us.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
Well, Jay, I think you're pointing to the importance of
hearing the deep inner wisdom. Every one of us has
a spiritual compass that always points to the truth. The
more we listen and pay attention to the inner spiritual compass,
the more we become pitch perfect in hearing the guidance.
But if we're just a little rusty here, we're getting

(01:04:47):
our feet wet. We can always take the question to counsel.
Take the question is this guy right for me? To
your counsel, Ask those who truly have your best interest
in mind, your higher self and your higher power. Hey,
what say you? Because counsel is there to answer any question,

(01:05:07):
to bring guidance at any juncture in the road. And
in fact, we can bring a problem to counsel. We
can bring a person to counsel. Counsel is a place
in our soul, in our neurowiring, where we can return
to receive an awakened response, to receive awakened guidance. Once

(01:05:28):
we practice counsel, I suggest to people an invitation to
try counsel. Every time, every day I offer people the
invitation to practice counsel every day, because then we become
accustomed to returning into the place of transcendent relationship. We
become a little bit more nuanced in ability to hear guidance,

(01:05:50):
and ultimately we become more aware of the guidance within ourselves,
which is the voice of God the universe.

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
Let's shift to talk about money. Yes, because you just
mentioned there that your kids said, Hey, if we just
said mom, we'd live in a tent. Yes, if we
had dad, it'd be too strict. So it's a good balance.
What is the practical connection between spirituality and money.

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
Our spiritual perception allows us to walk our true path,
our true calling, and when we do, there is abundance.
It's not our preordained mail order vision of abundance. It
is big, a abundance that comes in many forms. It
comes in oftentimes meaningful relationships. It comes in a sense

(01:06:33):
of fullness and sparkle in the world. It comes with
fullness in our heart, and very often when we are
on our authentic path, we find that the finances end
up getting covered. I don't mean to preach a prosperity
message where oh, you'll get loads of money if you're
spiritual spirituality is not a transaction, but spirituality will align

(01:06:53):
us with our path through which the road rises up
to meet us, and we very often do find that
we are provided for.

Speaker 2 (01:07:02):
What mistakes do you think spiritual people make when it
comes to money.

Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
I think the biggest mistake early in the spiritual path
is to sequester our spiritual life as being separate from
our work life. But in fact, how we show up
at work is a spiritual endeavor, even if we don't
like the job, even if we may not in five
years or ten years be doing the same professional for
the same profession we do now when we show up

(01:07:29):
with an authentic spiritual voice and say, you know what,
I'm not going to make in a moral decision, even
though my boss is leaning on me. I do think
there is a purpose in the fact that this client
right now has told me that his wife is dying.
I feel in my heart love for the other side
of the steel, and I don't want to exploit them

(01:07:51):
or take advantage of them. When we bring our spiritual
heart to work, we make more ethical decisions, and in
the end we make win win descis an awakened decision
is a win win decision. It is far more sustainable
and yes, more outwardly profitable in the long run. So
the biggest mistake we can make is to leave our
spiritual selves at home and as a boss. The biggest

(01:08:13):
mistake we can make further down the line in our
careers is to silence the spiritual voice of people sitting
at the work table.

Speaker 2 (01:08:23):
Absolutely, I have a lot of friends who'd consider themselves
to be spiritual. Many of them are depressed and not
financially secure. When you tell me that people are spiritual,
are less depressed and they should have an abundance opportunity,
I don't always see that translate into reality, and I'm
trying to understand where they're tripping up or going wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
Yeah, oftentimes I hear spirituality is in the ashramp. Spirituality
is in removing myself from commerce or the bank or
the career that I've pursued for twenty five years. I
would say just the opposite. Spirituality is bringing your deepest
wisdom and soulfulness into the bank, the profession of twenty years.

(01:09:11):
When we separate ourselves out of the flow of life,
we've taken ourselves out of the energy field. We've taken
ourselves out of the majestic symphony. That is the embodied
spiritual reality. Society isn't unspiritual. Everyone's born in spiritual. Society
is the embodied spiritual reality. Now, how much are we

(01:09:32):
going to cultivate that reality? And what are we going
to bring to it? How are we going to show up?
I think we end up depressed and poor when we
isolate ourselves, when we sequester ourselves, and certainly when we
feel holier than that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like that approach because going back
to the Gita, because Origins an archer, he's a warrior.
He's told by God to do his duty, which is
to protect and to fight. And that's quite a remarkable
direction from God to be saying you should fight, rather
than Origins actually saying I think I should just go

(01:10:06):
to the forest to meditate and I don't need this
land and it doesn't matter, and God's like, no, you
need to protect future generations and you need to be
ahead of it, and you're doing your duty. You were
born a warrior and so carry out that duty.

Speaker 1 (01:10:18):
Yes, were you born a warrior? Me?

Speaker 2 (01:10:20):
Probably a little bit? Yeah, lit a bit of that
for sure, Yes, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:10:24):
And I relate to that too. Trying to make change
within major institutions, and it is foundationally spiritual. You in
the center of society. I've been doing this work in
science and in academia and in the Pentagon. I think
that when we work from a deep spiritual awareness, then
we're actually part of a mission. And it can be
at times spiritual fight.

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
Yeah, it can be.

Speaker 1 (01:10:48):
At times, spirituality is highly embodied. Spirituality has everything to
do about fighting the good fight, standing up for what's right.
Spirituality has everything to do with building and creating something
that is inherently good. So spirituality is not just the
contemplative practice, and it's not just being soft and gentle.
There are times were righteous indignation, a firm back, speaking

(01:11:10):
up for what's true, fighting to build something, to create
a land that has spiritual values is a highly profound
act of devotion. Spirituality is not something that's quiet and mousey.
Fruitulity is very often something that is active and strong
and uncompromising.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
I think a lot of people right now, when they
look at the world, they think that there's nothing spiritual
obviously about what's going on. How do you think about that?

Speaker 1 (01:11:39):
Oh, I think we're having birthing pains for an extraordinary
collective awakening. I think that I'm tremendously full of empirically
grounded hope. Just as each and every one of us
moves through suffering to transcendence, that depression leads to transcendence awakening.
I think as a society, we're on the brink of

(01:11:59):
awakening into a far more spiritual center field way of
living and treating each other. We're on the brink of
a much more spiritual society. What do you think.

Speaker 2 (01:12:09):
I think people ask better questions and get more committed
to doing amazing work in the world when things are
not going great. So I think that when we see
pain in the world and we feel motivated to want
to make a change and contribute, I see so many
people who are getting more involved in charity work and
getting more involved in philanthropy. I see so many people
who are wanting to go out and make a difference.

(01:12:31):
To me, that's spiritual that sometimes the alarm clock gets
louder and louder and louder to wake us up, because otherwise,
if it's on snooze, we kind of get complacent. And
so I always feel that anxiety and tragedy and it's
a painful reality and I wish we didn't function that way,

(01:12:52):
but humans almost wait for things to get really bad
before we do something about it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:57):
And if you don't know what to do, you can,
just as I shared in my marital challenge, right hand
it over. Seek direction from the source, meditate on it, pray,
see what inspiration comes. If the old way of working
isn't going to give us a good answer, then open up,
perhaps to a spiritual direction. And I see to your point, Jay,

(01:13:20):
a lot of people, Yes they keep their day job,
Yes they still show up, but they're showing up in
a different way. And suddenly I just heard from a
fellow who'd been a trader on Wall Street for twenty years.
He said, you know, I've had a spiritual awakening recently,
and now I'm showing up on the trading floor in
an entirely different way. And I noticed the young guys

(01:13:41):
are coming to me and they're asking for advice, advice
with their partners, advice with their bosses. There must be
something that I'm giving off, some sort of piece, some
sort of solidity, some type of enlightenment that welcomes others
to seek guidance. So if everyone showed up at work,
that way we have a different commercial system, we'd have

(01:14:02):
a different society when we each cross the bridge than together.
We really are making a different type of awaken society.

Speaker 2 (01:14:11):
I think the challenge people genuinely feel is we're so
exhausted from our lives and our days. We always think, oh, yeah,
when I have more energy, I'll do that. When I
have a bit of peace, I'll do that. What do
you think about that?

Speaker 1 (01:14:23):
I think that your spiritual life is the only path
towards gaining energy and peace and direction. So even if
I'm completely exhausted, every morning, I force myself to walk
out the door, go outside and open into my morning
meditation and prayer. Now there are days where it is
more profound than others. But if I miss a day,

(01:14:45):
it becomes a very different type of day. If I
misspracticing in the morning, the daan folds very differently. I
have to say, ooh bit about noon, excuse me, step
outside and even though it's noon or one o'clock, do
my morning prayers. For me is an opening to connect
in dialogue with the universe. If I miss it, then
I'm working from a place of ego, of want. What

(01:15:07):
do I want from me? What I want for my family.
If I go outside and start loving God, please open
my heart and fill me with love that I might
be present to you. You use your words. Today's a
dialogue with the universe.

Speaker 2 (01:15:39):
You've said that children are born as pure souls. Yes,
do you think everyone is born good?

Speaker 1 (01:15:44):
Everyone's born a knower. We know this through lens, the
lens of science. So we can look at twin studies
and know that every single person is born with a
natural capacity for spiritual awareness, and every single person throughout
our studies we know is through MRI studies. We know
every single person is born with circuits in the brain

(01:16:05):
for spiritual awareness. What does this look like in the child?
Science shows us that in less socialized otherwise, a young
child naturally perceives continuity of consciousness or spirit after death
unless told oh no, no, that's not real. A young
child naturally perceives that We can directly know. We don't

(01:16:26):
need to have been told or read it or seen it.
We can have direct access to consciousness. Science calls this
implicit spiritual cognition. I say the child's born and knower. Now,
what happens in school is that the child says, oh,
I know the answer to that, and the teacher says,
what what do you mean? Point on the page where
does it say? Where did you read that? You need

(01:16:46):
to cite in reference? How you know that? And the
child says, no, I just knew that. Exchange says to
the child that direct knowing is somehow less real. That
the type of knowing that we raise as prime to
which we give primacy, the type of knowing that we
value here in school is one that comes from someone else.

(01:17:07):
But actually, the most important knowledge we have doesn't come
from someone else. It is an original, authentic knowing within ourselves.
That's how we know, our own calling, our own purpose,
our own direction. School has socialized us out of our
natural spiritual awareness. School has foreclosed the direction and guidance

(01:17:28):
that is built into life the child comes in and
know where. The child comes in listening and paying attention
to their inner spiritual compass, And in school we learn, oh, no, no,
that's not real. You need to have been told that
by someone else.

Speaker 2 (01:17:41):
What can parents do to protect that?

Speaker 1 (01:17:43):
It is essential that parents protect their child's natural spiritual awareness.
Parents can say, hey, you said you just knew that.
How wonderful was that? Direct knowing? You just knew or
child might come to us as parents and say something like,
you know, I felt Grandma's presence even though she's dead.
I really felt Grandma's presence, And you can say, wow,

(01:18:06):
Grandpa really loved you. It makes sense that she'd be
watching over you. We don't need to have all the
grand answers as parents, but to protect the child's natural spirituality,
we need to authorize them our children as knowers. Wow,
you had a dream that Daddy and I were going

(01:18:27):
to travel around the world, and today we told you that. Wow,
you had a hunch that your sister was going to
come home from school early, and then it happened. You
had direct knowing. Wow, honor and authorize your child's direct knowing,
because everyone else in society is telling them it isn't real.
We have poisoned a generation with something that's called radical materialism.

(01:18:51):
It says it's only real if you can touch it
or kick it. But actually there's a great deal of
information in the unseen, and the child has access to
that information by saying to the child, oh, no, that
feeling you have in your gut instinct, that's just your intuition. No, no, wow,

(01:19:11):
that's the gift of your intuition. What you made that up?
You imagined it? No, no, no imagination like touching a
hot stove. Images, what's true? You figured that out in
your important imagination. Authorize, authorize, authorized.

Speaker 2 (01:19:30):
What's that? I really like that? How important is spirituality
at home from a scientific.

Speaker 1 (01:19:35):
Perspective, tremendously important. The child is born a naturally spiritual being.
But this is one third of an endowment, two thirds
cultivated by us as parents and grandparents. It can be
by a devoted, loving mentor a member of a faith community.
It could be by a coach or a counselor. But
when we pair true, deep love, authentic love with transparency,

(01:19:59):
opening the window and sharing our own spiritual life, the
child is embraced and their spiritual core is formed. As
a parent, as I say, we can do four things
as a parent to strengthen our children's spirituality. The first
is call it out. Use a language that speaks to synchronicity,

(01:20:19):
mystical experiences, Talk about the spiritual reality, and give it
a language through which the child gains a roadmap of
a spiritual, sacred reality. If we say it's real, it's real. Two,
invite your child into your own life share the stories.
When I was sixteen and I really didn't know if
God existed, I was really depressed. When you were born,

(01:20:43):
I knew there was much more than just skin and
bones to us. Speak authentically about your own journey from
a spiritual perspective, the knowing, truthful knowing of your own heart.
When you share your autoenic spiritual story, the child knows
that actually are life journey is a spiritual journey. The
third thing we can do, very important, is to invite

(01:21:06):
our children to share their own spiritual experiences. Say that
our relationship, our family goes down to that bedrock. Spiritual
life is part of who we are. Whether it's God
brought us together the universe from across the world brought
you to me, my beautiful spiritual child, or when Daddy
and Mommy got married and we both brought our kids,

(01:21:26):
we knew that God had made this full, abundant family.
Talk about who we are as a family from the
deepest spiritual perspective. And the fourth piece all four important.
The fourth is non negotiable, which is invite your child
into a practice of transcendence. Whether it's prayer, loving God,

(01:21:47):
open my heart. Now you finish the prayer. Do you
want to sit by my side? And while we meditate
through which you're invoking the sacred consciousness feeled like a
little intenna. They're starting to pick it up. Share transcendent practice.
When we as parents share transcendent practice, we allow our
children the rest of their lives to get back to source.

(01:22:10):
The brain is more of an antenna than a factory.
We were born able to receive consciousness much more like
an antenna than a factory that makes thoughts or makes spirituality.
The child's will antenna. Teach them how to raise it,
Teach them that what comes through their antenna is real,
and show them that you can always raise the antenna
and feel the presence of love, feel the presence of guidance.

Speaker 2 (01:22:34):
I think that's so different from what I feel. A
lot of people who grew up in a spiritual or
religious home experience which is force, force of practice, force
of belief, force of ritual without reason, force of turning
up and showing up whether you cared or not.

Speaker 1 (01:22:51):
And now now they don't like the whole thing, They
don't like any of it. Yeah, that rebounds, Yes, these
are invitations.

Speaker 2 (01:22:58):
What's the difference between spirituality and religion well.

Speaker 1 (01:23:02):
As you probably know, for about two thirds of people
in the States, and it's pretty true across post industrial countries.
Spirituality and religion go hand in hand for about two
thirds of people, and about one third of people say
I am spiritual, but I'm not religious. Whether or not
we're religious, we are all in born spiritual beings. Religion
is whether I'm Catholic, or Hindu or Jewish, is a

(01:23:25):
gift of our parents and grandparents. Religion, the sacred texts
ceremony is environmentally transmitted. Spirituality is innate. Now, Jay, I
think in support of the child's own natural spirituality, we can,
as parents take on a child centered point of view,
listen to the child's spiritual experiences and say wow, offer

(01:23:48):
in the first person, speaking for only myself a spiritual voice. So,
for instance, I used to take hikes with my children
in the forest when they were young, and when we
came to a fork in the road, I always said
Robert Frost poem to roads diverge in a yellow wood,
and sorry I could not follow both and be one traveler.

(01:24:08):
Long I stood, and of course it's the road less traveled.
It's about listening to your inner wisdom. And making an authentic,
original choice yours went by.

Speaker 2 (01:24:20):
I love that poem.

Speaker 1 (01:24:21):
Dozens of times Robert Frost shared in the woods at
the juncture where the road forked. And sure enough, years later,
my children walking through the woods will approach a fork
in the road and say, this is the point where
mommy recites Robert Frost and cries. They're aware there's a choice,
there's a choice in the road. Now when I cry,

(01:24:43):
I didn't cry because I thought it would be an
effective way for them to remember the Robert frostbam. It
was a genuine, authentic sense that the most important thing
in life is to learn to make your own choices.
They got the picture. When we're transparent, when we share
what's really important to h on our own spiritual path,
they know it's real. They get the picture, and then

(01:25:04):
on their own terms they can claim.

Speaker 2 (01:25:06):
It because you weren't doing it to teach, you were
just sharing it. Like there's such a difference. It's almost
like we remember things when someone shares them as their
inspiration versus when they say you need to do this.
You need to know, Like I don't know if you
turn around to your kids with that young angel said,
this is a lesson and how you like in the future. Yeah,

(01:25:26):
it's like that doesn't work on anyone. Like, if you
share something you love, I'll remember that and you would
for me too. But if I said, Lisa, you have
to live life like this and this is where you've
got to remember, all of a sudden, your defenses go
up and you just switch off, especially as a kid.

Speaker 1 (01:25:42):
Jay, I was sharing the best thing I had, which
was the joy of living an authentic, original life. Yeah,
and not borrowing my life from the playbook or someone
else's life.

Speaker 2 (01:25:53):
Lisa, what does therapy do that spirituality can't And what
does spirituality do that therapy can't?

Speaker 1 (01:25:59):
Yes, so, Jay. For thirty years, I've been working at
the intersection of spirituality and psychotherapy, and I've published over
two hundred articles on spirituality and mental health and recovery,
many of which are in top peer review journals. Spirituality
is essential to recovery from depression and addiction. Spirituality is

(01:26:21):
protective against depression and addiction. There's nothing in the clinicals
or social sciences as important to whole person formation as
a strong spiritual core. So in my view, psychotherapy minus
a spiritual core makes no sense. A Spiritual informed therapy
is one in which the patient is authorized to open

(01:26:45):
to the guidance in the universe, to raise their antenna
and ask the question, what is life showing me now?
What is this suffering revealing to me now? Is there
a blind spot where I'm being perhaps inconsiderate or selfish?
Is there a blind spot where I have yet to
take ownership or autonomy of my life? Is there a

(01:27:08):
way in which I'm not listening to the universe, and
the universe is pounding louder and louder to your point
until I hear That type of reflection is a reflection
brought forth by suffering, but it is not purely a
psychological question. It is one in which we were asking
to see beyond what we know. Awakened awareness has information

(01:27:32):
that has yet to unfold before us. Achieving awareness draws
on all the information in our own lives and everyone
else is to date. It is inherently based on the past.
But intuition, mystical experience, and awakened knowing has information that
has yet to unfold before us the yellow doors. That's

(01:27:55):
why spirituality is essential to mental health, because what is
suffering but a banging at the door to emerge beyond
the person we've ever been before.

Speaker 2 (01:28:06):
They so can't wait for people to read the Awakened
Brain and connect more with your work, because sitting with
you today and going through your exercises and hearing about
your ability to pull from science and from spirituality, it's
such important work. And I'm so glad that you're such
a good messenger of it, because it feels like it's

(01:28:26):
being hidden from us, it feels like it's not as
accessible as it should be, and you're bringing it out.
So I'm so grateful for that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:35):
I'm so grateful for our conversation. And It's true, every
single person listening already is spiritual. This is theirs. It's
not only for the most pious or the most learned.
No one owns this. You are spiritual, but it is
your opportunity to awaken.

Speaker 2 (01:28:53):
Yeah. We end every episode of On Purpose with a
final five. These questions have to be answered in one
word to one sentence maximum, and so Lisa Milla, these
are your final five. The first question is what is
the best advice you've ever heard or received?

Speaker 1 (01:29:08):
Listen to your inner wisdom and bet against the pack.

Speaker 2 (01:29:13):
Nice I agree. Question number two, what is the worst
advice you've ever heard or received.

Speaker 1 (01:29:18):
Do as I say?

Speaker 2 (01:29:21):
Question number three, what's the first thing you do in
the morning and the last thing you do at night?

Speaker 1 (01:29:25):
Every morning I open the day through prayer that invites
my heart to connect to God. And every day I
close the day by thanking God for the guidance, the love,
and the miracle of the adventure that was the day before.

Speaker 2 (01:29:42):
What do you pray to God for?

Speaker 1 (01:29:44):
I ask that I might align my heart with God's
guidance and love, and that day serve God in love.
I don't know what it'll look like, but I know
if I'm in alignment.

Speaker 2 (01:29:55):
Fist and final question, Lisa, We asked this every guest
who's ever been on the show. If you could create
one law that everyone in the world had to follow,
what would it be.

Speaker 1 (01:30:05):
Every single person in your path was sent by source.
Treat them with an awakened heart.

Speaker 2 (01:30:10):
Doctor Lisa Miller. The book is called The Awakened Brain,
The New Signs of Spirituality, and Our Quest for an
Inspired Life. Go and grab your copy right now. I
hope you listen to this conversation many times. My favorite
thing you could do is please take a moment to
do the two practices we did together with yourself, and

(01:30:31):
then share it with a friend, because I feel those
simple practices that Lisa so beautifully guided me through could
be the unlock that you're looking for. I've always found
that you need these tipping points in your journey, and
Lisa gave us so many beautiful ones, But those two
exercises particularly, I think could be doorways and gateways into
your spiritual life if you've been struggling, if you felt

(01:30:54):
like you've fallen off, if you're reconnecting, whichever part of
the journey you're on. So thank you so much, Lisa,
thank you for your time, and it's.

Speaker 1 (01:31:00):
Wonderful to connect with you. You have beautiful soul.

Speaker 2 (01:31:03):
Thank you, Bright Saul, very kind, truly, thank you so much.
If you love this episode, you'll enjoy my interview with
doctor Daniel Ahman on how to change your life by
changing your brain. They don't do things until someone's mad
at them to get it done.

Speaker 1 (01:31:17):
They need stress in order to get stuff done, and
that just makes everybody around them stress.

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