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

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 great to have you here.

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 is always there with us. How does science show that?

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, 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.

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 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, 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,

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 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?

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 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.

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 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, 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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.

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, 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

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.

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 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 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 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 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 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, 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

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 been on a spiritual journey, a great adventure, and I invite you back.

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

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, 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 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 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 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 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.

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, 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. That's a spiritual adventure.

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 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.

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, contribution takes, tactics takes strategy. Children of the Light need wonderful sets of skills.

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. 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, 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?

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.

understand what it meant. And I was always fascinated by the word protect because I think in the Western world 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

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

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 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.

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 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?

a clue. What do we do? How do we listen? Better?

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 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, 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? What do you need to know? What do they say to you? Now? When you're ready, I invite you back. How did you experience that?

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, 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 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 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 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.

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, 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.

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 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.

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 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 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 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 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 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, 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

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

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 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, 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 built just like a catch in the Catchersmith sure as day to receive the guidance to catch the illumination.

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 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 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.

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?

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 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 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. 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.

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 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?

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 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?

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.

that I did make through my intuition. Somehow, I just knew in my heart that we should move or not move, 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.

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. 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 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, 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 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. 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.

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, and then acting allows us to collaborate in the miracle, allows us to be actors in a divine journey.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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

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 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 to awaken and be more loving.

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 the depth and breadth of your own heart.

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. 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 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.

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. 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 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, 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 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 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.

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, 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, 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 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.

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, 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 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, and ultimately we become more aware of the guidance within ourselves, which is the voice of God the universe.

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

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 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 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 mistake we can make further down the line in our careers is to silence the spiritual voice of people sitting at the work table.

spiritual reality. Society isn't unspiritual. Everyone's born in spiritual. Society is the embodied spiritual reality. Now, how much are we 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.

ahead of it, and you're doing your duty. You were born a warrior and so carry out that duty.

There are times were righteous indignation, a firm back, speaking 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.

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, but humans almost wait for things to get really bad before we do something about it.

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, 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 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 a different society when we each cross the bridge than together.

We really are making a different type of awaken society.

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?

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 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.

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 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

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. 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 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.

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 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. 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,

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.

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, 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, 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

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, 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, 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.

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.

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

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. 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.

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, 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 on their own terms they can claim.

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.

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 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 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

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 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.

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 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.