Soul Boom - Dr. Lisa Miller: Will Gen Z Spark a Spiritual Revolution?

Episode Date: August 27, 2024

Dr. Lisa Miller joins Rainn Wilson to explore the intersection of spirituality and science, delving into the hardwired nature of human spirituality. They discuss the unique spiritual journey of Gen Z, the role of suffering in personal growth, and the profound ways in which consciousness might transcend the physical brain. Dr. Miller also shares groundbreaking research on how spirituality can protect against depression and even influence healing. Tune in for a deep conversation that challenges conventional views and opens up new paths to understanding our place in the universe. Dr. Lisa Miller is a clinical psychologist, professor at Columbia University, and a pioneering researcher in the field of spirituality and mental health. She is the author of "The Spiritual Child" and "The Awakened Brain," where she explores the scientific basis of spirituality and its profound impact on human resilience and well-being. Dr. Miller's work bridges the gap between psychology and spirituality, offering groundbreaking insights into how spiritual practices can protect against depression and enhance life’s meaning. Thank you to our sponsors! Squarespace (10% off!): https://squarespace.com/soulboom Waking Up app (1st month FREE!): https://wakingup.com/soulboom Fetzer Institute: https://fetzer.org/ Sign up for our newsletter! https://soulboom.substack.com SUBSCRIBE to Soul Boom!! https://bit.ly/Subscribe2SoulBoom Watch our Clips: https://bit.ly/SoulBoomCLIPS Watch WISDOM DUMP: https://bit.ly/WISDOMDUMP Follow us! Instagram: http://instagram.com/soulboom TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@soulboom Sponsor Soul Boom: [e-mail] Work with Soul Boom: [e-mail] Send Fan Creations, Questions, Comments: [e-mail] Produced by: Kartik Chainani Executive Produced by: Ford Bowers, Samah Tokmachi Spring Green Films Production Supervisor: Mike O'Brien Voicing Change Media Theme Music by: Marcos Moscat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We've got a substack. If you love the Soul Boom podcast, you're going to want to get our weekly newsletter Substack sent to your inbox. A lot of them delve into the ideas around the podcasts that we're doing that week. So sign up. Please subscribe. Go to Soulboom.substack.com. Thank you.

You're listening to Soul. Why do so many religious people do so many horrific things? Beautiful. Because every single one of us is a naturally spiritual being. And when we realize our natural spirituality, we're less addicted and depressed and we're better to each other. Spirituality is innate with its own neural correlates and its genetic markers. Religion is 100% environmentally transmitted. We aren't born religious beings.

We're born spiritual beings. Religion for many people can cultivate their natural spirituality. But we're spiritual whether or not we are religious. So when you say, you know, hey, wait a minute, why is he doing that if he's a religious? disperson. The question is, is he using his innate, hardwired seat of perception to be loving, guiding, and never leave anyone alone? Hey there, it's me, Rain Wilson, and I want to dig into the human experience. I want to have conversations about a spiritual revolution. Let's get deep with our favorite thinkers, friends, and entertainers about life, meaning, and idiocy. Welcome to the

Soul Boom podcast. I'm telling you, Ryan, The most important thing we can do right now is openly with full heart and voice, have the conversation that you're leading. So let's do it. You're very kind. Actually, I have a cute story about the ride out here. So I have a hard time sometimes getting my bag up to the way high overhead compartment. And so there's this unusually tall, sort of mighty-looking fellow.

And I said, could you give me a hand you look unusually tall and mighty? And he couldn't have been more gracious. He walked to the other end of the plane, wiggled past everybody. to get on the onboard side, lifted my bag, and I said, thanks, what's your name? And he said, Blake. I said, well, thanks, Blake. And I texted my kids, and I'm like,

do you know an athlete who's unusually tall named Blake? And boom, I got an email right back that, you know, he's not only good athletes, he's a good human being. And it's kind of the entire point of soul boom. And I did a video with Blake Griffin. You did. When I started the digital media company SoulPankake, which was all about uplifting, inspiring digital content for,

young folk. One of the first things I did was interview Blake Griffin in the back of my van. Well, that's a synchronicity because the whole point of soul boom is that lands in my heart is that no matter what are accomplishments, I mean, you are our most adored comedian. I mean, every one of my kids would do anything to be sitting here right now with you. You are our most adored comedian. No matter what art, whether it's entertainment or athletics or business, whatever it is, you know, that is not how we go to the grave whistling our two. is what is our spiritual footprint that we've left on earth. And you're leading a conversation where we can say out loud, you know, what is our real point in life?

Who do we really want to be? Who do we want to be to each other? And how do we do that and how do we do it together? And I love that you're focusing a lot on Gen Z because Gen Z's already kind of making their way, walking the walk of a spiritual life. But they're being given old man's paradigms. They're being given a roadmap that is just, okay. I love you because you're a guest.

I don't even need to ask you questions. Oh, I'm sorry. No, it's great. It's so good. My job is done. You're spitting fire, as I say. This is great. And I'm going to go off of what you just said about Gen Z because I feel like millennials,

by and large, were the ones that are like fooey. I don't want anything to do with religion. It leaves such a sour taste on my mouth. Therefore, I don't want to have anything to do with spirituality. Like I say in the book, we threw the spiritual baby out with the religious bathwater. And that generation just like, no, forget it. They're not necessarily atheists. They have dabble a little bit.

But the Gen Z is kind of like, this is a generation that is exploring everything from the ground up. Like, we're not going to buy, we're not going to buy gender roles. We're not going to buy existing economic systems. We're not going to buy the existing political system with what you tell us how it works. We're going to try and figure this out on our own. And I love that independent spirit, which can get them in trouble. by and large. I think we both have kids in that generation. But I do love this idea that they are a bit more open to kind of some spiritual concepts that are, they're not even spiritual concepts. They're

just meaning of life. It's just being a human being concept. Like, why are we here? And how does death work? And is there such a thing as a meaning in life? And maybe there's different ways that we can get together and serve one another. Absolutely. Gen Z is on fire. Irrepressively committed to a quest. And what I'd like to throw out there that you've already set underway is that is it possible, Gen Z, that you're actually on a spiritual quest? So already, let's look at what you've already done, Gen C, walking the walk of a spiritual path. I don't care what your biobody suit looks like. I want to be your friend. Maybe I'll be your partner or lover. Maybe we'll get married. And I don't care what you're country you're from, right? Love is of the heart. Love is of the spirit. Right. So if you dial back, if you look at the yearbook pictures from your parents, Gen Z, people kind of matched up as if they were, you know, being sorted oranges in one corner and apples in another. They married people who looked like them. They hung out with people who looked like them. You love of the heart and you know right

through to what's real. Wow. You don't sort people, you know, based on our skin, our pocketbook, right? Right. Okay, Gen Z. Yes, if you really, you read, you. You know, Rip a baby calf from her mother both suffer as if you've ripped a baby human from her mother. Gen Z cares about the consciousness in the heart of fellow living beings. It's been Gen Z to push very hard around the rights of our sisters and brothers' animal rights, right? Gen Z crowd sources. If something's wrong, they get together and work on it. If there's a company that is breaking the ethical code by which we can live as a global community,

Gen Z crowdsources and moves money around. So in terms of the walk, Genzi is already living out a spiritual life. But the problem that I invite Genzi to free yourselves from is that you, I'm afraid, have been handed a suitcase, really a heavy suitcase. Let's call it baggage. Okay. And in that baggage are the ideas of people who lived in a world that didn't ride on a one-world mentality, what I might call a unitive reality.

You've been given a baggage of splintered identity. Oh, you know, you're different than me. You look different. Who has more power? Oh, you're different than me. You know, you pray different. You have a different political idea. Who's better?

Who's worse? Right. That is a splintered. I have you. And it's not in the walk of Gen Z. Those are the bad ideas. And they're handed down in academia. And they're handed down very oftentimes in our culture that say, you know, how are we different?

Oh, how are we even more different? How are we even more different from each other? and let's now make a power grab between difference. That is a world of sufferness. And what I say to my students at Columbia is, okay, yeah, you're a point, you're distinct, but you're also part of one great wave, you know, a la physics, you're a point, and you're a wave. You're part of one sea of life, one human family, as you say so beautifully rain and soul boom.

You're part of one family. And that means that power is not the only relationship between us, the bigger, deeper relationship between us that you also emphasize is love. And when we look through the lens of science, we're actually built to be able to love deeply people who superficially look different. We're 98% the same. We're built to be able to love deeply people who think different. We're built to be able to love to the spiritual core.

Yeah. First and foremost in any spiritual journey, soul journey, is the ability to think for oneself and to not think from the point of view of previous generations. And if you look back 100 years, 150 years, let's say, there was no, like, going off to find oneself. Okay, that didn't happen. You were going to marry the girl down the block who looked like you. You were going to go to the church or the synagogue or the mosque down the block

that your parents and your grandparents went to. There was no, like, I'm going to take a summer off or I'm going to take a gap year and go kayaking. and take a meditation class and investigate Buddhism, that wasn't even remotely an option. Now, this really started in the 60s with the counterculture movement, but they still were,

they still had taken the pill, I think. And so what you're saying about Gen Z and in my estimation is like, let's take gender roles and sexual preference. And I think you referenced that briefly. That's what gets all the attention with the Gen Z. like, oh, I identify this way or I'm attracted to this or I'm pansexual or whatever. But that's just one part of Gen Z re-investigating and re-examining all kinds of constructs that they were inherited.

Like you say, baggage. And you take the same thing with capitalism and like, wait, there's a room full of like 50 billionaires that own more than 50% of the world's population. Like, that's not right. and they're not being taxed fairly? Like, that's not right. That's just not right. And I know there's the knee-jerk comments now. Socialist, socialist, you're a communist, you're a socialist.

But it's just not fair. I don't think Jesus would think it was fair. I don't think the Buddha would think it was fair. There is a deep core re-examination of all of this stuff. And hopefully, as well, there are some deeper conversations about just what it means to be a human being and to have human consciousness. So this is very much in the hands of Gen Z, a deeper understanding of consciousness. For most of the 20th century and spilling now into how, for the most part, the brain

and consciousness has talked about, we have the idea that somehow the brain is like a factory. That's a real 20th century metaphor, right? And it's very common to learn in college that the brain makes thoughts, sort of like a factory, makes packages on an assembly line. Okay. But there is evidence, good evidence, and it certainly resonates with lived human experience, that the brain does not only make thoughts like a factory.

The brain actually receives thoughts, more like an antenna. Because we can spontaneously know things. We can have a gut instinct and intuition. We can have a dream that foretells. We can have a certain sense of knowing. And it comes in on different channels for different people. a mystical experience, synchronicity,

when life itself is guiding. And this type of information that's received, not produced, is received through a brain that can detect, not just create thought. This idea is completely comfortable, the brain that receives information to Gen Z, because Gen Z, their whole lives, has pulled information out of the air,

out of the thin air with a cell phone. you know in the 20th century information came along the telephone wire right everything had to be passed tangibly physically from one hand to the next so genzi gets the idea that maybe all information is available in the universe to each and every one of us and if we think about the brain as an antenna then we can start to understand why it is we suddenly you know we're thinking of a friend we haven't seen him or her or them in five years and suddenly we get home and there's a letter from them or they're in our email box or they text us that minute. Why is it that we are in contact with each other,

even when we're physically separated? So certain listeners right now would say, well, that's airy-fairy, nambi-pambi stuff. That's new-agey, crystal-y. Let's give it data. So, yeah, if you've got some data to back that up, but also hand in hand with that, one thing that I'm always astonished by is like,

why is it that I wake up five minutes before I set my alarm every single time. Like, how do I have a brain clock in there? I mean, this isn't just occasionally. It's like, it's 80, 90% of the time, if I set an alarm, even if I have to give up 4.30 in the morning to go to the airport or something like that, 425, I'm like, pink, it's pitch black. Like, look at my clock, my alarm is just about to go off.

What's up with that? But I know that's a little different from what you're talking about. You're on time. You're built to be on time. But so, yeah, so whatever kind of data you can give us to support what you're talking about. So there's a beautiful study, and I cite this in the awakened brain. It was done by a scientist named Actor Hoff. Actor Hoff took a traditional healer, Hawaiian healer, and invited them into one MRI.

And the patient on whom that healer was working was in a separate MRI, separated an entirely different building. as the traditional healer started to do his or her work time and time again the same was the healer thinking about the person and the other MRI or healing themselves ah thank you the healer was focused on healing the patient in the separate in the other okay yes so they were invited in to work on this person who genuinely was in need as the healer started to work in a way that draws on spirit or sacred consciousness, time and time again the same pattern appeared in the fMRI, the movie camera MRI, the charts blood flow, reing within an instant. The same pattern appeared on the MRI tracking the brain of the patient in the way off separate building.

One thing, same consciousness in two different places, two brains sitting in two MRIs. And this was repeated time and time again. It wasn't just one-time fluke. It was over and over. Which means that we can be sharing, you know, Larry Dasi called this one mind. Or some people call it unit of consciousness. But when we turn to the sacred, when we turn to our higher power, spirit, my word is God, whatever our word is, Hashem, Allah, spirit, the universe. And in a sense, direct that loving presence and request that loving presence towards healing another,

We are not pulling the strings like a marionette healing the other guy. We are essentially conduits or messengers. We're the hands serving our highest power. And we can track this through MRI machines, which is tangible material evidence of one healing process at the level of consciousness, landing in and through two brains, each housed in a separate MRI. Amazing.

amazing. Beautiful evidence. And this is the type of study that rocks the world of 20th century science and rocks the world of sort of conventional thinking because in the 20th century, everything was only real if you could touch it like this table, bang, bang. It was really so present this idea of materialism. It's only real if you can touch it, if it can come in through our five senses. But Gen Z is aware that it can be real if it is perceived not through our eyes, our ears, but maybe through other faculties of perception. Yeah. And that's what I call the awakened brain.

We are built to perceive and receive consciousness. Which is so in alignment with the Buddha, who just means the awakened one, right? That's the title of the Buddha. And in every spiritual tradition, there's this idea of an awakened brain. Yes. I guess it's the true meaning of being woke. You know, it's kind of woke on a larger level. It truly includes everybody.

Yeah. As in all humans and all living beings and all creation, awoke to all life. You are a professor of psychology and education of Columbia and a founder of spirituality, mind, body institute. Yes. So it's the first kind of college, serious college graduate program integrating spirituality and psychology. How have, what did the shrinks think of this? Do they think that you're just a loony loon? I mean, because I know I was in therapy once,

and when I would talk about, like, my religious faith or going towards religion, he would always try and, like, steer me away from religion and steer me towards kind of vague spiritualism and even said some things that were really made it clear that he didn't believe in God, which was pretty shitty therapy. But I know that so many even, you know,

even, you know, on the political right, people think of, you know, therapists as being like kind of lefty loons, but actually therapists are often, you know, in the world of science and very materialist kind of secular. How has that community greeted your work? So when I started out in the late 90s in 2000, if I gave a talk on spirituality and mental health, particularly, you know, for instance, in medical schools, people would say, well, what does this have to do with psychology? And yet the strength of the scientific findings were so strong. For instance, when we find our spiritual core, when we make our way through suffering and despair through spiritual deepening, and then really grab hold of that, we are for the rest of our lives protected against subsequent

deep, deep, cataclysmic depressions. At what tune, at the level of 80%? protective. Okay, so in the sciences, if something's 20% protective, we publish the article, we run out and buy the pill, if something's 50% protective, I mean, we religiously take it, we say everybody should, we send it through the after, well, to say that something's 80% protective against depression, and it turns out right, and actually a strong spiritual core is 82% protective against completed suicide, which is the epidemic for Gen Z. It's not cancer or COVID, of course, Gen Z is more likely to die by suicide than certainly by cancer or COVID and even now auto accident. So, you know, the science is so strong. It's so unequivocal. It's so

well published in the top journals that people had to listen because a medical community runs on science. And there's nothing in the sciences as profoundly. But you still don't hear about it. Well, but you're starting to. You're starting to. You're starting to. 20 years later, you're starting to. Well, so that's a very good point, which is, okay, so we have this very strong science and says, if you want to be healthy, then in your moments of despair, that is an invitation to an spiritual exploration. If you want to build resilience and you've been traumatized, it's not just through holding the trauma, it's through post-traumatic growth, and in particular spiritual growth, that the world opens up, and we are freed. So mirroring that is a science that says when we grow through our world.

our struggle, we are not just in, if you would say, recovery, we are deepened and expanded. We are renewed, and we can track it at the level of the brain. So suffering is the knock at the door or spiritual deepening. Suffering is our invitation. Suffering is something I write about in soul boom a lot because for a number of reasons, it's one of the universals that every religious path and spiritual tradition addresses, why do we suffer? Why is there pain in the world? There is a whole idea of like, well, if there is a God, then why would a God make, you know, bone cancer and babies? What a cruel punishing God that innocent people would suffer so horrifically. And these are philosophical questions. You know, they were they were dealt with by, you know, Plato and they were dealt with by the, you know,

the old Jewish prophets and traditions as well, but it is something that I think that Gen Z is not quite in touch with, that as my wife said the other day, feelings are not trauma. You can have feelings. You can have deep feelings, feelings that get you off track in your life and derail you. That's not necessarily trauma,

and they can be a guide for you. Yes. And that suffering itself is, dare I say, important. And it is a key foundational part of the human experience. So suffering is not something to be avoided at all costs. Like, oh, no, I felt some discomfort. Let me get away from that. Oh, I felt some pain.

Let me get away from that. Oh, I feel dysregulated. Let me shut things down. So I do think that part of the spiritual, psychological, philosophical journey, especially in young people in Western civilization, is to have a deeper embrace of the causes of suffering, manifestations of suffering, and how to cope with suffering. Beautiful. And then an easy way to remember this, if I'm 20 and I'm in total pain, is not, why is this happening to me? Why is this happening for me?

so maybe that emotion is actually for me. Maybe that's the key to the door of where I'm going next. So that pain doesn't mean that's not lost time, that's not downtime. It certainly doesn't mean that I'm a loser or that something's wrong with me. It is maybe when you put your finger on a hot stove and ouch, that hurts. Something hurts because there's something real in and through us that is not aligning with your life. and you have a shot now a really good one at realigning your life. This is totally for you.

Wren, could we do a practice that I find is very helpful? Sure, yeah. Okay. If there's something, you know, heavy on my heart, if someone just broke up with me and I was so in love and it's devastating, and if my parents got divorced, it was the last thing I wanted, if I just lost all my money and I feel really low, you know, whatever it is, right, I can take that to what you might call.

your inner counsel. And so let's, may I invite, it's a 90-second practice to share. Can we try? Okay. Okay. Good. Here we go. Good.

I'm going to invite you to, if you wish, it's an invitation. Okay. Close your eyes and clear out your inner space. Mm-hmm. Take seven breaths just to open up. And you're opening up your inner chamber. In your inner space, I invite you to set before you a table. this is your table.

And to your table, you may invite anyone living or deceased who truly has your best interest in mind. Anyone living or deceased who truly has your best interest in mind. And with them all sitting there, 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. And now finally, you may invite your higher power, whatever word is yours, however, you know your higher power and ask if they love you.

And now with all of those people sitting here right now, what do they need to tell you now? What do they need to share? What do you need to know? And when you're ready, I invite you back. This is your counsel and they're always there for you. And you can take them what's on your heart. That's really powerful. That's really beautiful.

And it's so clear that there is so much more love there for us than we kind of recognize on a day-to-day level. You are so loved. Yeah. There's huge reservoir of love for everyone there. And we don't need to know our next move. We can be guided. Yeah. I mean, if I'm stuck, maybe I'm stuck in my anger, maybe I'm stuck that I don't know which, you know, do I want to stay in this relationship? Do I want this job? What is my life about? We can get real guidance from our sacred counsel because they're real. So our mind isn't somehow making up little people and feeding fresh ideas we didn't have before. We are contacting sacred consciousness, our higher power, our deep soul, the deep soul of those who truly love us. The love is in us through us and around us. It's everywhere. And I love that idea of bringing our wisest self to the conversation as well, because I think we all have that. We all have our infant self. Like, I want that right now. And we have our teenage self that's like, fuck you. And we, you know, we have our, like, addict self of like, I need more. And I am, and I am afraid. And we have our anxious self. You know, these are all kind of seated at the banquet table, right?

What is it, Gestalt therapy kind of deals with this? I remember doing a thing in a workshop once where there was chair. It was chair work, so you imagine someone in a chair. And you're bringing your issue to your wisest self. And you bring it, you spill the beans. And then you go sit in the chair as your wisest self and give feedback. And it's such an easy and accessible way. that we that is always there for all of us.

It doesn't matter who you are, how old you are, whatever. We have our own wise counsel kind of within us, too. That's there when we need it. The kingdom is within, and that includes our wise self. I totally agree with you. Yeah. So that means that we're never alone. Mm-hmm.

And I think there's such suffering right now because people feel incredibly alone. Yeah, the loneliness epidemic. loneliness and someone can be sitting right next to you in the coffee shop or you know i i teach in a university you could have a lecture hall with 200 students and if you grab any single person there's a 50% chance they'll say yes i feel totally alone yeah but there's a hundred and ninety nine people sitting next to you and still i feel totally alone so that is an ailment of perception and we can open up and look more deeply into the spiritual nature of our lives there are

are 199 souls. Half of them also feel alone. And a bitch ain't one of them. Jay-Z. Long story. I'll explain later. Yes. So the point is that when we do things like counsel, it can be, that's one practice in the language of life. So I share with you the council practice. The council practice is a direct opening of our awakened brain. But it can be through meditation of any deep tradition. It can be through prayer. It can be through a spiritual mind-body experience, that we awaken to the transcendent reality. And when we do, we start to see that we're actually built to be in a dialogue with the deeper nature of life. We're not built to have to be out there on our own. You know, the best treatment

for addictions, AA, and the two principles are that we hand it over to our higher power. Well, we're actually built from day one to hand it over. We don't need to wait until we suffer with addiction. We build, it's our birthright to live in a dialogue with our higher power. And the second healing axiom of AA is radical love and acceptance for each other, which is to see the sacred and the higher power in one another. Both are forms of relational spirituality. Both are forms of radical love that were loved and held and were guided. We're never allowed.

And it takes us out of our egoic selves. Yes. Which is, it's a choice. the egoic self exists and it looks into an egoic world which exists and the awakened self exists and it looks into a whole landscape of transcendent reality that exists. So we can go in or out of the wormhole at any moment from an atomistic separate suffering, tragically obsessively competitive, selfish way of being into a selfish, tragically competitive world or we can choose to move prayer, meditation, choice, walk in nature and a way.

into the equally real and far more fulfilling and miraculous sacred world that's right here in this, for us and around us, right here. Right. Your choice. What would you prefer? Well, how do we let young folk who are suffering in the mental health epidemic that's just such a scourge right now? Yes.

How do we let them know that there are these choices that they have? Because when someone is isolated, lonely, filled with them. anxiety, depression, maybe even suicidal ideation. They don't feel like they have any choice. They feel really stuck. Yeah. So just to be clear, you know, I'm not some pontificating professor that was never there. I was 19. I had a terrible depression at 19. And in the awakened brain, I share subsequent depression. So I do know depression. And it's horrible. I mean, I can share it when I was 19. I'll tell you the story. I was, well, it started on a happy note. So I fell in love for the very, very first time. And he was perfect. I mean, he was the most handsome guy I'd ever seen.

And he thought I was so interesting. And I thought he was so interesting. And we talked about the meaning of life. And he said, you know, for the first time, I think I will, I'll say it. I love you. I love me. I love you. And that was after three months and we were in love. And then after five months, he broke up with me. And I thought, well, you said you loved me. He's like, I did. I'm like, but you just broke up with me. He's like, I don't love you anymore. I'm like, well, how could you stop loving me? I mean, my mother has always loved me, and she still loves me.

And my grandparents have always loved me and my sibling. They still love me. I'd never have someone stop loving me. And it was shocking to me. It kind of rocked my world. And I thought, well, wait a minute, if you used to love me and now you don't love me, is love real? And wait a minute, if you used to love me and now you don't love me, are you real? Can we count on each other? Or do people just totally think on each other? Do people just

back out? And I started thinking about the nature of, you know, the human condition and the nature of life itself. And I started thinking, wait a minute, I'd always felt close to my power power, who I call God. Is God real? And what's real? And this is a quest. So the doubt of love kind of seeped kind of through every possible relationship. And even like why are we here? Why are we alive? If love isn't as kind of steady as you once thought of it. And right, in this moment of not knowing what was real,

I couldn't stop thinking about it. Which if you think about it makes sense. Because if you don't know if love's real, and if you really don't know if life has meaning, what else would you want to think about? And if we really take seriously this moment of profound, sincere, authentic quest, it should be totally consuming. And what I now know these years later is that we're actually hardwired, we have to go through that process in order to have a meaningful life. What process, exactly?

We have to hit a moment of deep existential wondering, like, what is real and what is my life about? And I don't mean, am I going to be a doctor, actor, teacher, lawyer? I mean, why am I here? But isn't part of the problem right now that there are so many distractions. We have these micro computers in our pockets that can entertain us and we can buy things instantly on Amazon and we can play Candy Crush and we can look at you porn and, you know, social media. We can use that to medicate the existential bottom that we kind of all need to hit. especially in our young adulthood. So I think you have a lot of 24-year-olds who are allaying and delaying their kind of sink

into existential dread of like, holy shit, what is the meaning of my fucking life? Because they're just busy doing this all day long and it just keeps that at bay. If we were to try to be helpful, having walked that path to someone 24 and feeling this sort of haunting sense of what is it about, you know, and what am I about? And does my life really have any value? Does any of this matter? That's not profound. It will be there.

It's not against you. It's for you. But it will be there until you address it. And you can ignore it and Medicaid and whether it's drugs, alcohol, pornography, whatever it is, avoid. You can do it for one year. You can do it for 10 years. I know people in their 50s and 60s who've avoided these questions for decades.

Yeah. But it's there. until you look at it. And it's never against you. It's uncomfortable. But it's actually this pull, this draw, this unavoidable grab to say, hey, what is the meaning in your life? And if you just say yes to that, okay, I'll be a little curious.

I'll look around. You notice that there's a lot of teachers and healers on the road who will come up by your side and help you. It could be a therapist who is a spiritually grounded therapist. It could be a deeply devoted, it could be someone, a pastor, priest, a mon rabbi in your faith tradition, or a fellow faith tradition. As you walk the road of life, the notion of Dharma, as you share, is you can learn from Catholicism and Hinduism and all different, like the beautiful, a high faith. You can find teachers when you're open, and they start showing up when you are curious. The other piece of addressing this longing is that, you know, there is this love that's wrong.

right there beside you. It's just right there. I call it God. You could call it the universe reaching out to you. You could say it's the guy on the bus who when you really look miserable says, hey, how you doing, buddy? You know, people show up. People show up for you. And when you start to notice that you're not alone in this world, it's not a dead stage on which you're the only actor. This is a living universe. And people are showing up for you all the time, all the time. So counsel, which we shared, opens up our dialogue with God and our higher power, and those our grandparents, our true friends who truly have our best interest in mind. And we start to realize that we're actually built to be in this sustained partnership

with God or a loving universe. We are not just alone. We're an open system that's constantly loved. And what do you say to people that, because so many people struggle with that word, And not only the word, but the concept itself. How do you address God and higher power? And before you answer, and I want to hear that, everyone has a higher power. Whether you like it or not, whether you think it or not, individually and collectively, that can be your career.

It can be your boss. It can be your spouse. it can be your family, it can be achievement, it can be money, it can be popularity, you know, individually and collectively, we always have, we are wired to have a higher power. There's no one that doesn't have some kind of higher power. So it's just a matter of like, which higher power are we going to choose to be in communion with and be in dialogue with. So where I would say that is a counter, I do not hold them all equally, as you're suggesting as well, right?

Yeah. So what is a higher power that is inherently loving, guiding, and life-giving versus one that I would call, well, counterfeit? Oh, yeah, yeah, good word. Maybe even a golden calf, right? And I think that the way we are built, we can say this through science, is to be in connection with a loving, higher power that is inherently loving, inherently holding, never leaves us alone and is guiding. That is not just something bigger than ourself. Bigger than ourself can be a totalitarian government. Bigger than ourselves could be a terrorist organization. Bigger than ourselves could be a cult.

This is inherently loving, guiding, and never leaves us alone. And that we are wired to perceive. We are literally built. You know, we have circuits in our brain, loved in health. we have a bonding network, guided. There's a shift in our attention network from an obsessive tunnel dorsal to a big lights on ventral attention system, loved and guided. Never alone.

We have a parietal that puts in and that hard... What about people listening right now are like, yeah, that's great. Thanks, Deepak Chopra. That's all Namby, Pambi. Show me the data. Show me the science. I don't believe in God.

I struggle with this idea of God. My parents tried to force this concept of God. down on me. But that was very telling. My parents tried to force this on me. So the invitation is to truly liberate your soul by making your own choice. Act, don't react. And if someone handed you an image or a name of a higher power that doesn't sit for you,

you can say, thank you for the gift. That's your language. That's your walk. I'm going to put that right here on the shelf. and I'm going to think about what my vision is, my deep intuitive understanding of a higher power. So where I see a lot of people, there's two ways that people get really annoyed with borrowed ideas.

The first is when it's forced on them and it just doesn't hold their lived experience. So, you know, my parents always told me that God was punitive. You know, my clergyman always told me that God looked like this man. And because the messenger said it sounds this way, it looks this way, you've got to use this word, they indeed throw the sacred higher power relationship out the window with the borrowed, you know, language or images. But you don't need to borrow those images.

You have your own birthright. You just held counsel. You invite the higher power in a way that you perceive and a name that you want. But someone might say, well, why do we even need one? Okay. Well, good question. Be curious, what's the nature of reality that you're living? How do you see reality really unfold?

Do you think that at the center of reality are humans? Do you have an anthropocentric view that the human is in the middle of our reality and we really make things go and make these happen? Oh, can we do another practice? Okay. Okay. To bring that to the table. Do humans make everything happen?

Or is there a force with whom we're in dialogue? that is at least co-creating, if not highly creating possibility. The question's on the table. You're asking me? I'm opening the question. Yeah. And shall we do a practice to explore this? Okay.

I'm going to invite you to close your eyes. Does it involve taking my shirt off? Not yet. Okay. Seven breaths. I invite you to locate a time where you wanted something so badly. I mean, that red door you wanted it. It was him heard them to say yes.

It was that job, that audition, that promotion, that internship, that school. You wanted that so badly and you did everything right to earn it. A plus B plus C. You researched it. You strategized. That red door was yours. And because you've done everything right, A plus B plus C, you go up to that red door. You grab the handle.

But the red door is stuck. And you can't believe it's stuck because you've done A plus B plus C. You kick the red door. It doesn't move. You're angry. In time, maybe even depressed. But only because that red door is stuck, you have no choice. You shift 40.

You shift 120 degrees. And over there, over there is a wide open, bright yellow door. You might have said you'd not heard of yellow doors. Yellow doors don't exist. You walk through the yellow door, and on the other side is someone more right for you, is a job that makes you feel alive, is a mentor who sees you beyond what you knew for yourself.

That yellow door was not what you had wanted. It was better than what you'd wanted and better for you. And so as you sit back a bit now and you think of that stuck red door and the hairpin turn leading you to the wide open yellow door. Was there anyone there at that hairpin turn who pointed the way, maybe gave you information, a counselor, a grandparent, given someone you met for two minutes at a coffee shop, someone who told you a story of their own life, pointing you to, to the yellow door.

They were a trail angel, a messenger. And as you sit back even farther, stuck red door, hairpin turned trail angel and wide open yellow door, how is it that the most important parts of our lives are found? Is it narrowly through planning and strategy? Sure, we need to be strategic and sure we need to do our work.

But is it narrowly through planning and strategy? Or are there times where on the road, of life, we are in dialogue with a guiding world, is it possible that there are times where we are an open system in a relationship with a guiding universe? And now finally sit way back, stuck red door, hairpin turned, trail angel, wide open yellow door, where in your road of life is your higher power? Is your higher power in the wide of open yellow door and the stuck red door. Is your higher power in the trail angel and your openness to be in dialogue with the great

presence in us, through us, and around us? Is it possible that you have been on a spiritual path all along? And when you're ready, I invite you back. That's great. Can I tell you what came up for me? Please. So I was struggling actor in Los Angeles. Angeles around 2002 2003 and I met these wonderful casting agents that kind of took a shine

to me and they were trying to find work for me and they had cast me in a couple of little things here and there and they were casting this new show called six feet under that was on HBO and they kept bringing me in for three line parts and five line parts and seven line parts little guest spots little co-stars um you know a dead body here or a guy here or a choir member here or whatever and i kept going in and reading for you know these little parts and kept not getting cast it was like damn i would love to be on this show i love the show i just wanted to be a part of it you know it's a show about death it literally is a show it's right at my alley it's like what do we learn about life from being in a daily contemplation

of our mortality and mortality itself and and three four five times i didn't get parts on it and i remember calling my agent like i can't believe it i'm not getting cast or like don't worry so i went and auditioned for one of these little roles again and uh looked on the sheet on the table about like we're holding auditions for this new character named Arthur Martin and he's an odd mortician intern and has a unique way of kind of seeing the world he's kind of like a Peter Sellers and being there kind of character and I was like oh the heavenly angels went oh when the casting agent came out I was like hey can I can I read for that one she's like yeah sure you can read it and here's a

here's the sides and I had the lines and I was like oh I just know exactly how to play this like there's not even like it was just one of those things like I know exactly this character I got the role was 13 episodes a really meaty interesting role that opened the yellow door for me to go on into the office because the producers of the office had seen me in that and changed the course of my entire life, that I didn't get cast as a gay choir member or a dead body or a traveling salesman in a smaller part earlier on, which was my equivalent of the red door. People watching might say, well, isn't that just coincidence? How would you answer? What does your own deep inner wisdom say? well this is something that i've been pondering a lot um the comedian neal nil brennan calls

being in your 50s sniper's alley because people start to die like i just in i got into my 50s and all of a sudden people started to die friends got cancer parents died pew pew pew Bew, Sniper's Alley, people die in right and left. It's pretty difficult to navigate. And I was thinking a lot about, like, we live in our teens and our 20s and even our early 30s, and everything is just chaotic and seemingly random. It's like a Pachinko balls going down a Pachinko machine.

But then when you get older, when you're in Sniper's Alley, you look back and you're like holy shit all that thing all that stuff fell into place for a really good reason and it it had to happen that way in order for that to happen in order for that to happen so is that a construct of our own minds looking back you know um we just making kind of sense out of chaos because can anyone just kind of do that does my you know my own kind of wisdom guide and inside me says no says like this is we're all on you know we're on a spiritual journey in our lives we're we are living in fleshy soul growing machines and we get good 90 years uh around in like you said our biosuits and then the journey continues but there are lessons that we need to learn

and there's experiences that we need to have and there's obstacles that we need to come up against So that deep inner wisdom, that wisdom guy inside is a knower. It's a form of knowing. Yes, we have logic and empiricism when we use them. And we have deep inner, what I call direct knowing, intuition, a gut instinct, a mystical experience, a transcendent experience. These are all real forms of knowing. We are built to perceive in all of these forms of knowing.

And when we actually welcome all forms of knowing, intuition, mysticism alongside logic within empiricism, we are indeed on our quest. We can ask a question, what is my purpose? Why did I not get that job? Why did I not get that role? And receive an answer through synchronicity, far too unprobabilistic to have happened by chance for the scientist. What were the chances that that perfect role was sitting there in front of you that day? Right? you had to have not been off doing a different role, as you say.

And if you just can't control the variables a human being at a level at which would be necessary for a synchronicity to actually happen. That knowing is real. That is profound. And it is actually our most surefire form of knowing that opens yellow doors. And yes, yellow doors are more exciting and more adventurous, but they're also our souls code, that are souls path. there are deepest purpose, our being a soul on earth and a biobody suit. So it is great to be accomplished. It is great to get all good stuff.

And it's even greater to be living your soul's path, which you are. So, okay, say I'm 20 and I don't know my soul's path, right? If I'm just curious, if I pay attention, if I look at synchronous cities, if I listen to the teacher on the bus and the teacher in the classroom and the teacher and my best friend and the teacher within. And I just am open. And I sort of treat life as a quest. I don't need to have the answers.

And in fact, there may not be answers in the next five years, 10 years, or 50 years. I don't need to have the answers to resolutely commit to being in a firm, sure stance of quest, open and curious, using all forms of knowing. Yeah. This opportunity, just like, what we just shared in the road of life practice,

pretty soon starts to unveil an entire life that's basically a living prayer, that's basically a living meditation, where we are trail angels and messengers for one another. They show up for us and we show up for them. And I would say that for folks that are skeptical of trail angels, or guides, or even higher power or gods, you know, in my meditation practice,

what I've realized over the years is what I'm seeking is alignment. And I'm seeking an alignment with kind of the universe itself. And you can even just say nature that when you're on a sailboat, you know, you can feel when you're trying to get against the wind. I want to get over there and the wind is not letting you. But you tack, you know, and you go back and forth. and you use the wind and the guidance and the inspiration that it gives you to move toward your goal. And I feel that in life, you know, and I feel like that can be a way in for folks who don't want to say there's any kind of like beingness creatures with superpowers that might be guiding us or whispering to us or blowing us.

but that we all know what it's like when you're living your life and things just feel like they're going in the right direction and flow there's there is a flow and you know meditation communion um contemplation are tools that one can use to kind of heighten that awareness you know so our sales become more sensitive to the breezes that's a beautiful way i put it it really was good night everybody thanks so much thanks for tuning in This has been soul boom, Dr. Lisa Miller. And hold on a second. And it's true.

And we're wired for it. And it's true, again, whether I am Catholic, Hindu, Christian, spiritual, but not religious, I say Mount Rainier is my cathedral. No matter what our tradition or if we're spiritual and not religious, we use the same neurodocking station to assess that alignment with force. You can call it force or source. We know we are built. And how do we cultivate that through prayer, meditation, through love. listening to the hard data of our heart. Our heart knows.

Hey, everyone. Sorry to interrupt the podcast. It is the next day. I came back into the studio. There's something that I needed to say right here, right now. I never normally do this. In the middle of our conversation, Dr. Lisa Miller looks at me and says,

your spiritual center might be Mount Rainier. Then she goes on and on. You couldn't see it on camera, but inside my jaw dropped. This was incredible that she said Mount Rainier, but I didn't say anything in the moment. I called her after the interview. I'm like, Dr. Lisa Miller,

why did you say your spiritual center might be Mount Rainier? Did you ever hear me mention this? Did you ever hear me talk about Mount Rainier? And she's like, no, I just had that intuition. She had that intuition while talking about intuitions that we have, about gut checks and trail angels and guides and intuitions that we have on our journey, our brain as a radio, as a receptor. And here's the weird thing.

Six weeks ago, I am doing hypnotherapy. Don't judge. It's not very woo-woo. It's really been around for a very long time. It's simply a very deep guided meditation. And in this meditation, I had a vision of. of Mount Rainier, of me on Mount Rainier, six weeks ago where I'm sitting on the mountain,

it's kind of like a throne behind me, and there's a clearing in the trees, and I'm looking out over Puget Sound and Seattle, where I grew up, and I had this kind of like deep visceral connection to the mountain. I didn't think of it necessarily as my spiritual center, but it was pretty astonishing. So when she said Mount Rainier might be your spiritual center,

I had a little mini brain explosion. So I think maybe this just kind of proves her point. Let's continue with the conversation. Well, speaking of hard data of the heart. Hard data of the heart. Do you have any more data to back up what you're talking about? Yes. For some reason, I'm thinking about the skeptics.

Good. We love skeptics. I'm thinking about the people are rolling their eyes like, come on, airy, fairy, give me a break. Yes. So I can share two types of data. The first, I can share peer review published data, which I will, and I want to invite people into the hard data of their inner wisdom,

the hard data of their heart. Is there a time where you have had a gut instinct and you listened to it? And it opened up into something that you didn't even know was there. That is our receptive knowing. That is the catch and the catchers. of God or spirit. That has come with me, says the universe. And you're just feeling your gut and your heart.

Someone could easily just argue that that's, you know, we have neurons and receptors and we have experiences and brain is connected to the gut biologically. That's been determined. So that gut thing of like, oh, maybe go over there instead of maybe go over there and then led to a good opportunity is just our, it's just our neural. wisdom pathway network, there doesn't need to be any kind of force outside of it. Except that it has information that we don't have yet. So, you know, when I make a decision based on, you know, the times in my life from the past

or the things I always thought I wanted, you're the red door, I'm only using backward-looking information. It could have been from my own life. It could have been from things other people told me borrowed historic information, borrowed outdated information. But the yellow door leads to somewhere that we don't even know yet. The yellow drawer has high pixel information that's yet to unfold before us. So that gut knowing, that hard date of heart, is infinitely expansive.

That is our first choice life. That is our inspired path. And it's so much more than just like, oh, because I think a lot of people think, well, spirituality can help mental health because it makes you calm and it makes you less anxious. And there's certainly at a surface level. you pray and meditate or ponder the beauty of nature. Your cortisol goes down. Your dopamine goes up.

You breathe more. You become more in the present moment and your anxiety is reduced. But that's kind of where a lot of people kind of draw the line. Like that's the good of spirituality is it's a tool that I'm going to use to reduce my anxiety.

For a lot of people, that's what it's for. Spirituality is like a yoga class. I feel better after I go there for an hour and 15 minutes. but what you're exploring is a hell a lot deeper than that. And it's completely mirroring the mission that you're bringing forward for us in Soul Boom, which is that both in our own path, when we open up and connect with force or source,

who I call God the universe, and in our collective path when we do this, we are rebooting society. We are rebooting our lives. It's an entirely different way of being. Maybe the brain receives consciousness. Maybe we as a humanity receive sacred love and spirit. And that we can help each other along.

When people are prayed for, they're more likely to heal. We can be a whole lot more to one another. When we realize all that we really are is spiritual beings. Young people on campuses are very hungry. for spiritual awakening. And do you know it's interesting? So often, there's work on campuses very well-intentioned that focuses on who am I

at a very sort of superficial level of identity. And it ends up making people feel even more depressed and cut off from their spiritual heart. Yeah, I think that's a really, really good point. I think that's a really important point right there. And so what we've been trying to support students on campuses to do is to answer the call of this hunger, this insatiable hunger.

Let's think about identity, right? So we have a gender identity. We have like a cultural identity. I am American. I am white. I am male. I am, you think about sexual preference identity, right?

And how we define ourselves. And the list goes on and on. And you can subdivide add infinitum. But seven billion of us are spiritual beings, walking a human path, there's a much greater identity and a deeper identity than ones that might be on a surface, more surface level. Now, I don't want to discount the idea that racial identity has a great deal of baggage and history and, you know, difficulty and hard reality to it, and it needs to be honored, but can we all collectively dig deeper as well? Because we are a point

and we are a wave. So we are magnificently diverse in different races and different orientations and different GPS coordinates and we are part of one human family. Seven billion souls on Earth. Seven billion waves on one ocean,

of one ocean. Beautiful, seven billion waves on one ocean. Can there be an embrace that we are at once seven billion souls on Earth and magnificently diverse? Can we say, you know, in my journey as a Jewish, Catholic, Hindu, black, white, Asian man, wherever I am, I want to know you, even if you land in a tiny little different cube.

Dr. Lisa Miller, Ph.D. Is there a way people can find you online somehow? Are you on any of the socials? Instagram. DR. Lisa Miller. DR. Lisa Miller on Instagram.

Oh, beautiful. Great. And check out the awakened brain. I love everything about you. I love everything about you. I love everything that you said. It's so needed. And I hope folks will check out your work.

Thank you for coming by the Soul Boom Studios. Amazing to hang out with you. You are beautiful Soul. And thank you for what you're doing for our world. My pleasure. And thank you. The Soul Boom Podcast. Subscribe now on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts,

and wherever else you get your stupid podcasts.