This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - How Is Your Spiritual Health? with Dr. Lisa Miller | 287

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

Spiritual health isn’t about following a specific religion, meditating on a mountaintop, or taking the sacrament (unless you want to do those things). It’s about something deeper—our connection to something greater than ourselves, our capacity for faith, and the hope that carries us through life’s challenges. Dr. Lisa Miller is a New York Times bestselling author of The Spiritual Child and The Awakened Brain. She’s a professor in the Clinical Psychology Program at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the founder of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute—the first Ivy League graduate program dedicated to the study of spirituality and psychology. Her groundbreaking research has been published in over 100 peer-reviewed articles, and she’s a sought-after speaker, working with the U.S. military, Fortune 500 companies, schools, and healthcare organizations to integrate spirituality into mental health and leadership. Spirituality isn’t just a belief system—it’s a proven driver of resilience, purpose, and well-being. In this episode, we dive into: ✔️ How spiritual health impacts mental resilience and emotional well-being ✔️ The neuroscience behind spirituality and how it physically changes the brain ✔️ Why faith—whether in God, the universe, or your inner wisdom—makes you stronger ✔️ Practical ways to nurture your spiritual health (without needing a formal practice) Because here’s the truth: Whatever created you, lives within you—and that alone makes you inherently valuable, worthy, and powerful. Connect with Dr. Lisa Miller:  Website: https://www.lisamillerphd.com/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/dr.lisamillerlis Related Podcast Episodes: Abundance: Secrets to Prosperity and Ease with Cathy Heller | 260 How To Breathe: Breathwork, Intuition and Flow State with Francesca Sipma | 267 The Power of Conscious Connection with Talia Fox | 263 Share the Love: If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! 🔗 Subscribe & Review: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

I'm Nicole Kalil and on this episode of This Is Woman's Work, we're going to dive into the topic of health, but not the version you're likely bombarded with every time you open your phone. Listen, I know that saying something will eliminate belly fat or give you skin that glows is the clickbait that gets our attention, but I am tired of all the messaging being focused on looking healthy and I care way more about what it takes for us to actually be and become healthy.

We live in a time where health is everywhere, on our feeds, in our faces, and tracked by devices we wear on our fingers and our wrists. And yet I'm not convinced that we're all that much healthier. We count macros, lift weights, dry brush, and do cold plunges, and then we mainline stress and coffee while we stay at jobs and in relationships that drain our energy and our souls. We want more stuff faster.

We're somehow more connected and yet feel more alone. And we manage to ignore red flags along with every warning sign our bodies send us. Physical health is everywhere we look, and with a new conflicting opinion every day and the latest fad telling you that the last fad was killing you. Mental health is a hot topic. Everyone agrees that we need it, but at least in the US, it feels like we'd rather talk about it than do anything about it.

And we're fresh out of ideas after doing almost nothing at all. Of course, there is also emotional health, financial health, environmental health, social health, and today's topic, spiritual health. A topic we've never covered on the show before and one I'm excited to learn more about. Because in my experience, we have a tendency

to gravitate towards one version of health, the one that's the most interesting, exciting, or let's be honest, the one that's easiest for us. And listen, that makes sense. We're humans, we like wins, we like progress, we like comfort, but it does make me wonder, what if we aim to be just a little healthier across the board instead of

wildly healthy in one area while mostly neglecting the others? Because we know and follow people with perfect skin and bodies who can't seem to manage a single healthy relationship. I've also met brilliance emotionally aware people who forget their bodies exist until something lands them in the hospital. And our guest may vehemently disagree with the statement I'm about to make, and let's be clear, she's the expert. But when I think of spiritual health, I'm not necessarily talking about religion. Yes, religion is, for many, a beautiful and viable way to be spiritually healthy. But also, there are people who are wildly unhealthy spiritually and morally who hide

behind and distort religion to the point where it's repelling. And there are also people who prioritize their spiritual health who don't subscribe to any specific religion at all. As always, when redefining what it means to be doing woman's work for yourself, you are the decider. And I'd argue that exploring our spirituality, our connection with something greater than ourselves, our faith and our hope is beneficial for all of us, myself included. So let's dive in.

Dr. Lisa Miller is a New York Times bestselling author of The Spiritual Child and her newest book The Awakened Brain and is a professor in the clinical psychology program at Teachers College Columbia University. the awakened brain and is a professor in the clinical psychology program at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is the founder and director of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute, the first Ivy League graduate program and research institute in spirituality and psychology. Dr. Miller has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and speaks and consults on this topic everywhere from the U.S. military to businesses to schools and beyond. So, Dr. Miller, welcome to the show. And I'd love to start with a question for those who are skeptical or maybe just unfamiliar

with the idea. What is spiritual health? Nicole, you've said this so beautifully. We welcome the skeptic. We welcome the skeptic. We welcome the devout. We welcome all people into this real curiosity, this discovery. So everybody's welcome. Spirituality and religion, are they the same?

Are they different? Well, you said it upfront perfectly and beautifully. There are deeply spiritual people who are not religious, and there are deeply spiritual people who are not religious and there are deeply spiritual people who are religious. Spirituality exists in every single one of us whether or not we are religious. Now as a scientist, how do we know that? How do we know that? We can look through the lens of a twin study and determine whether any human capacity is inborn versus environmentally formed. Our height, our weight, our temperament. Temperament. Temperament is half inborn, whether we're introverted or extroverted,

whether we're tightly wound or laid back, half innate, half environmentally formed. IQ. You know, Nicole, you're very bright. You were born bright. IQ is 60% innate, 40% environmentally formed. The capacity for spiritual life, that means it is born in every single one of us, but it is two thirds cultivated by our environment. So while we are all natural spiritual beings, the extent to which we cultivate a healthy, strong, vibrant spiritual life is up to us. Now this is

true of every human being on earth. It is exceptionally true of women. Men and women are all spiritual, but for women we are built for this to be our lead foot. Again, whether or not we're religious. Religion, the texts, the ceremonies, our community. Religion is a gift of the environment. It is 100% environmentally transmitted. Texts, ceremony, community, these are gifts of the environment. Spirituality and religion go hand in hand

for about two thirds of people in the United States and about 70% globally People will say my deep spiritual life is held in my faith tradition the prayers The language of who the higher power is the ideas of how we treat each other from a spiritual perspective These are held in my tradition the sacred sacred texts, my understanding for my grandma. But whether or not we're religious, we are all spiritual beings. Now what is it to be a spiritual being? What does it mean that we're inborn spiritual beings? Science has really nailed it on two dimensions of lived spirituality. It is simply fact that every one of us, number one, is born with the capacity to be in a

deep lived transcendent relationship. Whether our word is God or the universe or Jesus or I feel touched by source, whatever our language is, Hashem, Allah, it doesn't matter. There is one human porthole for transcendent connection and we all have it. And we have even gone into the brain and tracked the circuits in every human being's brain through which we can feel and know this transcendent relationship through which we're loved and held. We're guided. We're guided and we are never alone. This system is an open system. we are never alone. This system is an open system.

Women are even better at this innate capacity to receive and perceive transcendent connection. The second dimension of lived spiritual life that is built into every one of us is that just as we are designed, hardwired, to know a higher power, the deeper source of life, we are built to feel that love towards one another, who we really are, like rays of the sun as coming from source. This means that who we are to one another is not an accident,

and every woman knows that. This means that who we are to one another comes with a moral imperative. We can't trash people and harm people with impunity. As women take leadership positions, our strongest stake in the ground is our capacity to feel and know spiritual truth. This is what we bring to the table. Okay, so this is fascinating. Especially, I love the coming from the scientific angle,

because so often when we talk about spirituality and religion, what it feels like is we're talking about belief, right? And each individual may have a different version of that belief. And while I love the idea that any one of us may have happened to have been born into the environment or the church or the synagogue or whatever it might be,

that is the right and best belief, the reality is I think we talk about it all as a personal experience that we're trying to put on other people, share with other people, expose other people to. And what I'm hearing from what you're saying is we may call it something different, but we might actually be communicating a lot about the same experiences or the same things in different,

with some variation in our personal experience. I'm thinking out loud and I'm not sure if I'm saying it all very well, but what I'm trying to get to is this feeling that there's more that connects us in our spirituality than separates us. Thoughts or reactions on any of that? Absolutely, absolutely.

So how we understand ultimate reality is actually when it comes to the brain very downstream from the initial catch in the catcher's mitt, we receive inspiration, we receive source in the same way. We looked at living breathing, fMRI, blood flow, functional MRI in people of all different traditions, again, Catholic, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, spiritual, but not religious. And no matter how they tell the story of their spiritual life, their words, their symbols, their narratives, they're receiving through the same portal, the same neurocircuits run all of our stories.

We are loved and held by source. Everyone knows that, everyone feels that. We don't fall through an abyss in hard times. We don't randomly disappear. We're held. That is the bonding network. Same bonding network as when we were loved and held as children. We are guided, right? We can say, oh, I want this and I want that. What did I say? And what did I, we can have illusions of total radical control. But the bottom line is that when big decisions are there, women know this, we are guided. We listen as women to intuition, a gut instinct,

a mystical experience, knowing in our prayer life or in our meditation. Women are exceptionally good at this. This is real data. This is actual guidance. This is actual guidance. This is valid knowing. And it runs in the brain through our awakened circuits. We are guided.

There's a shift from the dorsal to the eventual attention network. We can see synchronicity and we know that's hard data. The parietal puts in and out hard boundaries and we can feel that we're very unique and beautifully diverse, and at different GPS coordinates, different blocks of the city.

And we are part of this deeper unity of life, like rays from the sun. We're a human family, the guy who comes around the street. Hello, he's meant to see you, and you're meant to see him. Women already know this. Women are awakened. For women, the question isn't if I'm spiritual, because everyone is built spiritual, and women are particularly endowed and gifted with awakened awareness. Women are blessed,

strengthened by awakened awareness. But for women, we need to own our awakened awareness. We need to put a stake in the ground and own our spiritual clarity because this is the seat of our greatest strength. This is from where we need to lead. Can you give us some examples of how we might do that? Sure. So when we use our spiritual voice as women, we give other people permission to do the same. When we say very clearly and with true certainty, I have this deep sense in my inner wisdom. You know, as synchronicity is right before me, I would be foolish to throw it away when it could inform our decision making. When we say from our clear and strong spiritual voice what we know as women through our awakened brain,

others feel permission to do the same and we make better decisions. The first thing we need to do as women is own our spiritual awareness to when we have a hunch, when we have an intuition, when something comes to us in a dream or there's a glaring synchronicity. Women know that's real, own it, that is real. Yes, I am being given

tremendous information. I'm going to pay attention, reflect on it, wonder what it's showing me now, and then act on it. Synchronicity is solid information. Ask a hundred women, who has ever made a decision out of your deep awakened awareness, intuition, a mystical experience, a synchronicity. At least 98 women of a hundred will raise their hand. Women count on awakened knowing, then say to that same group of 100 wonderful women, knowing, then say to that same group of 100 wonderful women who was ever misguided by awakened knowing, bam, all the hands go down. Not one person in the room will have been misguided. Women know that awakened knowing is real and women act on it.

Point two, what's our job as women? To really lead and renew our society is to use our awakened voice and explain to people how to make a choice out of synchronicity, how to listen in your prayer life or your meditation life, how to honor one another when we speak that way and bring it out in one another and count on one another

to know that we will respect them and treat them with dignity in a boardroom, in a classroom, in a public meeting when they use their spiritual voice. The bottom line is that feminism has had three waves. The first is we got good jobs as women. The second is that we were able to make choices about how we wanted to live. The third wave of feminism right now is to exercise and strengthen and bring out loud our spiritual voice. Because as women, we will be the ones to renew society. The answers to our new transitional, multin, you know, re-evolving society are going to come from information that's yet to unfold before us.

And that is only received through our awakened awareness. Okay, I love what you're saying so much. I love this idea of this third wave of feminism. And I guess, what would you say? Because I agree, I don't know if I know a woman who hasn't had that experience of, I'm just gonna call it, inner knowing, or feeling guided or held.

And yet, I think we've become more and more separated from that feeling or that experience in our day-to-day lives, whether it be, you know, busyness or mental health challenges or being exhausted and overwhelmed, for those of us who want to deepen our spirituality and focus on our spiritual health, how do we begin to do that

in the face of all the other crap? So, Nicole, women are 50% more likely than men to be depressed, starting an analysis. But when women strengthen and realize our natural spiritual awareness, that goes away and women are not more likely to become depressed. Why? Because when things go wrong, there is a spiritual response to loss, betrayal, disappointment, depression. Women must cultivate the spiritual core because it is literally the antidote to depression.

Women must strengthen the spiritual core because it is the compass, the roadmap, it is the path for women. So all of the suffering that we see now in our culture is because we have let lay atrophy the spiritual core. We have never had as elevated rates of despair and depression and addiction in women, in our kids. This is simply an epidemic. What is the answer? We have the antidote.

Science is clear in epidemiological studies and MRI studies and genotyping studies and long-term clinical core studies, there is a clear answer. There's nothing as protective against the diseases of despair as a strong person's spiritual life. You know, our culture for being spiritually nonconversant has starved the spiritual core to the point where we have put at the center of the universe an illusion of human control. And frankly, that is actually not the deep woman's way. That is a vestige, I think, of leftover patriarchy, really. The idea of radical control, that if something went wrong, what did I do? What did I say? I should have planned it better. A plus B plus C. But wait a minute. Can we shift out of what I call

achieving awareness tactics strategy? We need tactics and strategy, but sometimes that is just not enough. What instead is life showing me now? What is the universe revealing to me now? What do these synchronicities say? In fact, Nicole, could we perhaps do just a 90 second practice together?

All right. I'm gonna invite everyone to think of a time where you wanted something so badly, that red door of yours. And so you researched it tactically as a parent, but it was stuck. And you could not believe it was stuck because A plus B plus C, you've done everything right. You kick the door, you're shocked, maybe irritated and time

depressed. But only because that red door is stuck, you shift 40, 80, 90, 140 degrees, and there 90, 140 degrees and there is a wide open shining yellow door. You might have said yellow doors don't exist. On the other side of the yellow door, you'd never heard of yellow doors, is somebody more ripe for you? Is a community where you belong, is a job where you feel alive, is a boss who sees you beyond what you saw in yourself, finally a mentor, is a leadership position where you come into who you really are. The yellow door was not what you had wanted. It was better, much better, and better for you.

And as you sit back now and you think of that stuck red door and the hairpin turn that took you to the 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 pointing you, giving you information? It could have been a therapist or a counselor. It could have been a friend who, for the first time, told you a story, a grandparent, someone you met for two minutes synchronistically at a party, at a luncheon, at a coffee shop, at a meeting.

Two minutes who gave you information, a trail angel pointing you to the wide open yellow door. And finally, as you sit way back in your precious road of life, stuck red door, hairpin turn trail angel, and wide open yellow door that has so much to do with who you are and less about being masters, more discoverers, and it's possible that you have been in dialogue with this deeper force in life all along. That was beautiful. It reminds me of the yellow door reminds me of the expression, thank God for unanswered prayers, right? Sometimes we think we want something so badly,

we get tunnel vision, and something greater than us knows a different path, a better path. Yes, yes. And in our brain, we are built to move out of tunnel vision to our soul attention into a bigger view where synchronicity and guidance and mystical connection, our relationship to God, our higher power, can guide us, the ventral attention, which means the human and particularly the woman

is built to be in a sustained relationship with the deeper source of life, who I call God. Everyone has their word. Yeah. So, gosh, I wish I could spend so much more time with you, but I want to ask this question for people like me who are feeling inspired or feeling like I'm hearing something I'm meant to hear. Like, something deeper inside me knows that this is coming at the right time where I need to, like, do something about it. How can we, you know, there's so many options. How do we get curious about our own spiritual health? Do we visit different...

and expose ourselves to different religions? Do we meditate? Do we... sit quietly? Like? What are your suggestions for those of us who want to become more spiritual and that want to build this level of health in our own lives? First and foremost, you are built to be a spiritual knower. So please trust that whisper of a hunch. Invite yourself. Be curious to trust that whisper of a hunch. Wait a minute. What an odd synchronicity. Could I be guided in this moment? Is life showing me something now? Is the higher power pointing me in a direction? me something now is the higher power pointing me in a direction. Your little tiny hunch to all out wow jaw dropping, how on earth could that synchronicity

be is picking up real information. I invite you to trust yourself as a knower. And then the proofs in the pudding, see what unfolds before you as you trust your instrument for sacred knowing, transcendent awakened knowing. The second opportunity for all of us is that once we understand life as a quest, what is life showing me now?

Then everything becomes much more vivid and we start paying attention to the people who show up. Hey do you want to join us? We're all going to mass. Hey do you want to join us? We're gonna go to the ashram. Hey do you want to join us? We're listening to a Sufi poet. Yes I'd love to join you because you're a trail angel and you just showed up pointing me to a yellow door. Once we become curious, we become open to the trail angels pointing us to yellow doors. So trust yourself as a knower, say yes to trail angels in a way that your deep wisdom

says is true and authentic and safe. We don't walk off the deep end. The skeptic is part of this process as much as the trusting knower. All forms of knowing on board, right? Don't be so open-minded your brains fall out is what my grandma would say. And the spiritual reality is real. We'll move forward. The third piece is that every single journey is a deep, unique spiritual path. You will find your own, what's called Dharma, learning. Maybe a bit from Hinduism, maybe a bit from Judaism, maybe a bit from the beautiful Christian prayer

your grandma gave you. Dust off that rusty prayer, see how it feels. Every path is unique, and at the same time, we are part of a Sangha fellowship mingyan community of inquiry. We don't need to be spiritual identical twins to support each other on the path. So perhaps invite a group of women, four, six, eight women to share each in their own voice pluralistic, inclusive, diverse voice of the deep universal spiritual heart. Let's have a group, we'll meet every two weeks

and yeah, we'll have brunch and then we're gonna spend an hour and a half talking about our spiritual path. When we share the spiritual path, it is as if we get high pixel condensed life. It accelerates our journey and it accelerates our bond, most importantly, with one another because those relationships have

God in them. Those are sanctified relationships. Use your word. So trust yourself as a knower, say yes in a deep, wise, authentic and discerning way to trail angels, and join, create for yourself a Sangha, Mingha and women's group to share the spiritual path in a way that may end up being very Pluralistic and diverse different expressions different traditions different perspectives, but we all speak into the same universal Seat of perception. There's one spiritual brain and we all have it and it is highly exquisitely attuned in women. I love that advice. I love this conversation so much. And I wanna thank you for being a trail angel

in this moment. I know people are gonna wanna learn more. So a reminder, Lisa's newest book is called The Awakened Brain. You can also find and follow her on Instagram at doctor. Lisa Miller. And we'll put all of that and links to her website and everything in show notes.

Lisa, thank you for such a powerful, inspiring eye opening, all the things, such a great conversation. I am so happy to connect with you. I would love to come another day. I love that. Thank you so much. You know, I think Lisa probably said it best. So let me just wrap up with a little spiritual food for thought. Something to chew on that doesn't require tracking, logging or calorie counting.

Exploring your spiritual health isn't about becoming someone else's version of enlightened or about fitting into a box that you didn't build. It's about finding what connects you, grounds you, help to make sense of this wild, chaotic, and beautiful world and your place in it. You don't have to meditate on a mountaintop or take the sacrament unless you want to. Your spiritual health is between you and whatever God,

higher power or inner wisdom you choose to believe in. But hear me when I say this, believe in something, believe in yourself, practice faith and trust that whatever power created you lives within you, which makes you inherently valuable and worthy and magical. So I wish you health, physical, mental, emotional, financial, social, and most definitely spiritual. I think you and I and our whole world needs it. Because at the end of the day,

spiritual health has nothing to do with looking good or being perfect, it's about being whole. And that, more than anything, is absolutely woman's work.