Balancing Achieving and Awakened Awareness

This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Ved Danta Thomas Hood was a nineteenth century English poet known for his elegant, often melancholy verse His eighteen twenty six poem I remember, I remember captures a feeling that is familiar to many adults. especially its wistful last lines I remember, I remember the fir trees dark and high I used to think their slender tops were close against the sky It was a childish ignorance, but now there' little joy to know I'm far off from heaven And then when I was a boy Thomas Hood's poem gests to the reality that as grown upps, many of us lack the effortless sense of connection and awe that we felt as kids Was that intimate bond with the universe merely an illusion of childhood? or a real, measurable human capacity that we can access as grown upps. Researchers are investigating the ways that we can preserve or revive the sense of being close to the sky that Thomas Heard so tenderly evoked. This week on Hidden Rra We explore what it means to feel closer to heaven and the value of looking for transcendence in our busy, bustling lives Support for Hidden Brain comes from Lillily On this show, it's fascinating to discuss the unseen forces shaping the human brain. Consider conditions like Alzheimer's disease, where changes in the brain may develop up to twenty years before noticing symptoms Talk to your doctor to understand your potential risk factors for dementia due to Alzheimer's disease. and ask for a cognitive assessment Visit brainhealthmatters. com for more information and resources. Support for hidden Bin comes from ADT. Imagine you finally have a day off when your phone buzzes, A window has being broken at home, you're miles away In one second, everything can change. ADT security systems help keep your home safer with twenty four seven monitoring They're professionally installed and keep watch from day one Wait to prepare for an emergency. 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Learn more at baruk. edu slash unstoppable That's BAR Uch. edu slash unstop These days, we are encouraged and even exhorted to optimize every aspect of our lives Our bodies, our relationships, our productivity But what about the parts of us that yearn for meaning for understanding for wisdom Those aspects of ourselves are often ignored in our tireless pursuit of worldly rewards At Columbia University, psychologist Lisa Miller studies the science of transcendence Lisa Miller, welcome to Hiden Brain I'm so grateful to be here. I appreciate so much your show, the way you go deeper, the way you opened up the double door in our life. So Chhunker, thank you for having me. Lisa, early on in your career as a psychologist, you treated a young woman named Ilana. Can you describe her for me and Tell me what brought her into your clinic Illana was only twelve years old. She was in middle school. this was in New York and She came in one day all by herself to the clinic. Generally, of course, young people are accompanied by a grandparent or a parent. someomeone breaks them This little girl punched her arms wrapped tight And when I invited her in to say, what has brought you here the first thing she said was, two men. had walked into her father's store. Her father owned a corner deli Two men who he knew had walked into his store robbed him and then taken his life Her father was her sun, her moon, her stars. She was devastated. Illana was beyond bereft. She could barely move through the day Cully, she was living in her new setting with her mother and her mother's mother. Both women had escaped themselves, very perilous and painful situations. and they were quite understandably guarded and had yet to benefit from therapy. So in this setting, Illana was It's reallyally basically on a lockdown, a social lockdown She wasn't allowed to go out and see friends. She wasn't allowed to go to the school dance She gone from being the apple of her father's eye to living in a very cold restrictive environment The treatment of the day would suggest help her renegotiate her condition, help her make sense of what had happened, address the trauma, the brutality of her father's. Dath and the wrongness, the moral and spiritual injury of her father's death All of the treatment as usual was not moving the needle. I mean, you know, every day that a patient comes into the clinic, we do a quick assessment one to ten, How are you? And she was never above a five It was a four, it was a three, it was a five, neverever above a five One day She came Absolutely skipping it night and day. It was a whole different presentation clinically It was as if the lights had been powered back on. I said, please, please come in, Aliana, tellell me what is on your heart What has happened? And she said Bouncing in her seat, joyfully, she looked at me in the eye and She said, You're not going to believe this, You're not going to believe this I was finally allowed to go to a dance and I met a boy and he was so polite and he was so nice and we talked for twentyw minutes. which is a long time in eighth grade And you're not going to believe it. Guess what his name is. Illiana told Lisa that the boy she'd met had an extremely unusual name turned out It was the same unusual name. of her dead father And she said, Well, don't you see Dr. Miller My father's watching over me My father's protecting me. My father's right here with me I understand that Shortly before she went on this dance, Illianas Grandmother had organized a traditional Dominican ceremony to honor her father. Describe the ceremony for me, Lisa. what happened there Eon's family had a beautiful tradition that was coming from the Dominican Republic, a blend of many faith traditions in which they honored the deceased much as many many traditions do What was important to Leanna was that when they held the ceremony to honor her father prayers with candles, with photos Illana through the ceremony knew her father's spirit was alive in real and in relationship to the family so that shhortly thereafter, when she met a boy at the dance who shared the very same name as her father She had a depth of spiritual understanding that her father walks with her. She says, My father is looking He is protecting me I understand Lee said that you had a similar experience working on a psychiatric inpatient unit. Tell me about what life was like on that unit and a intervention, an unusual intervention that you came up with at one point Saner, I worked on an imppatient unit in Manhattan where so many of the patients suffered terribly. someome had recurrent very deep major depression. S struggled with addiction, others, schizophrenia time in which I happen to be an intern on the unit was the time of the Jewish holidays. This hospital happened to serve a great number of people who are Jewish As the holidays approached One morning Community meeting A gentleman raised his hand. He was someone who was known as very explosive as he struggled with bipolar. beccome very angry, maybe toss a chair. yell and march out So It was he of all people who raised his hand in a full community meeting thirty people in a circle under the flickering lights. he raised his hand and said What will we be doing for Yom Kipor And The unit chief, a very nice man, sort of looked at his foot and said, I'm sorry, we don't have anything. The rabbis will be going home to their own families What? what Nothing for Yng Ki Por and he became more and more upset, explosive tossed the chair and walked out of the room. So I understand that you decided to arrange an informal Yomkipur service on the ward. Describe the scene for me Well, I'm not a rabbi, but I did have at that time about two and a half decades of experience with Yom Ki Par services And so I approached the unit chief who gave me permission and said, sure, if you want to come in on Yum Kipur, that's your decision found in a box in my apartment beautiful weathered prayer book that had been my grandmother's That day when I arrived to the unit. the patients We're all dressed Beautifully. No hospital gowns or gurneys Our so called sanctuary was the back room, the kitchen with its linoleum table and its fluorescent lights, but it felt ified There we were, there were four Jewish patients and by their side, each had an aide who very graciously joined in our ceremony As we started to move through the prayers, It was the gentleman who had been so explosive and so called chaotic who was holding the cadence of our prayers, who was douining, as we say, in Judaism, moving and swaying with his body and with the lyrical music of his voice holding our collective prayer. Bary He was far from chaotic He was our spiritual leader and guide The woman who had struggled so deeply with shame and guilt and depression. and said I want to say something I've always known. that at Yom Kiipor, we can ask for forgiveness But sitting here with all of you reading these prayers I've realized can be forgiven. all around the table, whatever head paged in their soul was superseded by the radiance In this moment of their spirit. It was extraordinary G f new Ta of new Sa in T And so I realized unker that something was happening in a spiritually grounded religious ceremony that was not happening in treatment as usual Once the word got out that Dr. Miller talks about spirituality, Patients who weren't even my own patients would pull me over to the corner One woman who I happened to be Jewish, she happened to be Catholic. urned to me one day and said, Dr. Miller, I have some very heavy news. They will be sending me away state which means No longer will she be living in Manhattan, struggling through the revolving door of treatment, but is really being sent away She said, Will you come with me? I need to talk to you. And come with me, Mant, walk down the hall Leave the offices Enter the kitchen. way, way back hots and pantans closet. and there're in the way wayay back, Dr. Miller Will you pray with me before I'm sent upstate I prayed she in her way, I prayed in my way. And what I saw was a great peace and a comfort coming over her. I didn't know how to pray her way, but I knew how to be with her in a common state of spiritual love and support The next day I showed up, Shunker. Her bed was made, she was gone I shared this story with one of the unit chiefs, who's a very good person I was I think trying to speak in my best interest The unit chief said, What you did was beautiful It was completely right Don't ever tell anyone you did that There was a sense that somehow spirituality doesn't belong here. Psychotherapy, mental health treatment is medical, so called biological. What is this sort of airy, fairy, indeterminate, unmeasurable otherly thing of spirituality Lisa, I understand that going home from work from this inpatient psychiatric unit You notice people in the subway Now these people would not Clinically ill But you felt that in their own way, they were also not healthy Sunker, once we see in it's intense most grrueling form mental illness, whether it's a deep depression or profound anxiety. As a therapist, it's been very easy to eyeball the subway, be at a dinner party and see a whiff of that depression or anxiety. So I left the inpatient unit and just about every day I'd ride home on the subway and see on people's faces and in their Cenance What weighs on them One day junker, I saw a gentleman whose eyes work R like the sun He wasn't smiling ross his mouth, but there was a joy. through him He was an Orthodox Jew. Probably Kabad. I could see that he was dovening, he was praying right there on the subway I felt The illumination, I felt the joy that I'd seen in the patients on the inpatient unit during our Yom Kiur service. And in this sort of struggle of more suffering than we really need to have in our lives on the subway in a restaurant in the coffee shop I saw what was equal and opposite to the suffering. and it was the illumination of spiritual awareness and connection I understand Lisa that in your own personal life, you and your partner had occasion to examine what you yourselves were doing. You had been focused on getting good educations and launching your careers And from the outside, anyone could look at your lives and say, you know, here's a couple that's really madeade it. u But I understand that from time to time you would look at each other and ask Is this really all there is After years and years of hard work, my husband and I For years know he had gone to law school and then worked in a law firm, I had gotten my PhD and then worked in clinical and research settings. We worked not sixty hours a week, probably more. We were more like the seventy eighty hour a week type. Driven by good things, we weren't overly obsessed with money. We were driven by the purpose of our work, the mission of our work But I'd say that There was a lopsid in this. We were getting a little narrow in our focus And the people we loved very much who were so kind we could turn to in a moment of loss or pain, good friends. in the same culture with us. So our dinner parties would have a lot of talk about, you know, well, once I make partner or if we can move over from second Avenue to Lexington, or you know, there's a promotion coming up or I'm moving from a two to a three bedroom. there was sort of almost a low grade monopoly game going on that was narrowly achievement oriented and it felt T as a tin So Lisa, there's a clinical term called dyysstymia What does it mean? D signia is a low grade nagging, haunting sort of like a milktast gray depression. a dissatisfaction and hedonia where things don't delight us We fail to experience the full delight of life Dysphhymia is quite prevalent. It's very prevalent in young people We don't like our job if wed haven't found our deeper path Dyshymia is a low grade depression that lingers and lingers and even becomes livable So it becomes a normal low grade pain or disengagement I mean, in some ways you were seeing it on the subway, you were seeing it at your dinner parties with your friends Yes, it's very easy to try to override the emptiness of dysymia through a promotion or a new apartment or a vacation, but dysymia runs deeper then the outward markers of achievement in the Monopoly game. Dysphymia is You could say a hole in the heart, a hole in the soul. It is a Uurning for a deeper connection in life In her work with patients and in her own social world Lisa was seeing that the conventional approaches to achieving a good life were falling short. When we come back, exploring possibilities that lie beyond the material and the practical You're listening to hidden brain I'm Shankar Vedant Support for hidden Bin comes from cash up. Bitcoin is often talked about as an investment. but it was built to be used With cash app, you can actually do that Send Bitcoin instantly, pay at local square businesses that accept it or move it to your own wallet whenever you want It works more like real money and less like something locked in an account For a limited time, new customers can get ten dollars added to their balance Just use code cash app ten when you sign up. And don't forget this part, send at least five dollars to a friend in the first two weeks. Terms apply. Cash app is a financial services platform, not a bank Banking services provided by Cash app's bank partners Bitcoin serervices provided by Block Inc brand. 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Epedition ready and build for those ready to move forward Explore the Defender one hundred ten at land RverSa. com This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankarvee Dante Modern science has given us astonishing tools to map the brain seequence the genome and analyze the body's chemistry Many scientists interpret these advances as proof that life is nothing more than matter in motion. Teacherers College, Columbia University. Psychologist Lisa Miller is interested in the possibility that the human brain is built to have a spiritual dimension to it For many years now, she has deployed scientific methods to study this aspect of the mind Lisa, both your psychological training and the culture at large gave you a model of human existence, a notion that We're all just billiard balls bouncing off each other. Unpack this metaphor for me uner comoming through graduate school training as an intern I learned the models of the time for treatment of depression, treatment of anxiety We're really radical materialist models, which means that the brain is effectively an atomistically sealed brain, like a brain in the box Depression had biological correlates that needed to be treated with medicine, but also that psychotherapy is silent on spirituality reorkking life experience would also shift and there was evidence of this shift the brain But spirituality or spiritually infused religion was viewed as something outside of the medical establishment, It was separate from the biology or the neural mechanisms of the human condition. And so what I had witnessed on unit six in the hospital on the inpatient unit in New York City said to me, You know what The spiritual life is part of the same person who is recovering from depression because the illumination was so strong So I set sail for thirty years of science. MRI studies, long term clinical course studies, epidemiological studies, genotyping studies, you name it, any lens or set of collaborators with whom I could work. to ask the question Where is spiritual awareness in the composition of the whole person And how might spiritual awareness be healing. and even protective against the most prevalent forms of suffering What I find fascinating about your work, Lisa, is that you are trying to marry together these two parts of yourself. You're interested in the world of transcendence and you're also interested in scientific measurement and you're trying to understand this dimension of our lives using scientific techniques One of the dimensions of your research has linked spiritual experience to specific Neuroanatomical and neurophysiological markers. Tell me a little bit about this work shunker just as there are neural correlates for deression or anxiety, justust as there's neuro correlates for hunger Crazving. or thirst It turns out that there are neuro correlates for spiritual awareness. If you think about it, it would seem to make sense that we all have a common visual system We all have a common auditory system through which to perceive And it turns out through now fifteen years of MRI studies, we all have a common set of circuits through which to perceive the transcendence Now it doesn't matter if I am Hindu or Janain or Jewish or Muslim or Catholic or Christian or spiritual and not religious We all share the same core neural circuits of transcendent awareness course as in any form of perception There's human variability in the intensity or in the nuance with which we experience perception Chunker what' extraordinary is that pererception of the transcendent calls on the same neuroc circuits. No matter what tradition I may be or even if I am spiritual but not religious. What are those circuits? There are four. The first and only the first is associated with quieting the mind, shared, of course, with mindfulness, the disengagement of the default mode network, the racket that spins round and round But mindfulness as helpful as it is to bringing us present Presence alone is not sufficient. for transcendent awareness presence is perhaps the threshold the door through which we might then cross to experience transcendent awareness. And there are three circuits on the other side of the door seen in all people of all faith traditions at a moment of transcendent Connection First bonding network comes up online. the same bonding network enngaged when we are babies and our parents or grandparents' arms through which we feel and know that we are looved and held The universe, God, Hashem, Allah, Jesus, whatever one's sacred word, loves holds us we are Absolutely That is not a belief That is a perception It is a felt perception The second circuit comeome online is intentional we see a shift from the very narrow down dorsal attention Why did I say that? What's going to happen next? Am I going to get fired at the check bounce? What could I have done differently? The narrow assumption of radical control. What do I want? How am I going to get it? yields and gives way to the ventral attention network where suddenly the lights come back on There's a broad landscape before us, and we ask, what is life showing me now At which moment many people say a new direction pops, a door never seen before opens an inspired sense of guidance We are loved and held, we are Guided Guided And third We're loved and held, we're guided. parietal that puts in and out hard boundaries that lets us know Chankur that you sit in one city and I sit in a sister city, that we each have our exquisitely beautiful, diverse biob body suits. We have different GPS coordinates. We are a point And we are a wave. We are distinct. and beautifully diverse And we are part of one Unit of whole, one family of life loved, held guided and never alone Loved hell guided and never alone moves together. These three circuits move together. It's not that we're loved but we're not guided or we're guided or we're not awwakened brain moves together with these three circuits. Everyone on Eth has the capacity to be in a deep, transcendent relationship through which they know the deeper force in life. I understand that in your brain imaging studies, you find changes in cortical thickness people who are especially spiritual everyvery human being on Eth. born with a natural capacity for spiritual awareness. We know this through twin studies. We can look at twins raised together, twins raised apart Commonality is a function of shared environment, shared genes. So for instance, temperament is about half innate half environmentally formed. IQ is about two thirds innate. one third environmentally form acity through which we experience transcendent relationships is innate. It is one third innate. Every single one of us is born with the natural neuros circuits for transcendent awareness One third in eightate, two thirds environmentally formed. means that our parents and grandparents, the ten thousand exchanges at school. our pastor priest amon rabbi, our relationship to nature And as we get older, we choose our environment both outer company we keep, the service, that we offer or not to our world And the inner environment, whether I meditate, whether I pray, whether I reflect or read sacred, transcendent texts Two thirds environmentally formed. means that yes, we are all naturally spiritual beings, but we have the opportunity of our lifetime cultivate our spiritual awareness When we do We see literally a cortacks across the regions of the awakened brain. Sustained spiritual life, prayer meditation, service, right action ofen within a faith community, often serviced outside a faith community Sustained spiritual life is associated with cortical thickness across the regions of the awakened brain Now by sustained spiritual life in this study, which we published in Jamma Psychiatry, We looked over eight years who sustained a strong spiritual life who said my personal spiritual life is a highly important to me over eight years showed a thicker cortex across the regions of the awakened brain Shanker, what makes this particularly helpful as we think back to unit six is that when we sustain our spiritual life, the cortical thickness is seen across the regions, the very same regions that are not sick Th in people with recurrent major depression People with sustained spiritual lifeves show critical thickness across the very same regions that are not thick but thin if we are struggling with recurrent major depression, which is to say The spirituality and depression appear to be two sides of one coin I'm wondering as you presented these ideas, how they've been received by your colleagues. You told me that when you talked with your supervisor up back in the day Your supervisor said, it's nice that you you know helped the patients by performing a religious service But this is not something to put on your resume. This is not something to talk about because this in some ways is antithetical to what we're doing here. We're supposed to be scientists, we're supposed to be medical practitioners I'm wondering how as you have accumulated this body of research course of your career How it's been received by your Ceagues when I saw the tremendous impact of spiritual life on ameliorating, on breaking through some forms of suffering and despair. I raised the lens of science. becausecause the language of science and in fact the facts of science At the foundation medically based mental health And of course, the second reason I've always loved science is because it is jaw droppingly spectacular to look through the lens of science So Sankar I started publishing in a way that I hoped would speak to the field. Because out of every ten variables in an article, nine of them were familiar. I used very tried and true beloved top notch datasets. I drew on the variables and the measures that everyone else in the top peer review journals used I set up the design that was familiar to people And having effectively replicated nine out of ten elements of a study, I added one variable which was Personally important is spirituality or religion to you And over time that item expanded into scales and measures of spiritual life. But I always added one and only one variable is the nature of your spiritual life to a study that otherwise looked very familiar. And in this way We were able to publish in top peer review journals, the American Academy of Child and Adolesccent Psychiatry, American Journal of Psychiatry, Jama Psychiatry, because the studies had the blue housekeeping seal all the markers that we had come to trust as a field, releliable measures familiar statistics Dotted eyes, crossed Ts, everything was meticulous and in keeping with the field Except for the step of advance spiritual life Every single article as you know, Sank Kar is submitted for peer review C of you. is conducted blind to who the authors are. So there's no sort of cult of personality or vogue or one lab over another And science also peer review process requires that two or three scientists within or closely adjacent to the area of inquiry Weigh in on the method, weigh in on the conclusions, offer recommendations for expansion of the study We were able over now three decades to publish our lab often in collaboration with fellow labs, about two hundred peer review articles and chapters. and the field around us has grown. We've tried to be collaborators in building a field as well. But I will tell you, Chancar that despite the Ticulular science and top peer review journals H The findings were new I would say people did not know Yet to do with these new scientific findings. And so for instance, we published an article that showed that an adolescent with a strong spiritual life compared to one who doesn't really know what you're talking about was eighty percent protective against onset of addiction eighty percent projective, who wouldn't want that for their child? And yet when I presented these findings, published in the top journal for childildren and adolescents There was an utter silence and confusion. A couple of people left I got up and walked out in the middle of Grand Rounds later to share what does that have to do with mental health? What does that have to do with psychology? But most people were just confused. The paradigm at the time didn't have a place What on earth is going on And so you know, good people, good healers were confused and a lot of this just sort of, you know Dropped silence for a while And then culture started to change, new residents came, new psychologists came. And in the rising generation, there was more curiosity and perhaps a stronger sense of personal spiritual quest Anden I saw residents light up, Oh, why, you w to talk about spirituality? Just sign a booker offer an article in the room felt liberated. The rising generation wanted to talk about spirituality. and felt free. There were plenty of good spiritual people who we're sing here, but pererhaps didn't feel free to speak their heart about spirituality I'm woing Lisa whether some of the resistance comes from the fact that There are many claims that people make about religion and spirituality that in fact are not scientific claims Many people who are making claims on behalf of religion or spirituality have not done the empirical work that you have done. And so perhaps there's a knee jerk reaction among scientists to say anything that smacks or spirituality must by definition, not be scientific P Sank are one of the most important findings. in nineteen ninety seven, replicated in nineteen ninety nine by Ken Kendler. Virginia Commonwealth Keller identified was that spirituality is innate. It is one third innate, two thirds environmentally formed religion is environmentally transmitted almost entirely. So There's enormous confusion in a country where for forty years There has effectively been an ice age on spiritual and religious discourse in the public square in the classroom or boardroom or at a dinner party don't know how to talk about spiritual or religious life without imposing or don't know where the line is. there's a tendency to simply shut down. So in that context, I have found in the ten years I've spent sharing the science on spiritual life, resilience and mental health. I have seen enormous confusion, Chankar over the difference between spirituality and religion through the lens of science Religion is a gift of our parents and grandparents. We might choose a faith tradition. and immerse ourselves Religion is environmentally transmitted. Spirituality is innate. for a transcendent relationship. As Tacked by discrete and specific neural circuits that are universal in every human brain So now when I'm asked, hey, you know, what about the fact that people have done all these bad things in the name of religion? I can say, well question as a scientist is Are they acting? in a way that is consistent with natural spirituality. Is this person ing themselves in such a way that is consistent in loving, guiding and never leaving anyone alone. So if I hear a comment, hey, wait a minute, How can you say spirituality is so good when all these bad things have been done in the name of religion? I say, well, is the practice of that so called religion Consistent with natural spirituality, are they being loving, guiding and not leaving anyone alone? We come back what science shows us about the effects of spirituality on our mental and physical health You're listening to hidden brain I'm Shankar Vvededanto Support for Hidden Brain comes from Lily On this show, it's fascinating to discuss the unseen forces shaping the human brain. Consider conditions like Alzheimer's disease, where changes in the brain may develop up to twenty years before noticing symptoms Talk to your doctor to understand your potential risk factors for dementia due to Alzheimer's disease. and ask for a cognitive assessment Visit brainhealthmatters. com for more information and resources Support for Hidden Brain comes from Pacific Life Insurance Everyone knows promises have power Pinky swears to cross my heart, do I do? We make them throughout our entire lives Anyone can make promises. What matters is keeping them. For nearly one hundred and sixty years, the people at Pacific Life have been helping you keep yours Whether it's protecting your today or planning your tomorrow, They're with you every step of the way Pacific life, the power of a promise Ask a financial professional about how Pacific Life can help you create a more confident financial future Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York, Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankarveved Danta Have you had experiences in your life when you felt helped or hindered by your own spirituality If you have a personal story that you would be willing to share with the hidden brain audience or a question or comment about Lisa Miller's research Please find a very quiet room and record a voice memo on your phone Two or three minutes is plenty. Email the file to us at feedback at hiddenbrain. org using the subject line spiritual Again, that's feedback at hiddenbrain. org Lisa Miller is the author of the Awaken Brain the new science of spirituality and our quest for an inspired life Lisa, you found that an engagement with a personal spirituality is associated with improved stress, resilience, and faster physiological recovery How do you think spirituality protects us against the psychological and physiological effects of stress There are multiple pathways through which spirituality protects us against physical and mental illness First off, the most remarkable finding in science is the scale, the magnitude at which spirituality protects against some of the most prevalent forms of suffering The number one cause of death right now to rival auto accidents is suicide in G Z in high school and college A strong personal life when shared, Sherid in the sanka, the minion, the feellowship amongst friends or family eighty two percent protective against completed suicides, four fists less likely to take our life. So if I told you, Shunker, there's a little pill You can pick up this little pill at Walgreens or the CVS at the drugstore, and it will protect your child, your grandchild, all the students in your classroom F fest against the leading cause of morbidity, of death in young people, whoo wouldn't give that to their child I understand that you and others have found that having a spiritual side to one's life is associated with greater well being and life satisfaction Do you think this is connected to those three things you talked about earlier that people with a spiritual side feel like they're held, that they're guided, that they're nurtured precisely. We walk on an entirely different landscape. We walk on sacred landscappe when we the aperture and let in the light through our awakened brain lifeife unfolds in an entirely different way. Life moves from What do I want and how am I going to get it really quite a transactional way of life. And by the way, who are you? How are you going to help me get what I want relationships of transactions what I call narrow achieving awareness out of that narrow Hey. Okay, I just didn't get what I wanted. I didn't get the job. my kid didn't get into the college. Hey What is life showing me now We moveved from what do I want and how am I going to get it? And what did I do wrong? and how could I get it next time Wait a minute What is life showing me now? What is the universe directing What am I being asked to do? Am I being asked to love more deeply? Am I being asked to listen those with whom I work or my children, am I being given an opportunity to serve the life that is before us is so much bigger and full of portals and possibilities then we could a priori have spun or cooked up in our mind In other words, when we can release the stranglehold of our expectations and plans And be less hard ore makers of our path. creating space to be discovers of our journey life unfolds in extraordinary ways. It is beyond what we might have imagined In other words, when I can move from narrow achieving awareness to. a relationship, a dialogue with life, I can be guided in places I didn't even know existed. I can find a job that I didn't even know was a job. I can meet someone at a party that I wouldn't have spoken to because they didn't meet my a prier criteria of a date But if I'm open Why is the universe introducing me to this person now I can discover a relationship I've never dreamed of That's a much bigger life. That isn' an inspired life