Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 2  🔗 **Source:** [Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 2](https://share.snipd.com/episode/be807c5f-de7b-4539-8750-cde9c093e299) ## Highlights - **Achieving Brain Versus Awakened Brain** - Lisa Miller distinguishes an achieving brain focused on goals from an awakened brain focused on meaning, connection, and transcendence. - The awakened brain activates three neural networks that give feelings of being loved, guided, and not alone, making signs and synchronicities meaningful rather than mere coincidence. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam Columbia University psychologist Lisa Miller argues that we have two capacities in our minds. One is focused on goals and achievement. She calls this the achieving brain. The other is focused on meaning, connection, and transcendence. She calls this the awakened brain. Lisa argues that when we cultivate our spiritual side, we activate three networks in the brain. These networks give us the feeling that we are loved, that we are being guided, and that we are not alone. The achieving brain might dismiss Carl Jung's synchronicities using the language of probability and coincidence. But to the awakened brain, which is open to seeing connections, these events can open the door to exploration and growth. ([Time 0:02:55](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5d291b8e-e7a0-4522-b873-066780ebd499)) - **Infertility Journey Turned Into Synchronicity** - Lisa Miller and her husband endured five years of infertility and repeated failed IVF attempts that felt like funerals. - During that painful period Lisa noticed recurring synchronicities (a man on a bus, an orphan documentary) that began to feel like guidance toward adoption. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam She said that seeing these moments as signs, not just coincidences, changed her life. Lisa Miller Shankar, this was a journey of many, many years. It was perhaps one of the most excruciating journeys of my life, and certainly that of my husband as well. We were in our early 30s, and we decided we wanted to become parents, so we were going to so-called try. We took a vacation to Sedona. We took a vacation to the Caribbean and eagerly awaited the good news. But in fact, there was no baby, no pregnancy, no child. And as these failed attempts month after month started to add up, we got a very haunting sense that, wait a minute, maybe there's something wrong. Maybe we can't conceive. And as we moved into year one and a half and year two, we saw a fertility doctor and I checked out and he checked out my husband as being healthy. They said, oh, we can get you pregnant, not to worry. And we did some rounds IUIs, and after that, not working, strangely, wasn't sure why, we did some rounds of IVF, thinking, well, now we're going to the next phase. Surely, you know, he's healthy, I'm healthy with an IVF, we'll quickly conceive. And yet still no baby, no one came. The IVF process for us and our path was with every failed really non-pregnancy, it felt like a funeral. It felt like the death of our hopes and dreams. It felt like the death of that tiny little embryo that was the closest thing we had to a child. We were devastated. And this wore equally on both of us, you know, the baby showers of our friends and the little pink onesies that we would find ourselves buying for other people. It just, it was increasingly very, very depressing. Shankar Vedantam I understand that in some ways this felt like a spiritual crisis to you. Can you explain why, Lisa? ([Time 0:03:51](https://share.snipd.com/snip/32018838-247c-44a1-8601-f122e0352866)) - **Healing Ceremony Led To A Found Child And A Conception** - Lisa attended a Lakota healing ceremony where prayers were offered for her search for a child and that night received a call saying "We have found the Miller's child." - Immediately after committing to adopt she also conceived naturally, resulting in spiritual twins Isaiah and Leah. Transcript: Lisa Miller And I know you've been looking for your child. I think this is another approach. I think you should come out here. I canceled all my appointments at Columbia. I got on a plane. I went out to South Dakota. And there in the healing ceremony, the men moved into one Anipi, the women into another. And in the women's Anipi, the leader who identified herself as the medicine man's wife, led us through a series of prayers. At one point, she asked us to go around the circle inside the Inipi, each of us in turn, to say why we had come to the healing ceremony. The first woman spoke. She said, I am here because my son is 14. He's starting to smoke and use drugs, and I really worry about him. The next woman spoke. My son is 40. He's not coming home. I worry for the family. Around the circle, each woman had come that day to pray for her son. Until we got to my immediate left, Big Jane, my cousin, who spoke for me, which as a full-time talker, as a professor, was actually most welcome. This is my cousin, Little Jane. She has come looking for her child. I'm wondering if we could help her find her child. All of the women looked me in the eye. For the first time, I knew I was in the right place. We then were led in a prayer that was to hold all of the prayers of the women and was sent up through the top of the Anipi. And at Shankar, we received a call that night. That night that the prayer had been sent up through the Anipi, that night we received a call to my phone machine in New York from the other side of the world. We have found the Miller's child. We know Mr. Miller had wanted a girl and there's many wonderful girls. We can get you a girl, but this is the Miller's child. This is the Miller's child and it is a son. Five years of struggle and sorrow and weeping and infertility. I couldn't wait to see his photo. I couldn't wait to see his video. I was home in a couple of days. The video came. I opened my eyes to see the most joyful, da, da, da, little boy with his arm around the nurse, glowing with joy, glowing with energy, da, da, da. I fell in love. Shankar, in that moment, I became a parent. Profound love, a soaring love like I'd never felt before, a tidal wave of soaring love. And I was sure, deeply committed in my heart that this is my spiritual child. That very night that I saw the video and made the commitment in my heart and loved like I'd never loved before, the presence came back a third time. If you were pregnant now, would you adopt? Absolutely. Absolutely. This is my spiritual child. And space closed in, and I looked over. Once again, my husband was out cold, but I poked him. I woke him up. ([Time 0:16:46](https://share.snipd.com/snip/595c7d9a-393e-4d40-9bbe-55e9df2a02ed)) - **Build A Daily Spiritual Practice** - Build a sustained spiritual practice like prayer, meditation, or right action to strengthen the cortex of the awakened brain. - Lisa's research shows only day-after-day spiritual commitment across years correlated with thicker cortex and measurable neural correlates. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam What are some of these disciplines and how do they affect us? Lisa Miller Prayer, meditation, right action. Our spiritual practices can be held within the embrace of our faith tradition or held by multiple faith traditions, or our spiritual life can be outside of religion. But whether or not we are religious, spiritual practice literally builds the muscle, if you will, strengthens the cortex of the awakened brain. Shankar Vedantam You argue that in order to do this, you actually have to build a regular practice. So this is a little bit like going to the gym. You can't just do it a day or two and say, okay, I've checked the box now. Lisa Miller When we looked at people who said, yes, yes, I'm spiritual, but only said it on one day. We happen to have only asked them one day. We did not see neural correlates. We did not see a stronger cortex in people who on any given day raise their hand and say, yes, yes, spirituality is important to me. It's when people day after day over in our study, eight years said, yes, spirituality is important to me day in and day out, that we saw a thicker cortex processing power across the regions Of the awakened brain. ([Time 0:24:27](https://share.snipd.com/snip/fb42c0c1-b64e-426e-bc0e-260abb18c70b)) - **Suffering Can Open A Spiritual Door** - Periods of severe depression can potentiate spiritual growth because the brain widens its aperture to existential questions. - Miller's longitudinal work found people with strong spirituality were 2.5 times more likely to have come through major depression. Transcript: Lisa Miller Myrna Weissman generously shared her 40-year longitudinal three-generation data set through which we could follow people the course of their life, those who were at high risk for Depression and those who were at low risk for depression. And what we found was that in the course of life, many of us face periods of despair, suffering, major depression. If in these moments of great despair, we start to ask the deep existential questions, what is the meaning of my life? What will be my spiritual footprint? What is the nature of reality? So not just what is meaning and purpose, but ultimate meaning, sacred purpose. Who am I and what is the world in the relationship to the source itself of life? It can even be the case that depression potentiates spiritual growth. Our brain is built so that in moments of despair, we are potentiated to widen the aperture and let in more light and start to awaken spiritually. In my collaboration with Myrna Weissman and her team, we found that those people who have a very strong spirituality today are two and a half times more likely to have gotten there through The road of trials, through a major depression. God for guidance. I have a very strong relationship, a lived, felt relationship with my higher power, the universe, are 250% more likely in the past 10 years to have come through a major depression. A spiritual response to suffering, once formed, becomes the new way to lean into life. ([Time 0:26:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4e4aa55b-6c3f-43ee-8cbe-6075beeb9831)) - **Meditate Together To Amplify Presence** - Pray or meditate in community to "hold presence" for one another and accelerate transcendence. - Andy Newberg's research showed others enter transcendence more rapidly when joining a group already in prayer, via mirror-neuron activation. Transcript: Lisa Miller Shankar, there's marvelous research that shows that when we pray or meditate in a community, we effectively, as an antenna, help hold presence for one another. So certainly we can pray or meditate alone and have a deep transcendent connection. And yet still when we meditate together, we hold presence for one another. We augment the intensity and the fluidity through which we connect to the transcendent. My very wonderful colleague, Dr. Andy Newberg, showed that if nine people are in a state of prayer and the 10th person walks in the door and sits down, they more rapidly move into a state of transcendence as measured by The rapidity with which their mirror neurons come up online, which means we literally hold presence for one another. ([Time 0:33:05](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5bf0f10a-4926-4bee-89f3-730a9d863927)) - **Three Developmental Bridges For Spiritual Growth** - Human development shows three natural bridges for spiritual growth: emerging adulthood, midlife, and ascension to elderhood, each often triggered by "developmental depression." - These phases biologically and culturally prompt existential questions and expanded spiritual capacity. Transcript: Lisa Miller When we look at longitudinal twin studies, we see that there is an increasing amount of heritable inborn contribution to spiritual awareness, starting with puberty, biological Puberty, from middle to late adolescence into emerging adulthood is a surge, a biological clock from the inside out. Bring what is my purpose? I mean ultimate purpose. What is the meaning of life? I mean sacred purpose. In fact, the most important work we do in late adolescence, emerging adulthood, is to engage the ultimate questions and the hunger of the heart for spiritual connection. Developmental depression beckons us. It is a knock at the door to spiritual awakening. Developmental depression comes back. It is not only once that we are hardwired to suffer and then grow. At midlife, we of course have cultural names, sophomore slump, midlife crisis. At midlife, we again have an expansion in our spiritual capacity. And in fact, long-term clinical course studies showed us that those people who were the most spiritually engaged at midlife actually hunger and struggle the most. Because as our spiritual capacity once again grows at midlife, the more spiritually engaged we are, the more we feel the existential longing. Perhaps no longer what is my meaning and purpose, but now am I living? Am I walking the walk of my meaning and purpose? The third developmental bridge is that of the ascension to elderhood. Developmental depression, once again, that can open into an expanded spiritual awareness. Emerging adulthood, midlife, and the ascension to elderhood are three hardwired bridges of spiritual growth, which usually kick off with existential struggle, developmental Depression. ([Time 0:35:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/78d07cb2-1ae3-41f3-b489-f9f6a744de75)) - **Cultivate A Spiritually Supportive School Culture** - Schools can support the spiritual core of the child by cultivating an intentional relational culture rather than adding curricula. - Miller's three-year study across diverse schools found no common workbook but a shared pedagogical culture; Awakened Schools codifies that DNA. Transcript: Lisa Miller Oh, yes. So right now there is a conversation that we are trying to help support between universities and K-12 schools. K-12 schools work very hard to prepare a student to enter the university, to pitch them through college admissions and have them find the right home in a college. And colleges are receiving students thinking, oh my, how strung out, how without a core, we're finding the culture to have not prepared the students. To bring what is effectively a spiritual crisis in the university back, propagate it all the way back down into kindergarten and support the whole child development, starting in kindergarten, By strengthening the spiritual core of the whole child. There's an abundant science that shows that children with a strong personal spirituality less addicted, less depressed, protected against suicide. Children with a strong spiritual life have greater grit, optimism, greater character, more able to endure difficult times, form relationships of commitment. There is nothing in the clinical or social sciences as profoundly important to child formation as a strong spiritual core. So then we might ask the question, can our schools, can our K-12 schools, which have come such a long way in whole child education, now go the next step to support, based on science, the Spiritual core of the whole child? And the answer is yes. We conducted a three-year grant-funded study, during which time we went to very diverse schools that did support the spiritual core of the whole child. We went to Sufi schools, yeshivas, Catholic schools. We went to Waldorf schools. We went to public schools in Oakland and Virginia. We went to independent schools, magnet schools. We went everywhere. It doesn't matter what geographical location, cultural niche, or religion might be present or not present in the school. No matter where we visited for three years, there is an intentional pedagogical culture in spiritually supportive schools. There was nothing that landed on the desk, no curriculum, no special workbook, no practice in the classroom that was found amongst all spiritually supportive schools. But what was common to all spiritually supportive schools was a deliberately designed, deeply intentional relational culture that supported the spiritual core of the child. And we were able to systematically distill the common DNA of a spiritually supportive pedagogical culture, which would apply to any school. ([Time 0:41:15](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8d6a17c5-f6b7-433a-a42a-3507fa46f2f6)) - **Asking About Glorious Days Transformed Dinner Talk** - At a dinner party Lisa asked guests to describe the most glorious day of their life and received deeply personal stories instead of standard "what do you do" answers. - The exercise shifted conversation from achieving markers to awakened connection and presence. Transcript: Lisa Miller Shankar, I was at a dinner party with some very, very interesting people who I knew had lived very adventurous, inspired lives. But once again, the weighty culture of achieving awareness beset our dinner party. What do you do? Where do you live? What does your partner do? The sort of multivariable equation through which we predict someone's outcome, their achieving awareness. And it seemed to me like a real missed opportunity. So this time I sat up and I took the bull by the horns and I said to some pretty prominent people, can you tell me about the most glorious day of your life? Two of them were intrigued and one was a little taken aback, but everybody played. One man said, you know, I felt very distanced from my childhood faith tradition. This gentleman was gay. He said I'd felt sort of cast out. But I was on a trip in Italy and there in the piazza, I heard beautiful music from the choir pour through the piazza. I went into the cathedral, and I felt God's presence in the most abundant way I've ever felt. The next person spoke, and she said, you know, I guess I'd have to say I was out sailing. And I felt the wind in my hair and the sun in my face. We have the opportunity of our lifetime to really know each other. ([Time 0:45:07](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8da6505d-7f2d-42ba-89f8-b3170286fd87)) - **Projects Anchor Our Sense Of Self** - Dave Evans says people locate themselves through projects; when a defining project ends, identity can feel displaced, causing the sense of watching life behind glass. - Jean Charles lost the project's scaffolding after selling his company and needed to reconnect project and personhood. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam At Stanford University, Dave Evans studies some of the most common traps that can lead to these feelings of stuckness. He recently joined us for two episodes of Hidden Brain. They were called Designing a Life That Matters and Radical Acceptance. We received so many questions and comments in response to these two episodes that we're going to dedicate two installments of our popular segment, Your Questions Answered, to addressing Them. Dave Evans, welcome back to Hidden Brain. Dave Evans Shankar, it's good to be here again. Shankar Vedantam Dave, before the break, we heard from a listener named Jean Charles. Something he said really struck me. He said he feels like he's watching his own life from behind a glass. So on paper, he's achieved his dream. He built a successful company and then he sold it. But now he feels like he has no purpose. Dave Evans What did you hear in his story? Well, he's found himself disengaged from what it felt like it means to be a human person. You know, he didn't realize what the relationship was between his project and his personhood. And when the project was done, it relocated him in this desirable, but much more disruptive than he anticipated place called financial independence. So he removed from his life that which almost every human being has had forever, which is the need to make a living. And so that human project and my participation in the human project is what locates me in my life. I mean, he loved the creativity and he loved working with his partner and he loved making a difference to his customers. And he thought that was what the whole thing was about. But all of that was located on the ground of the project of my personhood, which is making my life work and making the world work. And he took himself partly out of that, and he's not been able to re-find himself. ([Time 0:51:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ea3c2337-039e-4776-8ede-ab38b5b6b7ac)) - **Accept Constraints And Make Practical Plans** - Practice radical acceptance of practical constraints: acknowledge financial realities and either get a job or accept support to pursue creative goals on the side. - Evans recommends honest appraisal of what will actually fund the family and then write feasible short-term plans (e.g., job plus side writing). Transcript: Dave Evans She's got a couple of things going on at the same time and very sympathetic. She's in a situation we actually call having what we call an anchor problem. She's anchored to a problem she can't seem to get loose from. So if that's the case, her anchor problem is, I want to have an experience of meaning making, which I've attached to writing a novel. And I want to make enough money to feel like I'm contributing at a level that satisfies my preferences or frankly, my ego. Those are not good or bad things. They're just true. What's really true about Sumiya's life, what's really true about their finances, and those constraints will define what the problem space really is. If she needs money, I would agree with her. One novel is probably not the way to get that. So let's go get a job and then maybe you can write short stories on the side. But you've got to do some radical acceptance about that. If your husband's fine with supporting you, are you willing to do the hard thing called accepting a gift? ([Time 0:55:37](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ee60f3f3-f99b-4d7f-9c61-96a46652769a)) - **Design Meaning In Your Present Life** - Stop asking for a single lifelong answer to "What is the meaning of my life?" and instead design meaning in the life you have now. - Evans frames people as 'becomings' and urges actionable experiments to create meaning rather than chasing a fixed ultimate answer. Transcript: Dave Evans And in both cases here, by the way, both John Charles and Sumeya have a point of view about what meaning has to be. In John Charles' case, there's an unspoken assumption about his relationship with the work world that he didn't realize. And for Samae, it's about money and meaning making. And so they've got little rules buried in their questions that are forcing them into a stuck place because they want it on their terms, frankly, and those terms aren't working. ([Time 0:57:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/14a38a98-ebd0-4e87-ad2c-3ab25cca42be)) - **Don't Tie Identity Entirely To Impact** - Overreliance on impact as primary identity is dangerous because outcomes often fail or don't last, leaving the actor feeling empty. - Evans argues control only extends to participation, not results, so decouple self-worth from long-term impact. Transcript: Dave Evans Two ways. Number one, most of the time, even if you do everything right, your attempted impact doesn't work. I mean, it literally doesn't work. You try to save the animal and it dies anyway. Or even if it does work, it doesn't last very long in the world. Or you succeed. And then, frankly, the feeling of it doesn't last very long. The half-life on an impact, which is an objective fact, it's a transaction. It's not a living thing. It doesn't go on and on and on. We worked with the U.S. Olympic Committee because there's nothing as exciting as ascending the Olympic platform or as terrifying as descending it. On the other side of being the best in the world is like, now what? So this is a fundamental human problem and Amy's got it in spades. So the issue here is recognizing, number one, that I need more than just impact making, more than just changing the world as a source of what makes my life worthwhile. If that's the only thing I've got going, I'm really at risk. And number two, on that aspect of my life that's pointed toward impact making, recognizing you have no power whatsoever over the outcome creating the result you want. All you can control is your participation. She was a very successful animal defender, but she wrote a rule for herself that unless I save this many animals or, you know, the world changes its mind or the people around me get it the Way I get it. None of which she has any power over at all, by the way. Unless those things become true, all my efforts were a waste of time. And that's a powerful rule that she has written. ([Time 1:00:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/114f5d5d-f8c0-4fc2-a09a-940a71a68878)) - **Curate Curiosity To Design Midlife Change** - For midlife redesign, curate curiosity: list interests, read deeply, contact authors and local people, and turn curiosity into coffee conversations and small experiments. - Evans recommends vertical reading and networking to awaken passions after a long period of following others' plans. Transcript: Dave Evans She's in right now. So, Olga has a real problem and I've encountered it many times. It's not that uncommon. So she had something very specific in mind and it failed. Didn't work out. She actually did everything right. She went to a law school. She was on the plan that she had conceived in her twenties and had energy for, and it didn't work out. And when it didn't work out, she had no plan B in mind. She probably didn't have an idea of what the not a successful lawyer Olga even could be. And what would design thinking recommend that Olga do? Olga needs something that she hasn't had in a long time, an interest in something she cares about. And so if I were sitting down with Olga in office hours, I'd say, Olga, look, you've been doing other people's things for a long, long, long time. It has worked out okay. It's not horrible, but it's not very life-giving. And now finally, your psyche is saying, hey, we think it's our turn, but we have no idea what to do with it. So great. That's a great project. Let's go curate your curiosity. Tell me what you're interested in. Tell me what books you read. I would work with her to find anything at all that she cares about. And let's grab one or two of those things and start reading vertically down into those things. Let's write those authors and find their contact on LinkedIn. Let's get into the conversation. Let's see who else in your town cares about that and go buy them a cup of coffee. We'll start working on Olga caring about something she cares about. ([Time 1:11:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/dd288861-7428-46a0-b7a7-81c3edb8cd97)) - **Be Fully Engaged But Calmly Detached** - Be fully engaged in activities by focusing attention on the present and remain calmly detached by not tying your identity to outcomes. - Evans describes this combo as entering flow while treating results as outside your control to preserve aliveness. Transcript: Dave Evans Fully engaged means you're showing up, you're fully participating in what you're doing at the time. It really means you're entering the flow state, which we could talk more about. But what that means is my attention, my energy, my experience of myself and my surroundings is all focused on what's actually happening right now. I'm not talking to Shankar and thinking about what I'm going to cook for dinner or our friend Catherine who's visiting. I hope she's having a good time. That's not being engaged. That's being distracted. So engagement means my full attention in the present moment. Detachment means, and that thing I'm doing, I'm doing for its own sake, freely, not worrying about the outcome and its results. So gosh, I really hope this Q&A session goes well. It's great that Shankar called back and asked me. Okay. That's all worrying about the outcome. So I want to be fully engaged, so I'm really thinking about your listener questions. ([Time 1:14:34](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8e643cda-f654-4258-a6f8-7701e5f53d19)) - **Constraint Becomes Design Advantage** - Constraints are assets in design thinking because they narrow options and make creative work more focused. - Evans tells Miguel to accept Singapore, family responsibilities, and limited time, then seek maximum aliveness within that box. Transcript: Dave Evans Welcome to humanity. Now what we're saying back to acceptance is I begin with reality, including the acceptance that I am a finite person. In our, in a recent book, we talk a lot about the three big reframes around impact, fulfillment, and the scandal of particularity. What the heck is the scandal of particularity? It's the recognition like, oh my gosh, it turns out no ultimate is ever fully experienced. Love, beauty, justice, compassion, you name it. We'll never, ever actually see that whole thing in reality. Circumstantial reflections of those things called a particularity, and they come and they go. And then when you realize that, then suddenly you go, oh my gosh. And one of the biggest particularities is me. I am a small expression of the fullness of the thing called me. We will never know the fullness of Miguel. We will simply know the revealed Miguel that he chooses to bring to the world in the constrained little thing called 7x24 hours. And the constrained little thing called what Singapore is doing and what his family has. He has boxed himself in. And that's the good news. Because now the design task isn't to transcend that box or to beat gravity. You can't do that. What you can do is I can make the most of what is. ([Time 1:21:01](https://share.snipd.com/snip/222ce8b7-bd87-4e9f-b9e3-f9f1a6af44b4))