The Mel Robbins PodcastUnderstanding This Will Change How You Experience Your Entire Life
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
120 min read · 23,570 words- 0:00 – 3:22
Welcome
- MRMel Robbins
Our guest today is the, as in capital T-H-E, world's leading researcher on the intersection of spirituality, psychology, and mental health.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
So, human spirituality has three pieces. One is that we are built to see into the deeper, profound nature of life. The second is that the deeper nature of life is real, alive, and guided. And the third is that-
- MRMel Robbins
The ultimate question is have you always been living a spiritual life... You just weren't in dialogue with it?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
You are built naturally spiritual.
- MRMel Robbins
People who had a religious practice were happier-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yes.
- MRMel Robbins
... tended to be healthier-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yes.
- MRMel Robbins
... tended to have less rates of depression and anxiety than people who didn't?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yes. There is an antidote. There is an antidote to all the stress and depression and addiction and suicidality. There's an antidote, and it's one source.
- MRMel Robbins
Where do I find it? Dr. Lisa Miller. I am so excited for this conversation. I- we haven't even had it yet, and I can already feel the hair on my arms lifting up. I can feel the energy in this room swirling around us, and I am just so grateful that you're here.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
I am so thrilled to be here, Mel. I love what you have put into our world, and it's a blessing to be here with this extraordinary woman.
- MRMel Robbins
Thank you. Let's start by having you speak directly to the person who's with us right now.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
And they don't have any time, but they have found the time and made the time-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
... to be here with us.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
Could you tell them what they might experience in their life that could be different if they take everything to heart that you're about to share with us and teach us today?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
You will be able to see into the deeper nature of life and live a far more profound and meaningful journey, and that is you. There is no one left out. Everyone can do this.
- MRMel Robbins
And is that true regardless of where you are on sort of that scale of spirituality from "I don't believe in anything" or, "I used to but I don't anymore," to somebody who wants to but is skeptical, to somebody who considers themselves spiritual but not religious, to somebody who has a devout religious practice?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
No matter where you are on that scale-
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
... you are a spiritual being. You are built naturally spiritual. And so this conversation applies to everybody equally. There is no one on Earth who's not spiritual.
- MRMel Robbins
Now, when you say that though, for a person, 'cause there's a lot of intellectuals that work here at OneFourThree studios-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yes.
- MRMel Robbins
... a lot of smart people-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Met them, yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
... yeah, who want to be more spiritual, but don't know how. And so when you say regardless of who you are or what you believe or where you are in your life right now, you are by design a spiritual being-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
100%.
- 3:22 – 9:59
A Simple Practice to Help You Feel Less Alone
- MRMel Robbins
that?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yes. Mel, might we try and invite everyone into a practice?
- MRMel Robbins
Sure.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Okay. This is a practice that was given to me, I always thank the teacher, by the late Dr. Gary Weaver, whose focus was on working with people who said, "Ah, not for me, this spiritual stuff."
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
And it's a direct practice in the language of life. Shall we?
- MRMel Robbins
Okay. Yes, let's do it.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Okay. I invite you to close your eyes if you'd like. Clear out your inner space with five breaths. (breaths in) And in your inner space, in your inner chamber, 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, and with them all sitting there, ask them if they love you. Ask them if they love you. And now you may invite your higher self, the part of you that is so much more than anything you may have done or not done, anything you may have or not have, your true, eternal higher self, and ask you if you love you. Ask you if you love you. And now finally, you may invite your higher power, whatever word is yours, however you know, your higher power... and ask your higher power if they love you. And now with all of these people sitting here right now, what do they need to share? What do they need to tell you now? What do you need to know? What do you need to know? When you're ready, I invite you back. So how did you experience that?
- MRMel Robbins
Well, what was interesting for me personally is I immediately dropped in. Like, I could see the table. I started to slot people immediately. You were actually there.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Thank you.
- MRMel Robbins
Um, my husband was there, my son was there, my mom was there, and Evan, my therapist, was there. Um, and I could easily answer the question, "Do you love me?" because-... what had dropped into consciousness in the visualization were those people.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Ah.
- MRMel Robbins
When you asked me to visualize my higher self-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
... and you asked me to ask my higher self if they loved me-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
... I immediately said yes, and I reflected though on the fact that if I had done that visualization 10 years ago-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
... I probably would have said no.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Wow.
- MRMel Robbins
Because I would have had judgment over who I was, where I was in life, things I've done in my past. And so, I kind of had this moment where I was thinking about somebody who might be listening, who can't access the I love you from their higher self, or who, when you said higher self, immediately thought, "Well, what is that? I don't even know what that is." And then when you asked us to call in the higher power, whatever that means for us, I have all kinds of things (laughs) that came to mind, images and symbols and things that have deep spiritual meaning in my life that connect me to something bigger than myself and to a higher purpose. But after I asked that for myself, I wondered for somebody who doesn't consider themselves spiritual, I wondered if they saw anything.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
So, for you-
- MRMel Robbins
Yes.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
... the third chair-
- MRMel Robbins
Yes.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
... the higher power, who or what came?
- MRMel Robbins
What came for me?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
Well, the first thing that dropped in was an owl.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Mm.
- 9:59 – 16:27
The Science Behind Spirituality
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
- MRMel Robbins
So, Dr. Lisa-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
... what is spirituality?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
So, human spirituality has three pieces. One is that we are built to see into the deeper profound nature of life. The second is that the deeper nature of life is real, alive, and guiding. And the third is that when you put the two together, every single day we have the opportunity to choose to live in dialogue with the deeper force of life. Every one of us.
- MRMel Robbins
So, spirituality is three things. I just wanna make sure (laughs) I get this.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yes.
- MRMel Robbins
But number one, that there is a deeper nature of life and the experience of living it that is available to you, and you are physically wired to be able to tap into it. That's number one. Number two-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
You're physically wired to tap into it.
- MRMel Robbins
You're physically wired to tap into the deeper nature of life.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yes.
- MRMel Robbins
Number two, it is real.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yes.
- MRMel Robbins
It is not a belief. It is something deeper that you know and feel. Is that true?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
And alive and working. I mean-
- MRMel Robbins
And alive and working.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Even if you ignore it, it's alive and working. But point three is if you are in dialogue, your life unfolds entirely differently.
- MRMel Robbins
What is in dialogue-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
... with the deeper forces of life mean?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Every moment of my waking life, I'm not controlling my life. I'm not wishing my life to go a certain direction. I am an open observer to what the universe is saying to me now. At every moment in my life, I am an open observer, ready to perceive the direction of the universe. Some people call the deeper nature of life the universe or source. They'll say, "I have felt touched by source." Some people experience the deeper nature of life within their own beautiful faith tradition, whether they're Hindu or Catholic or Jewish or Muslim, whatever their faith tradition may be. They experience the deeper nature of life and call it, my word is God. Some people say Jesus or Hashem, the universe. It doesn't matter what your word is. And I've, Mel, I've never in my entire life heard anyone argue that there are two sources of all life. Everyone seems to agree there's one source of all life, and then there's simply a beautiful range of words that we apply to the source of all life.
- MRMel Robbins
And is the source of life energy?Is that why this is all happening, that it's energetic waves, it's electromagnet, like I'm gonna come up with some big words that I don't... But you- you know what I mean? Like now my intellectual brain is trying to nail down and knock on wood-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Consider-
- MRMel Robbins
... what actually is source.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
The source of life. So the source of life in your own quest, I invite you to consider, is the source of life conscious? Does it know you? Does it show up for you?
- MRMel Robbins
I don't know.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Mm-hmm. Is the source of life loving?
- MRMel Robbins
Yes.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
The source of life is loving.
- MRMel Robbins
Yes.
- 16:27 – 23:26
How to Find Your Spiritual Path
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
- MRMel Robbins
I'm wondering why do you think there has been such a crisis in faith around the world? Because, you know, everywhere you look, as I was preparing to have this conversation with you, it seems like spirituality or people practicing a religion has been in decline around the globe and particularly here in the United States. I mean, is that true? And why is that such a bad thing?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
There's enormous confusion about the difference between spirituality and religion.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Spirituality is our birthright. We are all naturally spiritual beings. Religion is a gift of our environment, and we may or may not like the way that it was walked and taught in our childhood or growing up. Whether or not we are religious, we are all spiritual beings. Unfortunately, because people might have a discontent with how religion was practiced in their childhood home, because people might not like their encounters with their own faith tradition, many of us have thrown the baby out with the bath water, many, many people. And the question is, you know, wait a minute, if you throw the spiritual baby out with the bath water, what do you lose? You lose your own authentic spiritual path. Take back your own spiritual path. There's no need to be reactive against people who did it differently or in your eyes wrong.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
That was their walk. Everything that you need, you already have to open up a spiritual awareness, to awaken, and live in dialogue with the deeper force in life.
- MRMel Robbins
I read in the New York Times this weekend as I was preparing for this conversation, there's a big article actually about the fact that Americans have not found a replacement for religion. That in the 1990s, there was a massive exit-... from traditional faith religious practice, and people, I think, have been searching ever since for something. And one of the things th- that I was thinking a lot about is that, you know, when you have a religious practice, so you have a place that you go, and you are in community with other people, that practice in and of itself is giving you a number of things that every human being needs. Number one, you're in community, so you have this experience of being seen and feeling a sense of belonging to something. You have a guidance and belief system that, hopefully, is helpful to you to help you navigate life, and you have behaviors and ways of thinking that help you stay connected to the deeper forces, that help you reframe the challenges of life, that help remind you that you're not alone in your struggles, and that hopefully lift you up.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
So, Mel, there's no question that if there is a religion where you feel at home, it is a wonderful thing. If you have found a religious home, that is absolutely wonderful, because religion pulls together all that we need to nourish natural spirituality. There is a language of transcendence and a practice of a way to get there. There's a roadmap of the sacred reality. There's elders and babies all around you, so you understand-
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
... the human journey as a spiritual journey.
- MRMel Robbins
Yes, and you have the ceremonies for the beginning of life, you have the ceremonies when somebody passes over. And so you're constantly in the wash of that river-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yes.
- MRMel Robbins
... and the forces of life that are undeniable. We all come in the same way, we all leave the same way.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
So if you don't feel at home in a house of worship, you have three choices.
- MRMel Robbins
Where do you find it? 'Cause I think that's the hardest part, for me-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
... is, where do I find it? I used to go to the church at Harvard when Peter Gomes was alive.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
And it felt like a home.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Beautiful, so you did have it there.
- MRMel Robbins
Oh, yes, absolutely. The service, the community, the big baritone voice. It was open, affirming, welcoming. It was of the works and the spirit. It was the force, and I've never found it again.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
So that which you discovered is available to all of us. Option one is go find a house of worship where you do feel alive and you do feel the presence of the source of life, who I call God. Go where you feel God's presence, and go where you feel people truly living out the truth. And if you can't find it, walk down the street, or for some people, across the country. There may be somewhere else-
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
... other than where you grew up, such as you found, Mel-
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
... in the church at Harvard.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
The second option, the notion of dharma, that you can pick and choose in your own spiritual journey from different faith traditions. There might be something from Buddhism that speaks very deeply to you. There might be something resonant from Catholicism in your childhood that, you know, Catholicism is wonderful at helping people see the deeper sacred reality in the daily material reality. That might be something you keep if you grew up Catholic. There's much, much to learn from every faith tradition. As we are on our own spiritual quest, we can effectively say, "What is the me and not me that I pick up from different faith traditions?" And then, of course, along those lines is, "What from my very own childhood faith tradition is me and not me?" You know, some people say, "Well, I didn't like the guilt and the shame, but I sure liked the fact that people showed up for each other. If someone was ill, there was"-
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- 23:26 – 36:02
Science Says You’re Wired for Spirituality
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
- MRMel Robbins
You know, something I was fascinated by in your book is that when you looked at brain scans of people who are experiencing something spiritual, that the scans all look the same. Like, i- i- uh, different places on the globe, across genders, races, types of spiritual experiences. Can you tell us, like, what you actually saw when you look at brain scans and somebody's having a spiritual experience?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Mel, just like there's one visual system and there's one auditory system, there's one spiritual perception system. We-
- MRMel Robbins
And you actually see it in the brain?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
We see it in fMRI studies, live action in the brain. It doesn't matter whether our participant is Catholic, or Hindu, or Jewish, or spiritual and not religious. The same neural correlates run. There is one spiritual brain, and every human being on Earth is endowed with the same spiritual brain. Now, of course, we can strengthen the spiritual brain. There's human variability just as there's human variability for music or math. But the foundational components of the spiritual brain are identical in 10 billion people on Earth. Everyone has the same spiritual brain. So first note...Religious war is obsolete. You're fighting about nothing, because there's one seat of human spiritual perception, and you all have it, and it's identical.
- MRMel Robbins
The only difference is the words that you say and the beliefs that you have, what you were taught versus the innate wiring which activates during a spiritual experience.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yes.
- MRMel Robbins
Which is those moments when you are in dialogue and connected to the deeper forces of life.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
In our MRI study, whether someone said, "I was praying in the pews of my childhood church when I felt God's presence," or if they said, "I was walking in Glacier National Park, and I saw-
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
... light on the ice, and I knew there was something more," the identical neural correlates run. Spiritual but not religious, deeply religious, the same spiritual brain allows us to feel the transcendent relationship. There is, in and through us, the deeper, loving, transcendent relationship.
- MRMel Robbins
If an awakened brain-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yes.
- MRMel Robbins
... means you're tapping into this capacity to be connected to the deeper nature of life-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yes.
- MRMel Robbins
... if you're not tapping into it, what is the state of your brain?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Ah, prepared and ready to go. You were born with the circuits to awaken. You were born with everything you need to awaken your brain. But this is a choice, because while the wiring is in every single one of us, lived spiritual life is one-third innate, two-thirds cultivated and built. We've gotta do our job.
- MRMel Robbins
Got it. Okay, so what you're saying here, and you write about this in your best-selling book, The Awakened Brain. I'm on page 58. I wanna read this to you, because you're talking about this study. So you've just said, Dr. Lisa, it is a proven, researched, scientific, medical fact that every single one of us has the wiring for an awakened brain and a deeply spiritual existence. And so I'm reading right here, "Our spirituality is substantively, roughly two-thirds a factor of how we're raised, the company we keep, the things we do to build the muscle. But still, a significant degree of our capacity to experience the sacred and transcendent, one-third, is inscribed in our genetic code as innate as our eye color or fingerprints." And for a long time, you write that, "Spirituality had just been seen in the eyes of clinical science as synonymous with religion. It's like an understood belief, a set of views, a choice, perhaps a crutch to rely on in hard times, not as an aspect of human experience that might be core to our innate being." And the study that you're talking about, Dr. Kendler's study was the first time that the scientific community had published research exploring the possibility that there might be a genetic capacity within us for spiritual experience. This is the part that I love. "This new research raised the possibility that just as we are cognitive, physical, and emotional beings, we are also spiritual beings. In other words, it's possible that we are built to be spiritual and that spirituality might be a fundamental and necessary part of our human inheritance that contributes to our mental health. This groundbreaking study suggests that spirituality isn't just a belief, but something each of us is born with, and the capacity to experience." In fact, you say, "The ability to be spiritual, which is to be connected to and in dialogue with the deeper nature and forces of life, is our birthright."
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yes. Science says you are spiritual. Science says spirituality is your birthright. No one is left out. Everyone is spiritual.
- MRMel Robbins
For somebody that does that meditation, and you can visualize the table. You start to drop in the people, right, that you said ser- seat people at the table.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Who truly have your best interest in mind.
- MRMel Robbins
Who truly have your best interest in mind. And then you ask the question, "Do they love you?"
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
For somebody who immediately starts to put up resistance or go, "Oh, this is so cheesy," or "Oh, for crying out loud, here we go with the thing."
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
What is happening in their brain?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Mm-hmm. Well, first of all, I invite you to be curious. Okay?
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Whatever you might think about your parents' religion, or your grandparents' religion, or the torchbearer who didn't walk the walk. You know, the flame is pure and bright. The fire is divine, but the torchbearer was a human being-
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- 36:02 – 45:27
You Don’t Have to Feel Lost Ever Again
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
- MRMel Robbins
You know, one of the things that you write about in The Awakened Brain is that you say, "Spirituality, it's not a belief." And I- I think that's for me, I was raised, uh, in the faith tradition of the Methodist Church-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
... but for me, it just started to feel-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
... more doctrine and less of the spirit and the current of it.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
The torchbearers did it that way.
- MRMel Robbins
Yes.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
Yes. And so, I think a lot of us, or I'll speak for myself personally, get hung up-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Hm.
- MRMel Robbins
... on the belief system-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Hm.
- MRMel Robbins
... versus the feel of it. And you write in The Awakened Brain, and as you're unpacking the science of spirituality, that it isn't a belief.... that, you call it a perception.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yes.
- MRMel Robbins
Can you explain what that means?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Your spirituality, inside of you, is a seat of perception. It is your ability to feel and know the presence of guidance in your life, to see synchronicities. It's your ability to feel and know the profundity, "Why did this person show up in my life, of all times, now?" It's your gift to be able to sense that even when everything falls apart, you are not going to, and you're actually buoyant. It's your sense that, "No matter how much I mess up and the things I'm ashamed of that I've done, there's something deep and alive and eternal, the flame, that's worthy." Your soul is worthy. And your understanding of this doesn't need to be intellectual. In fact, through the lens of science, spirituality is not a belief. It is a deep seat of perception. Science shows us that we are built and wired to see and know the deep reality of life. It is a feeling of being loved. It is the sense of being buoyant. And it is not just a nice feeling, like happiness, it is a perception of the truth of the way the world is really built. Spirituality is the relationship between, one, your ability to see and know the deep sacred current in life, two, that this current is real, and three, that every single day you have the opportunity to have a relationship, to ride with the current of life and see where the river is taking you. The brain is not a factory that makes spiritual thoughts. The brain is an antenna that receives spiritual truth.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay, I need s- to expand on this because you wrote about this in your best-selling book, The Awakened Brain. Um, this is where I took out the highlighter and was like, "Wait, what?" And this is on page 102, and I really want you to unpack this for us. You basically had this kind of aha moment as you're getting your PhD, where you're like, "Okay, wait a minute. Psychology talks about human beings as this closed loop." And that, you know, the assumption at the time is that your brain creates thoughts, that all meaning is interpretation, and that we can feel better by rearranging our thoughts, which, you know, I talk about a lot in conversations on this podcast with world-renowned experts in terms of your mindset and how you think about things and reframing things from the positive to the negative and not being so pessimistic but being more optimistic, right? And that by disputing negative thoughts, or thoughts that make us unhappy, and replacing depressing thoughts with a new framework that helps you tell a brighter story, that that's sort of the thrust of psychology and reframing.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
To feel good.
- MRMel Robbins
Yes. And then you write, "But what if the brain didn't create thoughts so much as receive them? What if our brains were less like idea generators and more like an antenna or docking station for receiving a larger consciousness? What if to feel better is actually to detect and be in alignment with that consciousness? And what if emotions direct us into the world as it really is?" And you were discovering the science of synchronicity, that feeling better isn't just a matter of creating new thoughts, of replacing unhappy ones with happier ones, it's also about noticing and aligning ourselves with whatever life is showing us. There's never a guarantee that we're gonna get what we want or what we thought we wanted. When we become spiritually aware, it's a sign that despite the uncertainty, we are aligned with the force of life. So when you had that aha moment, and is that when you were like, "Wait a minute, we're thinking about the brain and the way we live life and the way we think about thoughts and emotions and what's possible the wrong way?"
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yes, absolutely. So the brain actually is built, we are built to be in alignment with the force of life. When we feel deeply aligned, when we use our inner compass to align ourselves with the deep force of life, then there's the fluidity of moving down the river. We have spent so much time in psychology trying to make people feel good, pumping people up with self-serving thoughts, that we've lost the deeper purpose as spiritual beings to whole-person flourishing, which is to live in alignment with the deep force in life.
- MRMel Robbins
What does it mean to be in alignment with the forces of life?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Your emotions are accurate. If you're feeling guilty 'cause you cheated on a test or cheated on your spouse, that is an accurate index of your alignment with the force of life. You just made a betrayal. If you're feeling guilty, if you're feeling sad, those are not pathological emotions. They're telling you something about your alignment with life. Those are a gift. Your emotions are for you, not against you. They are an index of your relationship...... to reality. Now, where do I go from there? Well, I, I'm not stuck. I'm not stuck feeling guilty or I'm not stuck feeling sad. That is the knock at the door to shifting my way of being. It's the beginning of my new way of being. It is not a failure. I'm not off the spiritual path. I'm on the spiritual path being told, "Eh, course correction." Right? And as I start to align, open my heart, feel the guidance, start to just be very kind to people, care for fellow living beings, care for myself, as I start to walk the walk of love and care, as I start to be nice to the people who totally annoy me... They're not evil, they're just annoying, right? If I-
- MRMel Robbins
Let them.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
(laughs) Let them. So this takes us out of the seat of control. It's not about where I wanna go and what I think I want, because everything I think I want is actually outdated. It's based on today backwards. You know-
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
... I want this apartment, I want this job. I mean, that's what I think I want, but it's actually based on historical information. The synchronicities that guide me, the deep current in the river is taking me somewhere that I've yet to discover. I've yet to imagine where the river's taking me. And when we awaken and say, "Okay, life, I'll ride with the river. Okay, higher power, what are you showing me now? What do you want from me now?" And go with the river. We are on a glorious adventure. We are going somewhere we never dreamed, and it is not what we wanted. It is better than what we wanted, or better for us.
- MRMel Robbins
What immediately came to mind as you were talking about this glorious vision-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
... of just, it's like, let go of the oars-
- 45:27 – 53:37
You’re Loved. You’re Supported. You’re Guided
- MRMel Robbins
guiding me?"
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
May we do another practice?
- MRMel Robbins
Sure.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Okay. This is called the road of life.
- MRMel Robbins
The road of life.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
The road of life.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
And it's in The Awakened Brain.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
I invite you to take five breaths again and clear out your inner space. I invite you to think of a time where you wanted something so badly, that job, him or her or them to say yes, you wanted that school, you wanted it for yourself, you wanted it for your family, you wanted that red door. So you did everything right. You researched it, you planned, you tactically were on the ball. You go for your red door, and it's stuck. And you can't believe it's stuck because A plus B plus C, you had done, you had done everything right. But the red door is stuck. You might kick it, you might shake it. No red door. No red door for you. And only because that red door's stuck, you have no choice. You turn 50, 80, 110 degrees over there. Over there is a wide open yellow door. A wide open yellow door. You didn't know yellow doors existed, hadn't heard of them. On the other side of the yellow door is someone more right for you, is a job that makes you feel alive, is a mentor at a school that sees you in a way that you didn't even know you were capable of. That yellow door was not what you had wanted. It was better, and better for you. You've crossed the yellow door to a whole new golden landscape. And as you sit back now, take a breath, and think of that stuck red door and the hairpin turn that took you to the wide open yellow door, was there anyone at that hair- hairpin turn? It could have been someone you met for two minutes at a coffee shop. It could have been a grandparent who confided in you a story that she'd never told before. There was a trail angel, someone at the hairpin turn pointing you to the wide open yellow door, giving you information. The trail angel at the hairpin turn. And as you sit now finally way back, stuck red door, hairpin turn, trail angel, and wide open yellow door, the yellow door that has so much to do with who you are and where you are today. How really are the most important parts of our lives formed? Yes, we have to plan, and yes, we have to do our part, but do we really have radical control? Or are we more deeply in dialogue with a force that guides us, in us, through us, that closes red doors and opens yellow doors and puts trail angels in our path? What do you call this deeper force in us, through us, and among us, and your ability to be an open system and listen, listen with an open heart and full eyes to the force of life?... have you been on a spiritual path all along?
- MRMel Robbins
What's wild about that is that, um, the ultimate question is, have you always been living a spiritual life?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
You just weren't in dialogue with it.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
This deep river, who I call God, is the force that pulls us along, and when we choose to be in dialogue, when we say, "Hey, what river are you guiding us to now? What higher power are you asking of us now?" Okay, I just didn't get the thing I wanted 11 times. Maybe if I pivot, there's a wide open yellow door. Maybe, thank goodness, try as I might, bang my head as hard as I can, that red door is unyielding because there is, over there, if I would just pivot, a wide open yellow door.
- MRMel Robbins
You know, in your book, you share so many amazing stories of how spirituality can really save your life in many cases. Do you have a favorite story? Is there one that you could share with us today?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
I share in The Awakened Brain that I wanted dearly and deeply for five years to start a family. So, sure enough, my husband and I went to all the best doctors up and down the East Coast, the one who invented in vitro, the highest rates of conception, and still no children. And in this path, I got the picture after about 11 failed in vitros and plenty of little pokes and prods and disappointments. You know, every failed in vitro felt like a hideous funeral. "Oh, you're not pregnant." That felt like going to the funeral of the baby that wasn't born, the tiny little dead cell, right? So, it was a very painful journey, and in this journey of struggling to conceive, I started receiving guidance. I received guidance from trail angels, some of whom were people. You know, a guy on the bus came up to me, and he said, "You know, lady," and I- I was pretty depressed this day. "You look like just that kind of lady that would go all around the world adopting kids." Well, maybe we should.
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Um, another synchronicity, my mother calls out of the blue. She said, "I just want you to know our neighbor adopted the most adorable little boy, little John Joseph. Just wanted you to know. Oh, and he's from Russia." Click. Which is where we found our son.
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
The synchronicities that guided us to our beautiful boy, Isaiah, on the other side of the world, the most profound of which was at one point, I have a big cousin, Mel. My big cousin, Big Jane. I'm Lisa Jane, she's Big Jane. And she called me and said, "You know, Ms. Columbia professor, you think you're so smart, but you're missing the point."
- MRMel Robbins
(laughs)
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
"If you wanna understand spirituality, you need to come out here to a healing ceremony." And together with the Lakota and Big Jane, I joined a group of women who were all praying for healing. And on that day, Mel, in that inipi in South Dakota, every woman had come to pray for a son. One woman said, "My son, he's not coming home. He's been using drugs." One woman said, "My son, he's starting to leave his wife and kids. I'm worried for the family." Every woman was worried about a son, until we got to Big Jane, who said, "I'm here with my cousin, Little Jane. Little Jane has come looking for her child. I'm wondering if we could help her." And for the first time, I felt confidence in this journey to find a child. Every woman nodded. Sitting in an inipi in South Dakota, knowing that there were people scouting for our child in Eastern Europe and Russia, what did the two have to do with each other? What did those two seemingly distant physical events have to do with each other? We said a prayer led by the medicine man's wife. The prayer went up through the top of the inipi. A collective prayer. And, Mel, that night, after five years of weeping and pain and tears, that night, our son was found in Russia. Just as we are loved and held and guided, when we show up for others and are loving, holding, and guiding, we fulfilled who we really are as spiritual beings. And it doesn't work just through a ping-pong match. It doesn't work always materially or mechanistically or things that we physically do. It all often passes through source.
- 53:37 – 1:01:01
How to Raise a Spiritually Grounded Kid
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
- MRMel Robbins
What does the research say, and what have you found about...
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
... spirituality and kids?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Oh. So important, Mel. So, you know, I'm- I'm a parent like you. I have three kids. You know, parent culture is driven by all of us wanting to help our kids. We want them to get the best education, we want them to live in a safe community, we want them to cultivate themselves. Um, but very often, parent culture has a quiet... It's like a little sleeper cell in it. I call it radical achieving awareness, that everything is actually measured by, well, how well are you doing? And what it sounds like at pick up and drop off is, "How'd the math test go? Um, did you guys win today on the soccer field?" Well-intentioned, well-intentioned, available parents, but the child often hears radical, ongoing, running achieving awareness as contingent love. Am I doing a good enouch- good enough job? And in fact, Mel, I have a friend and colleague, Dr. Suniya Luthar, who, um, published 10 years of studies looking at the fact that when children feel contingent love, they actually get anxious. They actually get depressed.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Because there's no such thing as good enough. It's really just running on a habit trail, running on a treadmill. What is the alternative for parents to-... unyielding achieving awareness. It's to bring awakened awareness, to bring spiritual life into every single moment of our parenting. So spirituality is not the thing we do, you know, only on Sunday or Saturday, or only at prayer at dinner. Spirituality is the golden thread that weaves through every moment of parenting. Spirituality is the conversation in the front seat of the SUV when you just lost the game and you just didn't get into your first cho- choice college, and you know what? Maybe the universe has a plan for you. Maybe God wants something for you that you don't even know exists yet. Let's do the red door, yellow door practice. I wonder what's on the other side of this hairpin turn. So parenting, from a spiritual perspective, is making ourselves available as spiritual moms, as spiritual dads, as spiritual grandparents. Grandparents are tremendously important. How do we do that? How do we help our children understand us spiritually and support... How do we support our children spiritually? There's four things we can do as parents. The first is, be transparent about your own spiritual life. So meditate in a visible place and say, "Do you want to sit by my side?" Read poetry in nature. "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood," as we're hiking at a fork. Say a prayer out loud. When you do that, it says something tremendously important, life-changing to your children. We talk about the spiritual reality. It has a language and a way in. It is real. The spiritual reality is real. And our relationship, in our home, in our family, goes to the bedrock depth of the spiritual reality. That's a whole different family.
- MRMel Robbins
What's interesting is I've always felt really guilty because we did not bring up our kids in a traditional faith, you know, religious practice. And so, I've always felt like, okay, my kids missed out on something, they don't have a foundation for belief. But as you were going through those four things, I was like, check, check, check, check.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Fantastic.
- MRMel Robbins
I mean, I don't... I mean, I guess I have to take a step back and say I hope it's fantastic, and what I'm getting from your work is that my spiritual journey is my spiritual journey.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yes.
- MRMel Robbins
And my children's spiritual journey is their spiritual journey.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Oh, yes. I'm not looking to reproduce myself.
- MRMel Robbins
Yes.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
I'm not looking for three little Lisas.
- MRMel Robbins
Yes.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
I hope that by speaking authentically of my spiritual path, praying out loud, using the roadmap of spiritual reality-
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
... every single day, my children then are authorized to listen to their own inner spiritual compass.
- MRMel Robbins
Is it true that young people are far less... I, well, I gotta adjust now based on what I'm learning. Everybody is a spiritual being.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Is spiritual.
- MRMel Robbins
But is it true that young people today are far less awakened and connected to the deeper forces in life?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Young people, you know, these are very open spiritual young adults.
- MRMel Robbins
Meaning what?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Well, they're born with an exquisite wiring to experience the deeper nature of life and see that in one another. And in fact, they're reaching for it by being careful about how they speak to each other and about human rights and animal rights. They're reaching for it. Um, Gen Z's beautiful. We have given them a pretty empty two-thirds embrace, a pretty empty bucket of how to cultivate natural spirituality. And so they're searching. And to Gen Z, I say, "You've got everything you need." It's a quest. You've got hardwired an ability to feel and know the deeper nature of life, but what we failed to give you was the certainty that that was hard, valid knowing. We told you that things are only real if you can point your finger and touch them. We became... Really, it's called radical materialism. It's only real if you can touch it. It's only real if you can measure it. That is tremendously disavowing of the birthright of inner knowing. That is tremendously abnegating. It gets in the way of natural spiritual awareness. So Gen Z, we're sorry. But you still are built to be on a quest. And I know that you will find a relationship to your higher power. It is there. What are the steps? One, find your way to the presence. Some people do this through meditation and prayer. Some people find their way to the presence through pilgrimage. Some people use hallucinogens. It doesn't matter how you open, right? But once you find your way to the presence, it's important you can get back. And how do you get back? That is your practice. Find the presence in your practice to get back. Are you at it alone? Well, sometimes, but you need to be able to share this experience with other people, your spiritual people. So you have your practice, your people, and now it's time to understand what life throws you. What is life showing me now on spiritual grounds? That's your path. And finally, what's this all for? Not, am I gonna be, you know, a doctor, a teacher, a media presence? I'm gonna be a soul on Earth. I'm gonna be a soul on Earth with a higher purpose. And when you can take those five, five pieces and go from feeling the presence, maybe once a fleeting time on a mountaintop, on an ayahuasca trip, in a moment of love, if you can take that fleeting moment of feeling the presence and turn that into a life, a fully integrated spiritual life, then life will do more than meet you halfway.
- MRMel Robbins
I think it's more than Gen Z.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
I really
- 1:01:01 – 1:11:50
How Spirituality Can Help With Depression
- MRMel Robbins
do.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
I, I feel like we're living in a moment because we see it with our global audience, and you may be listening to Doctor... and Lisa and I... or watching us on YouTube from somewhere halfway around the world, but it is very clear to me that the level of stress and overwhelm-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
... and fear-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yes.
- MRMel Robbins
... and isolation that people feel is not how we are supposed to feel.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yes.
- MRMel Robbins
That the headlines that we're seeing, the greediness and the power grab and the, you know, othering-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Othering.
- MRMel Robbins
... of people and opponents and turning everybody else into the problem, that is not how we are meant to be.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
And it all comes from one source, which is the atrophy of our spiritual core and global civil society. There's an antidote. There's an antidote to all the stress and depression and addiction and suicidality. There's an antidote to the horrific ethics right now in our culture. There's an antidote and it's one source, and it's the reignition of our natural spiritual awareness. Everyone on Earth can do this. We can shift the conversation to be a foundationally spiritual conversation, and that pulls forward who we really are.
- MRMel Robbins
You know, we have to because you write in The Awakened Brain, this is on page four, "We live in an age of unprecedented mental anguish. Depression, anxiety, and substance abuse have reached epidemic proportions globally. In 2017, 66.6 million Americans, more than half of the respondents on the National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported binge drinking within the past month, and 20 million meet the criteria for a substance use disorder. 31% of American adults will develop a full-blown anxiety disorder at some point in their lives, and 19% in any given year. The World Health Organization reports that 264 million people on the planet are depressed. Depression is the third most costly disability worldwide. Each year, 17 million American adults are depressed. Over 16% of youth and late adolescent currently face depression, and the impact of depression on suicide accounts for the second leading cause of death in adolescence, rivaled only by death by auto accident." And I would imagine that those statistics in the last eight years have gotten horrifically worse.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Much worse.
- MRMel Robbins
You say that the anecdote is spirituality.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
The antidote to the mass mental health crisis is spirituality. Now, when we look at the statistics with the sharp decline in mental health, there has been concomitant decline in personal spirituality. The two go hand in hand statistically. Why has this happened? Well, I think many people in... struggling with their family faith tradition have thrown the spiritual baby out with the bath water. They have lost sight of their deep spiritual bearings.
- MRMel Robbins
Let me ask you about depression and mental health issues and the amount of anguish and struggle that people are experiencing right now, because in your book, on page 153, I'm gonna read this to you, you say, "Depression and spirituality appear to be two sides of the same coin, vastly different experiences that, in fact, share some significant physiology. I had long wondered from an epidemiological and clinical perspective if some types of depression might be a symptom of a person's craving for spirituality and a call for the spiritual self to awaken." Doctor Lisa, can you talk about the research and the science that explains the connection between spirituality and depression in particular?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Mel, when we do MRI studies of the brain, we see a thick cortex across the regions of the awakened brain in people who, day in and day out, sustain their spiritual life. It could be walks in nature, it could be meditation or prayer. It could have been right action, service. Whatever their MO, their spiritual MO, people who live and breathe every day a dialogue with the deeper nature of life have a thicker, stronger brain across the regions of the awakened brain.
- MRMel Robbins
So, you have a healthier brain when you are living a spiritual life?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
You have a much healthier brain. And in fact, the regions that become thick and strong through sustained spiritual life are the very same regions that are not thick and strong, but thin, in people with recurrent major depression.
- MRMel Robbins
What does that mean? I don't even understand what that means.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
So, that means that we all have a brain that's very sensitive to how we live, and if we live a spiritual life, it gets thick and strong and we see deeper dimensions and yellow doors. But if we ignore this opportunity that we've been given to see life through spiritual eyes, the brain itself is weaker, thinner, and less likely-
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
... to perceive huge opportunities that lay before us. And I don't just mean opportunities for money or fame or him or her, I mean the opportunity to live in alignment with your spiritual path.
- MRMel Robbins
But I thought it was really compelling in your book and reading about the science of spirituality that two-thirds of it is actually addressed by spirituality, and when you look at the research that's recently been done about people that have a religious practice, is what the research was around, that they found over and over again that people who had a religious practice were happier-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yes.
- MRMel Robbins
... tended to be healthier-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yes.
- MRMel Robbins
... tended to have less rates of depression and anxiety than people who didn't.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yes, they-
- 1:11:50 – 1:15:22
Embracing Your Spiritual Journey
- MRMel Robbins
If the person listening takes just one action-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Mm.
- MRMel Robbins
... out of everything that you have poured into us, proven, taught-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
... and awakened-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
... in us, what is the most important thing for them to do?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Know that your deep inner experience of love is the double door to the sacred reality.
- MRMel Robbins
Dr. Lisa Miller, what are your parting words?
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Hmm. You are on a spiritual journey. My hope for you is not that you get what you wanted, but that you discover what the universe has in store for you.
- MRMel Robbins
Ooh, that is so good.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
(laughs)
- MRMel Robbins
That is so good. Oh my God, I hope that too.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
I, I, thank you. Thank you for-
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
Thank you, Mel.
- MRMel Robbins
... everything you do. Thank you for being here. Thank you for inviting us to really lean in and be curious and embrace what you're teaching. I am so excited to see how this conversation sends ripples throughout the world, reaching people that you and I may never meet but we already know.
- LMDr. Lisa Miller
What a joy to be with you, Mel. Thank you for who you are and what you put in our world.
- MRMel Robbins
Thank you. And I also wanna thank you. Thank you for taking the time and making the time to listen to something that will absolutely change your life, and what an extraordinary gift it is to have an invitation and a roadmap to be able to awaken your brain and tap into the forces of life and nature and existence and why you're here. I am so excited for you. I can't wait to hear what happens. I'm excited for the people that you share this with. But mostly, I'm just grateful that you took the time to be curious about this and to really take this invitation on. In case no one else tells you, I'm gonna tell you that I love you, and I love you for listening to this. I love you for being here. I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to create a better life. And boy, I'm convinced that tapping into this innate spirituality is the way to do it. Alrighty. (gentle music) I'll talk to you in a few days. I'll see you in the very next episode. I'll be waiting to welcome you in the moment you hit play. I'll see you there. One more thing. I know you're thinking, "Oh my God, Mel, I wanna watch more." Um, do me a favor. First, hit subscribe because that tells me you love this kinda content, and it also supports me in being able to bring you all of this inspiration and these research-backed strategies every single day. So just hit subscribe. Please, please, please. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And also, I know you probably want some more inspiration, something beautiful to watch, so check out this video next. I picked it for you. I know you're gonna enjoy it.
Episode duration: 1:15:22
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