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The School of Greatness
Dr. Lisa Miller: The Neuroscience of Spirituality - How To Heal Your Mind & Manifest More
01:56:26
My conversation with renowned psychologist Dr. Lisa Miller takes us deep into the fascinating intersection of spirituality and neuroscience. As a pioneer in the field and professor at Columbia University, Dr. Miller shares groundbreaking research on how our brains are actually wired for spiritual connection. Through powerful personal stories, including her own journey through infertility and adoption, she reveals how depression often serves as a spiritual wake-up call rather than just a medical condition. We explore the science behind synchronicities, the power of choosing love even in difficult times, and how developing our "awakened brain" can transform our lives. Whether you're struggling with mental health, searching for deeper meaning, or simply curious about the science behind spirituality, this episode offers profound insights on connecting with something greater than ourselves.
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What could you do with some extra cash this holiday season? You have been so generous for me all year round that I want to give back to you. Join my 12 Days of Greatness giveaway from now until December 23rd where I'm giving away 250 gift cards to 48 lucky winners. That's right. This is your chance to win money directly from me. It's my way of giving back to you this giving season. To enter, go to lewishaus.com win give yourself an even better chance to win by pre ordering my new book Make Money Easy. Just save your receipt and you'll get 50 bonus entries. Let's Make Money Easy together. Enter right now@lewish.com win thank you so much for being here. I'm so grateful for you and I hope you are feeling blessed and abundant in your life right now. And did you know that if you're feeling not blessed, if you're feeling depressed or anxious or like something's off, the depression is your body and your mind screaming for a spiritual awakening. And that's something that we talk about today with Dr. Lisa Miller, who is a clinical psychologist who does something different. She likes to blend spirituality with science and apply both disciplines into individuals lives. And with her work she has seen incredible transformations. In this episode we talk about the difference between a depressed brain and an awakened brain and how to transform your mind and brain from static depression into awakened abundance. It's extremely powerful process that she walks me through, a visualization and meditation process, one like I've never done before, that I think will be extremely interesting and powerful for you if you're open to going through it with me. Talk about all these different points in transcending the parts of ourselves that hold us back. And she also mentions this divine hunger, how we're starving to feel the divine, to feel divinity within our lives, and yet we distract ourselves with so many things that keep us in a depressed brain. I'm so excited for you to listen to this episode. If it brings you any value at all, please leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Please follow the show the School of Greatness on either of your audio platforms or listening to right now and copy and paste this link and send it to one or two friends that you think this could inspire them. You know we have a gift every single day to bring joy to others. That can be through your presence. That can be through a simple text message, a phone call, giving someone a smile or a hug. And I think this could be one of those things for you today. So send a link to someone where you feel like they could blend science and spirituality to serve their life in a better way. Without further ado, let's dive into this episode with Dr. Lisa Miller FedEx doesn't know your small business yet. Maybe it's handmade apparel for dogs. Maybe it's handmade apparel for cats. What FedEx does know is that running a small business is hard enough without the hassle of complex shipping. That's why there's FedEx One Rate. Did you know that with FedEx One Rate you can ship your holiday packages cheaper than the post office? Send packages as low as $14.50 for small boxes. Visit fedex.com 1rate for details. Exclusions apply. Valid from October 6, 2024 through January 19, 2025. FedEx 1 Rate 2 Day Retail Shipping 1 Flat Rate what does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get 10 answers. Bull Market Bear market rates will rise or fall. Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Well, until then, over 40,000 businesses have future proo improved their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP bringing accounting, financial management, inventory and HR into one fluid platform with one unified business management suite. There's one source of truth giving you the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions and real time insights and forecasting help you peer into the future with actionable data. When you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you're spending less time looking backwards and more time on what's next. Whether your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. Speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com greatness the guide is free to you at netsuite.com greatness netsuite.com greatness the School of Greatness is presented by Ford Pro. First and foremost, the thing that powers your business is power. And when it comes to power, Ford Pro has options. Scratch that, they've got every option. Diesel, gas, hybrid, all electric. Plus they're all connected. So you're always in the driver's seat. The power is yours. Visit ford pro.com for more details. Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest and the conversation we're about to have. We have Dr. Lisa Miller in the house and I am excited about this. I've got a quote I want to share from you first before we dive in. This quote you said is what if the condition we pathologize and diagnose as depression is sometimes actually spiritual hunger, a normal and genetically derived part of human development that is unhealthy to muffle or deny. Now Dr. Lisa, you have a bachelor's degree from Yale, a doctorate from UPenn and you're a professor of psychology and education at Columbia University. You're also the first scientist to publish a peer reviewed article on spirituality and mental health in the first two decades of human life. I'm so grateful you're here. And I think there is a massive dis ease within society where depression and mental health is at an all time high in terms of suffering, sadness and in a weakened energetic state for a lot of people. I think specifically a big proportion of our youth. And you talk about a lot of the differences between the awakened brain versus more of a depressed brain. You've been studying this for a long time. You've got science, research and spiritual practices blended together, which I think is so powerful. And I wanted to ask you first, what is the difference between an awakened brain and a depressed brain? And how can someone who feels the weight of the world, anxiety, depression, adhd, any of these symptoms, how can they start to transform those symptoms or those feelings or that emotional weight into peace and awaken brain?
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So Liz, half the United States and half of most of the post industrial world is depressed.
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A
Really.
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B
We have unprecedented supply of food, we have unprecedented quality of medical care. We are a very well provided for society and still our inner life hurts. It hurts. And depression isn't just feeling sad. Depression can be an edginess. You know, a lot of times people are grumpy or hostile. Depression can be the sense of dread creeping up on us and anxiety like the boogeyman inside. Depression can be not wanting to eat, lying in bed, not having our game on at all. So depression is not just sadness, it's really powering down. And for a very long time there was most of the 20th century people would say depression, well we can see that it has biological correlates. We can see that there's correlates in the brain. Depression, that's a medical illness, always and only uniformly. But over here, you know, there's these people who are religious or they're spiritual and religious that's, you know, that might be nice for them. But the view in the 20th century in much of mental health was that that's somehow a bandaid or a crutch. Religion or spirituality is somehow a crutch. That is now the outdated. It was very prevalent For a long time. Point of view. What we now know from science is that just as depression has neural correlates, our spiritual awareness has neural correlates. We can track in the brain the circuits undergirding a transcendent relationship. And that's true no matter what religion you may be or if you're any religion at all. So whether I'm Hindu or Catholic or Christian or Muslim or Jewish and spiritual but not religious, the same circuits run as I perceive a deep, sacred, transcendent relationship. I can say I feel a oneness with life. I can feel that nature is my sanctuary. I can say that God or Jesus or Hashem or Allah walks with me. However, I understand the transcendent relationship. I'm using my awakened brain. There is one awakened brain. 7.2 billion people on earth have the same awakened brain.
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But why do we suppress our awakened.
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Brain so very often? Depression is not always a medical illness. In fact, as we look two thirds of the time, depression is not a medical illness. You can track its biological correlates as you can track the spiritual correlates. But that doesn't make it an illness. When you're lifting weights, you can track the biological correlates. That doesn't make it an illness. It's a strength. Right. Well, it turns out that depression is actually a hunger for spiritual awakening at least 2/3 of the time. Why is this happening to me? Why did she leave me? Why did I lose my money? I just feel horrible. Yesterday, everything was fine. That hunger, just like we're hungry for food and we're thirsty, is the body, the mind, the soul. It's all one body, mind and soul screaming for an expanded awareness. Life as I'm living it, life as I'm seeing it, has gotten too small. And just as I grow in height or weight or maturity or my eyes change as I get older, our spiritual life changes all of us.
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How has your spiritual life evolved from your youth to where you are now? Specifically after studying the science of spirituality.
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So when I was maybe about 19, I fell in love for the first time. I mean, was flat in love. I couldn't believe it. I'd never been in love before. And he was perfect. He looked like a sculpture in a museum.
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There we are.
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Very nice. He thought I was so interesting. I thought he was so interesting. And he said, I love you. I said, you love me? I love you. And that was after three months. After five months, he broke up with me.
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Wow. Devastating.
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Devastated. And I couldn't understand it. I really couldn't understand it. At 19, you know, I thought, well, wait a minute.
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You said one thing. I felt it. You felt it, and then you ended.
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How can that be? Yeah, right. So is love not real? Is love impermanent? And we'll call this poor guy Jason. Is Jason real? Like, do we change? Can we not count on each other? What do we count on?
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Was he lying to me? You know, why would this happen to me? All these things?
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So I think he was telling the truth, and he thought he was telling the truth. He changed. And it gave me a shocking. Really, it was sort of a drowning sense of impermanence. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. The things I want so much in life. Love is impermanent. And that sent me, at 19, into a downward spiral in a search. Wait a minute. Okay, Is love permanent? Are people permanent? What are we really about? And I became more and more concerned about the existential nature of life at 19. And it was very depressing. I started getting more and more upset, more and more depressed, sleepless, anxious. I'd stay up and sort of look out the window and wonder. So I thought, you know, I really have to go to a therapist. And at 19, I went to a therapist, and the therapist said, you know, what brings you here? And I said, well, I don't. You know, all my life I felt connected to God, and I felt connected to this deeper presence in life, and lately I just don't feel it. And I, you know, was in love, and love ended. And I just don't know, you know, what's real.
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What's the point of all this?
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What's the point of all this? And the therapist said, was your father there for you when you were little? And I thought, you know what? My dad actually was there for me when I was little. This isn't about that. This isn't a story about my early childhood. This is a story about a hunt for what's true. And at least I had the gut instinct to say, new therapist, which is what you should always do if you don't feel at home with your therapist.
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Interesting.
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The therapist number two. From a psychodynamic to a cognitive therapist who works on your thoughts. And there we were. And I said, you, I just don't know if there's meaning in life, if there's any value in life. And these, at the time, were viewed as nothing but symptoms, secondary symptoms to a deeper medical depression that a cognitive therapist thinks you can fix by changing your thoughts. And so I said, well, I just don't know if life has worth. I don't know what's real. And she said, hmm, you don't know if life has worth? Do you have low self esteem? I said, I'm embarrassed to admit I feel just fine about myself. I don't know if life has meaning. It wasn't about myself.
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Interesting.
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And this went on and on, right? Because at that point there had yet to be a science that showed that there is in emerging adulthood, a hunt for what's true. And it is not easy. A hunt for, is there deeper meaning in life? And if there is, what is my walk?
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What's my purpose?
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What is my purpose? To your point, if someone is feeling.
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Completely depressed or the symptoms of depression or just an emotional weight they can't seem to get off their back and they are thinking to themselves, you know, the relationship I'm in is just not working. Or I'm getting into relationships and getting out of them and they just don't seem to be working. The career I'm in is just like draining my energy. I'm just not. I don't feel healthy, I don't feel good. I have a lot of negative thinking consistently, and it's hard to get these thoughts out of my mind. How does someone start to find a meaning and purpose when they have no clue where to start?
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Yeah, well, I do think therapy is valuable, but it's only a piece of the story. And if you're in terrible pain, medication can be helpful. But that's only a piece of the story because that hunger, that yearning for a deeper significance and deeper connection is actually your innate inborn spiritual hunger. And hunger is a divine hunger. It propels us on a quest. And we all have it. Nobody's left out, nobody's not spiritual. One spiritual brain, we all have it. We can trace it in your genes. This is yours, really. But how do we discover it? People want to know, how do I get to that? Well, right where the pain is, is the porthole of entry.
- [15:32]
A
Where was your pain?
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My pain was here, in your chest. I could feel it in my chest because I had a broken heart. And my question, which was held in my mind and my body and my soul, is this? Was love real? And because God is love, I wondered, is God real? And that is a pretty bitter question. Not only do we ask this at 19 or 20, we ask this again at midlife. And we ask this again as elders. There's three bridges and we can't get around it, really, because spirituality is inborn. And like any inborn quality, just like we change and look different at 19 and 45 and 85, our spirituality kicks in.
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Interesting.
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We cannot get around these questions. And just as there's three bridges of beckoning that kicks off with sort of the ignition is actually part of the spiritual process. Wait a minute. Yesterday everything was fine, and today I feel somehow caged in. I don't feel at home in my inner being.
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Right.
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It's so easy when I don't feel at home in my inner being to say I don't feel at home. My spouse must not be right for me anymore. You know, I don't feel enough inside myself. My job isn't big enough, I'm not special enough. It's so easy to look outwardly and in a culture that's just knee deep in measurement and obsessed with how big and good am I outwardly? Sometimes the answer isn't outward. It's a deep seat of being inside ourselves.
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What was your awakening? What did it look like? How long did it take for you to do the therapy, do the exercises, go inward to reflect during this first bridge in your life.
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For the first bridge, it was only about six months. Although at 19, that feels like you've got time. Right? Right. And I want to say that I see on social media there's a lot of people in Gen Z who have a lot of pain.
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Yes.
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Right. And that pain is not against you. That pain is for you. The pain in Your heart at 19, at 20, at 25, is a deep calling to seek the presence of the deeper nature of life. Meditation, prayer, walk in nature, join a service group, your sangha, your minging, your fellowship, you will awaken. You are built to awaken. And the first step of awakening is actually the depression.
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Really?
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Yes.
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Needing to go through the depression and experiencing it.
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Yes.
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Why do you need depression to have a spiritual awakening?
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Because it is not a pathological depression. Over two thirds of the time in young people, young adults, it is a developmental depression. It's a banging at the door, it's a calling.
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It's like, hey, wake up, wake up.
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And it was just fine two years ago to be as you are, but to rise to the next mantle of your being, not your outward getting that'll come, but of your being. You need to answer the call.
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I saw this video online of Jim Terry saying depression is something like deep rest. It's like your body needing deep rest from the character you've been playing. Oh, and I really liked the way he interpreted it. He was like, I was depressed, but it was like I was playing a character that wasn't serving me or my spiritual abilities at the highest level anymore. And he was literally playing characters in movies, but he was probably playing a character in the world also. And he was like, depression is deep rest. It's your body saying you need deep rest from the character you've been playing. And I really like that perspective. It's like, what have we been trying to portray? What masks have we been wearing to fit in, to try to belong, to try to compare ourselves or be judgmental towards what we're seeing on social media or with our friends and how we can live up to some standard or something like that. And so you're. What is the science, though, that I.
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Love that deep rest, because deep rest means that we go into the deepest sleep. We go to the dream world where we meet the infinite. And when we wake up from deep rest, we are replenished, refreshed, bright.
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Yes.
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And the same is true with awakening, that after and through depression, we don't solve it. We don't figure it out. You don't have a pro and con list to get out of a depression. We don't churn what I call our achieving brain. I'm going to strategize my way out of depression. I'm going to research my way out of depression. There's another side of our brain which is our awakening, our awakened brain. And just as in the dream world, we receive great replenishment, great renewal, great direction in our dreams. We know that we're loved. We know that we're guided. We awaken through, in the daytime, a depression into an awakening. We come to see that in our darkest, most painful moment. We don't fall through a black hole. We don't backfall into an abyss. But we're buoyant. We're actually caught.
- [20:46]
A
We're handled.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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And that's not something that you sort of figure out. It's something that you experience. It's something that you feel in your heart and in your body. It is perceived. So spirituality is not a belief. It is the capacity to perceive if.
- [21:04]
A
Someone is experiencing or someone is feeling this state of depression right now. And maybe they've been feeling a depression for years and they've been using substances to try to numb and remove the depression. Alcohol, smoking, vaping drugs, pornography, whatever the addiction is to try to depress the depression, Will that ever get them out of depression? Using substances?
- [21:33]
B
So it will never get us out of depression ever to use substances. But the desire that's often behind substance use is to transcend very often when we look at the data Transcendence, which is really only found through a spiritual process, is so desired. The heart so hungers for spiritual awakening that we can take the tricky kind of cheap backdoor. Okay, I'll just have a few more drinks. Okay. You know, I'm just gonna do some form of as if I had transcended experience. And so we can note, hey, okay, I'm looking for transcendence. Is there a way that really has legs under it? How can I get there without the drugs? Because, you know, the impulse to go deeper is the hunger of the spiritual heart.
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Yes.
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B
How do we honor that? And every tradition on earth shows us a way. It doesn't matter if I'm Hindu or Muslim or Jewish or Catholic or Christian. It doesn't matter if I'm some someone who walks in the forest or along the beach. It can be through deep service that we realize, hey, we're not alone. Altruism, love of neighbor. And we wake up and say, okay, I shoveled my neighbor's driveway. Okay, I babysat for this couple that's like, out of their wits. And suddenly, I'm not alone. And wait a minute. The world isn't fractured and lonely. The way we act brings into our inner being the nature of reality. If I am loving. Love of neighbor. Okay, right now, we just had an election. I don't care if you voted red, blue, or purple. I love you. I love you as a fellow parent on the soccer sidelines. I love you as someone at work with whom I've got to get this job done. I love you as my friend of 30 years. In fact, I'm not even going to ask you who you voted for, because it is not nearly as important as that. We're souls on earth walking the Earth at the same time that we're sharing this journey. And in fact. In fact, it's radical love. It's civic love that is our responsibility. The government doesn't build civic love. We build civic love. The civic bond. And everything goes from there.
- [23:48]
A
Yeah. Another quote you have is you said, right now we're not studying spirituality. We've been educated out of our awakened awareness. We've been educated out of our spiritual awareness. Who is educating us out of our spiritual awareness? Is this schools? Is this our parents? Is this teachers? Is this the government? What is getting us out of our awakened awareness?
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B
Every single person on Earth is born with a capacity for spiritual awareness, but it is one third innate, two thirds environmentally formed. So our parents and grandparents. The 10,000 exchanges by the locker. If you're part of a Faith, community, the pastor, priest, imam, rabbi, no matter who it is in the first two decades of life, all weigh in to shape our natural spiritual awareness. And as we get older, we pick our environment. We pick if we meditate and awaken, we pick. If we pray and connect with our higher power. We choose.
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A
It's a choice, David.
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B
It is a choice. Handing it over is the way out of addiction. Handing it over is the way out of trauma. But we wait until we tank to hand it over. When in fact, we were built from the day we were born to be in a sustained relationship with our higher power.
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A
Wow.
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Why don't we realize that? Because the gift of the 2/3 of the environment, being taught, being shown praying, meditating by the side of a parent, hearing people talk about, you know what, I just lost my job, but I know that God has a plan for me. You know what? We were just robbed. But that's okay. I saw the whole community come around me and I know that we're never alone. And everyone in this neighborhood is an ambassador of our higher power.
- [25:32]
A
Why is it so hard for people to believe that life is happening for them instead of to them when they have so many bad things happening all at once? It seems like the world is against me. This person left me. This person robbed me. This person lied to me. This person stole from me. My parents abandoned me. This person cheated on me. It's all happening all at once. How is this happening for me? How God is this happening for me? And the world's just not against me. Running a small business takes endurance, determination and the right support to reach your goals. And MasterCard is here to help fuel that journey in a fast paced digital world with innovative tools and resources. We're here to guide businesses every step of the way digitally. Because when small business wins, everyone wins. Let's power up our communities one small business and one step at a time. Keeping the community running strong. Priceless. Have you ever noticed how your relationship with your wireless carrier can have the same yada yada as a bad romantic relationship? Like, you're treated special at the beginning with exciting gifts and offers, but then you're ignored and overlooked later on. Well, finding your perfect match means a situation where nobody has to settle. And your relationship with your wireless carrier should be no different. This holiday season, give yourself the greatest gift by saying goodbye to one sided relationships and hello to your perfect match with Metro. Don't settle for the same old yada yada. Switch to Metro. You deserve incredible holiday deals from a wireless carrier that actually brings you Joy. Enjoy amazing phone and watch bundle offers from the brands you love at a price you won't want to miss. Plus, at Metro there are no contracts, no credit checks and no surprises. Expect even more this holiday season with nada. Yada yada. This is a limited time holiday offer so hurry and stop by your neighborhood Metro store and find your perfect match today. This episode is brought to you by Merrill with a dedicated Merrill advisor. You get a personalized plan for your financial goals and when plans change, Merrill's with you every step of the way. Go to ML.combullish to learn more. Merill, a Bank of America company. What would you like the power to do? Investing involves risk. Merrill Lynch, Pierce Fen Smith Incorporated. Registered broker dealer, Registered investment advisor Member sipc.
- [27:56]
B
Right. So overload. Yes. But you know who the one agent in this story is who is unflappable? It is you. And so you have every choice to be an agent of God. I don't care what is thrown at me. I don't care how much it hurts. I don't care if I'm loved back. I'm going to choose to love.
- [28:14]
A
Why?
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Why? Because it's the path to the deep, most buoyant love that we can feel.
- [28:22]
A
That's a choice when you choose love. Even when everything's against you?
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B
Yes. Oh, it's so important. Louis, I may share with you. I had the really life changing experience to visit His Holiness, the Dalai Lama a couple months ago. And I asked him a very metaphysical question that his resident scientists like. He wasn't interested. Not at all.
- [28:40]
A
Dr. Miller, did you go with Arthur Brooks? Yeah, yeah, I was. I was meant to go on that trip, but we had other plans. So I'll.
- [28:46]
B
Next time.
- [28:46]
A
Next time.
- [28:47]
B
Next time. Well, so we'll share this forward. The Dalai Lama was not interested in my abstruse metaphysical question.
- [28:55]
A
What was the question you asked the Dalai Lama?
- [28:56]
B
The question I asked the Dalai Lama was, is it not the case that all living beings have a transcendent faculty through which they feel the unit of reality? So that the love that's transferred in the mother's milk to the human is the same love experienced by the baby goat, our baby calf? And he looked at that and he said, you must love. Do it.
- [29:18]
A
Yeah, that's it. That was it.
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Do it. One message. And then he went on to clarify his singular point, which is love is a practice. Love is a choice. So love is not just a feeling. Oh, it feels so nice to love. Okay, everyone's forsaken me. I don't Feel love. I don't feel God's love. It hurts. That hurts real. We're not minimizing that. Right. But that's not the story of love. Love is a choice. Love is a practice. So I've been betrayed, I've been hurt so terribly, and I'm going to choose to love more deeply.
- [29:54]
A
Really? Why? Why love deeper when people have hurt you so badly?
- [29:59]
B
Because it is the only way to feel the ultimate deep connection with the source of life, who I call God is your word, the universe, Jesus, Hashem, your word. But this ultimate connection is the core of who we are. We are built, Lewis, as an open system. We are built, designed in our biology to be in a sustained connection with the deeper force in life. We are built in our biology to be in a lived, daily, transcendent relationship. You can call that anything you want, but it is essential to being whole, to guiding ourselves. We can't navigate this earth as command control, as if we're the agent of all choice and power. The anthropocentric view that is the source of pain. We don't control everything. How much do we control? And we do a good job. And we research and strategize somewhere between 2 and 5%.
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Wow.
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95%. The most important things in our lives, how do they come? So to really have a bigger life, to really be successful, is to be in dialogue with the source of life. And Lewis, you live this way?
- [31:12]
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Yes.
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B
How did you find the true love of your life? Did you do a pro and con list or did a dialogue with the universe bring her?
- [31:20]
A
Yeah, I mean, I was telling her before, just being in a state of a journey of healing so that I could first become peace myself and become open to possibilities and synchronicities. And being committed to the journey of healing was what I think allowed me to see Martha in front of me and say, wow, this is. This is something that is starting from a spiritual connection rather than a sexual connection. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. That's different. I've never, like, looked at this this way in a relationship. Starting a relationship and that and making it a commitment to myself on a daily basis when I connected with her to say, how can we make this spiritual and not sexual? Which was kind of the opposite of what I'd done in every relationship before, which was like, I'm sexually attracted, let's have fun, whatever. And then think about the spirituality later. And there was always some out of alignment. It was like a forced energy. And this just felt more. It just Felt aligned. It felt harmonious. It felt more peaceful. And that space of being aware of past wounds and mending and being on the journey of mending those wounds gave me more clarity and more awareness to see what was in front of me and to see, okay, what's possible for us if we can sync up synchronistically from a place of consciously creating a spiritual relationship first and seeing what's possible. It doesn't mean we're perfect for each other, we're going to work out, or it's the right fit. But creating from that space has allowed for beauty in other ways that I never imagined.
- [33:06]
B
So the Dalai Lama was right. Love is a choice.
- [33:09]
A
It's a choice daily. Yeah. And it's a choice daily also. When there's, you know, it doesn't mean I don't have, like, frustrations in life or people that upset me or things like that.
- [33:18]
B
Sure.
- [33:19]
A
And it's learning how to also ask, what is this happening for me? And if this was happening for me, then I get to thank God that this is happening for me, if it's designed that way, as opposed to, why is this happening for me, but. Or why is this happening to me, but this is happening for me. Let me trust and keep an open heart in terms of what's going to come to me because of this happening, because of this experience, and what blessings are to come my way because of this. Now, whether that's factual or true or not, I think having that mindset and believing something good will come from it gives me more peace.
- [34:01]
B
Well, the proof's in the pudding, because there's a real Marta and a real relationship, of course.
- [34:06]
A
Yeah.
- [34:07]
B
You chose love. You sustained love.
- [34:09]
A
Yeah. I didn't block my heart again, you know, I didn't say screw this or screw women or whatever it is from previous relationships. I was willing to heal that and keep healing and then create from that space.
- [34:20]
B
When you met Marto, was there some sort of ding in your heart that you'd met something significant in your past, someone of significance in your path?
- [34:28]
A
I just remember in the first. Our first meeting, I was kind of like my ego was getting in the way because I was kind of like, oh, shoot. I didn't think I would meet her right now. I was like, I just want my ego to have fun for a while, you know? But I was like, that's not what God wants me to experience. You know, God wants me to live in the highest level of service and to experience the highest level of love possible. And if I lead with an ego Mindset of like, oh, let me just be single and have fun. I knew it would limit me from my ability to serve and feel spiritual love. I would feel material love or lust or emotions, but I don't think it would feel pure. Pure, like abundance, pure consciousness, love. And so I've never felt that in relationship with another. She creates the space. So she created a space in the first time of us meeting where I was like, oh, this is a spiritual connection. I can't mess this up. I kind of had that thought right away. I go, shoot, there's something spiritual here. And so I made a conscious decision to make the dating phase before we, you know, we dated for many months until we became committed. Right. I made a conscious decision to make it a spiritual phase. Not that it's not spiritual anymore, but.
- [35:58]
B
It was like celibate.
- [35:59]
A
Yes, yes.
- [36:01]
B
And focused on spiritual.
- [36:03]
A
And that was the greatest decision I think I've ever made because it didn't fog my mind or my body from what was possible. It didn't confuse me chemically and therefore we could keep it spiritual. And that has been a. That's been a beautiful. And I recommend that for everyone.
- [36:22]
B
What a discipline it was.
- [36:24]
A
Yeah, it was an extreme discipline. And every man that I was telling after it happened, they were like, this is not even possible. How did you do this? You know, they're like, it's not in the realm of the reality. And I just knew that doing it the other way for the previous 20 years and multiple long term relationships didn't work. Like. So I was like, I need to try everything differently. And maybe it doesn't work, or maybe it's the right. Not the right fit or whatever, but I need to lean into the spiritual synchronicities that I'm feeling in this moment. And I need to continue to lean into the healing journey of myself and create peace and wholeness within me, you know, irrelevant of her. You know, whether this works out or it doesn't. I need to keep developing the wholeness, feeling the healing journey. And then I can see based on our values, our shared vision and our alignment and our lifestyle alignment. If it makes sense now, you know, it materially makes sense to create a relationship. And so kind of aligning the spiritual feeling, the energy with, okay, let's talk, you know, do we have the same values? If we're completely out of alignment, then all right, maybe we're just friends, you know, I want to make sure we have a harmonious relationship. Entering a relationship harmoniously with our values, our vision and our lifestyle. I don't want it to be constant friction. So then it was having those conversations and I wasn't confused chemically, so I was able to speak the truth fully and see if she could accept it or not. And same for her. I think that was a beautiful practice.
- [38:05]
B
How did you realize when was the awareness that not only are you spiritual friends, this is your spiritual life partner?
- [38:14]
A
Yeah. I think in the first day I felt like something is different. I didn't think, I didn't was like, I wasn't like, oh, this is my person forever. I also wanted to just not jump so quickly in something. I was like, let's just take time. It doesn't have to be like figured out right away. It doesn't have to be like, I have this feeling and we're getting married tomorrow. I also wanted to give myself space and time to not rush something and really feel the experience of time a little bit. So I think in the first day I felt something was different about our spiritual connection.
- [38:49]
B
And you listened to that?
- [38:51]
A
Yes.
- [38:51]
B
Can you describe that feeling?
- [38:54]
A
Peace. Just felt like peace. I felt full acceptance.
- [38:58]
B
Peace in your heart?
- [38:59]
A
Yeah, peace in my heart. Full acceptance. I didn't feel fear and I think it was. I wasn't afraid if it worked out or it didn't work out. It was just like I felt free to be myself fully. No matter what her reaction to me was. I was like, I'll be fine when this works out or it doesn't work out, I'll be okay. And I think before I had more of an anxious, like I wanted to work out because there's chemicals, there's like a connection. So let's make it work. So I would abandon self or my connection to God in order to please someone, try to make them happy as opposed to just let them go or say, okay, this doesn't.
- [39:39]
B
We're not alignment.
- [39:40]
A
And that's okay.
- [39:42]
B
So is it fair to say that in your deep bond there's God in your bond?
- [39:46]
A
100%.
- [39:47]
B
100% there's a godly bond?
- [39:49]
A
Yeah.
- [39:49]
B
Yeah.
- [39:49]
A
There's a relation, a spiritual relationship that we each have individually with God and then together. Yeah. And I don't think, I don't know, you tell me. Like this science of relationships and what you've studied for the past, I guess how many, three decades now, as a clinical psychologist and professor of this and a researcher, do you see people being having a healthy, loving, peaceful relationship with a lack of spiritual connection, with a lack of God? Is that possible to have a long term, healthy relationship as A psychologist. Have you seen that?
- [40:28]
B
So, Lewis, we've even looked through the MRI and seen that when there's deep love, deep, deep spiritual love, Godly love between two people, we are using the same circuits as when we talk directly to God. So as I may turn to my higher power, who I call God, I feel that same presence in love towards my husband.
- [40:55]
A
Wow.
- [40:56]
B
And that's after 30 years.
- [40:57]
A
Wow.
- [40:58]
B
So it lasts.
- [40:59]
A
What do the MRIs say from a brain that is connected to God or has a spiritual practice versus a brain that doesn't have a spiritual practice?
- [41:10]
B
We have charted this very precisely. And the first thing that everyone needs to know is that we are all capable of awakening. Every brain, every brain is built to awaken. Nobody's left out.
- [41:22]
A
But it is a choice.
- [41:23]
B
Yeah, it is a choice and it is a practice.
- [41:25]
A
And what are the brains that are spiritually connected versus a lack of spiritual.
- [41:29]
B
Connection, Spiritually connected brain is compared to one that has yet to do. The work has three components. The first is that just as we are loved and held as children and our parents or grandparents arms, the bonding network comes up online and we can feel that we are loved and held. So, Louis, that's not a belief. Our brain perceives.
- [41:53]
A
It feels.
- [41:54]
B
It feels it because we are detecting something real interesting. It's not a brain in the box that made up. Isn't it nice to feel loved?
- [42:02]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [42:03]
B
We are.
- [42:03]
A
It believes it is loved and held.
- [42:06]
B
The brain perceives.
- [42:07]
A
Yes.
- [42:08]
B
Transcendent love.
- [42:09]
A
Wow.
- [42:10]
B
So we're moving Here from the 20th century view of the brain that makes thoughts like the brain in the box, to the emerging view of the brain that is like an antenna that receives thoughts or inspiration or transcendent presence. So if we, when we receive God's presence as incarnate beings, the bonding network comes up online and we watch it through the FMRI that tracks blood flow. We watch the bonding network literally engage as we experience and receive God's love.
- [42:43]
A
And what happens when the bonding network engages in the brain? What happens to the body?
- [42:47]
B
Ah, it's. Well, we are at peace. We have less stress. Cortisol goes down. There's a whole host of downstream problems from dysregulated cortisol, dysregulated diurnal patterns of cortisol. So when we sustain a relationship with God through practice, through prayer, through meditation, through how we treat each other, as you just described, the choice of godly relationships, we literally host and welcome. You know, God chooses when God shows up that we can invite and welcome God and When we feel God's presence, when God touches us, the bonding network comes up online as we are incarnate and shows that we are loved and held. The second circuit that we all have is that there's multiple forms of intelligence, of multiple forms of attention. There's the bowling alley attention, which is narrow focus. Narrow focus. And there's times for that. Right. We need that discipline. But the bowling alley alone is insufficient. I've got to have it. I've got to get that job. I'm going to do A plus B plus C to close that deal. That is not an accurate map onto the structure of reality. Because life is full of surprises and hard left turns. And we have another attention network. There's another system of awareness which is not our dorsal attention, but our ventral attention. Where the floodlights come on and the world becomes a lot bigger and brighter and a new direction pops. And that allows us to receive guidance.
- [44:31]
A
What's that step called?
- [44:33]
B
So we are loved and held. As we all have a bonding network. And we are guided. We are built to receive divine guidance. We are built to perceive direction from the universe. Loved and held. Guided. And the third circuit, the third component of the awakened brain that we're all built with. Ready to go. Is that you, Lewis, are in your chair and I'm over here in mine. And we also have friends in New York and Cincinnati and London and Des Moines. Right. We are separate beings. And at the same time, we're part of this great oneness. The brain is built to receive and perceive separateness and oneness.
- [45:17]
A
Wow.
- [45:18]
B
The parietal region puts in and out hard boundaries. As blood flows to the parietal region. We see that. Okay, I have my zipped up bio body suit. And we're all wonderfully diverse. And we live in different chairs. And at the same time, we're part of one family of life. We're part of one unit of consciousness. That capacity allows us to know we're never alone.
- [45:41]
A
So is that oneness or what is that?
- [45:43]
B
That is the oneness. So if you add up all three circuits that run together, they don't run separately. We are loved and held. We are guided, and we are never alone. That awakened brain is yours. It is there for everyone.
- [46:00]
A
So everyone has that in us. But we need to be practicing and believing it in order to experience it.
- [46:05]
B
Yes.
- [46:07]
A
What happens if we don't practice and believe that we are loved and held? We are guided, and we are all one. We are never alone. What happens to us?
- [46:17]
B
We feel unloved. We feel lost. And we feel completely painfully lonely. And that excruciating pain is a big bang at the door. It's an invitation.
- [46:32]
A
Wow.
- [46:32]
B
To start to practice awakening, to start to use your awakened brain.
- [46:37]
A
And as a clinical psychologist, doing this research for a long time and doing all the MRI studies and working with individuals who have experienced this. Is there any other way to get out of pain and suffering than seeking a spiritual practice?
- [46:53]
B
There is no greater way. There is no profound and robust and enduring a way to move out of despair as to awaken spiritually.
- [47:04]
A
But you're a psychologist. Aren't there medicines that people can take that are gonna fix them or solve them? Aren't there drugs that people should be doing? And isn't this clinically proven that if you're depressed and you have mental health diseases that the medicine will set you free? Isn't that why we have medication?
- [47:22]
B
So medication? I'm not against medication. If you're in terrible pain and it's urgent and you need it now, do whatever it takes to keep yourself buoyant.
- [47:32]
A
Yes.
- [47:32]
B
But that said, when we take away the medication, the majority of the time the pain comes back. As does the deep existential feeling of unlovedness, of isolation, of being lost. Why is that? Because we have yet to engage our awakened awareness. We have yet to engage our spiritual capacity. We have a donut sized hole because we haven't deployed this gift we're all given.
- [48:01]
A
Wow. This episode is brought to you by Merrill with a dedicated Merrill advisor. You get a personalized plan for your financial goals. And when plans change, Merrill's with you every step of the way. Go to ML.combullish to learn more. Merrill, a Bank of America company. What would you like the power to do? Investing involves risk. Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenrin Smith Incorporated. Registered broker Dealer Registered investment advisor Member SIP okay, this is the worst. How terrible does it feel when you give a gift to someone and their response after opening it is. Well, it's the thought that counts. And you immediately wish you'd gone with the other gift idea you had. Well, we've all been there, right? Finding a gift someone will actually use and love can be such a challenge. And that's where Harry's comes in. Harry's makes beautifully designed razors that are perfect for the guy who's impossible to shop for. With German engineered blades, a weighted handle and a flexible hinge, these razors offer an amazing smooth shave every time. Plus Harry's has a whole line of self care products like body wash, deodorant and healthcare perfect stocking stuffers that he'll actually enjoy using. And I love the razor and the shave cream from Harry's. And it's incredible how great of a shave that I get every time. I love how the shave cream actually feels on my face. It's smooth. There's eucalyptus and mint essential oils in there to refresh and cool your face and aloe vera to soothe it. And the razor glides easily and gets a nice close shave. It's a 10 out of 10 every time. Get Harry's Holiday Craft Set, a custom green gift box and free handle engraving when you go to Harry's.com greatness. That's Harry's.com greatness for Harry's holiday Craft Set. What's the gift that we're all given that most of us never use?
- [49:58]
B
We have within every brain the neuro foundation for a relationship with God. We have within every human being the inborn capacity, actually the inborn imperative to be in relationship with our higher power.
- [50:13]
A
But why do so many of us reject God or a relationship with a higher power?
- [50:22]
B
Well, it's very easy to feel isolated, to feel lost, because the rich two thirds embrace the socialization of our natural society. Our environment, our culture is pretty silent.
- [50:39]
A
What we consume, what we're putting in our physical space, the people in our environment, the conversations that we're hearing, listening to and having all that stuff. Right.
- [50:50]
B
And yet we can choose to cultivate every single thing you've said. So 40 years ago in the United States, there was a decision made, it was made with a good intention to be inclusive, which was to throw all religion out of the public square. And you may remember, take down the Christmas tree, take down the Hanukkah Menorah. We're not talking about.
- [51:08]
A
It's offensive. Yeah, it's all offensive.
- [51:10]
B
Someone's going to be left out. And the intention was good, which was to be inclusive, but it actually was radically exclusive. Everyone was left out.
- [51:19]
A
Wow.
- [51:20]
B
And we had an Ice Age, 40 years of an ice age where people don't talk about spiritual and religious life at work, at school, at a cocktail party, at a dinner party, to not.
- [51:30]
A
Be offensive or feeling exclusive if they don't have the similar belief. Is that right?
- [51:34]
B
Yes. Okay.
- [51:35]
A
If they have a different belief, we don't want to force something on them or talk about it if they feel uncomfortable or.
- [51:40]
B
Yes, Right. But society now has grown up and we've become much more pluralistic. We can comfortably talk about different genders and race and orientation as part of the fabric of our culture. It's time now to be pluralistic when it comes to our spiritual life. I want to know you. I want to hear about Diwali or Ramadan or Hanukkah or Christmas. I want to hear about the crossing of your grandmother. And I want to hear about the baby that came into your life in the deepest, most important way.
- [52:08]
A
Something you said in one of your books called the Spiritual Child. I believe this one is. It talks about that. You talk about the next big idea in psychology, which is the science and the power of spirituality. And you explain the clear scientific link between spirituality and health and shows that children who have a positive active relationship to spirituality are 40% less likely to use and abuse substances, are 60% less likely to be depressed as teenagers, are 80% less likely to have dangerous or unprotected sex, and have significantly more positive markers for thriving, including an increased sense of meaning and purpose and high levels of academic success. Why do kids lack spiritual connection in a spiritual relationship today? Why are is the parents aren't willing to encourage their kids? Do the parents not have the spiritual relationship? Why do you think that is in kids today?
- [53:15]
B
The most important gift we give our children is a strong spiritual core. In fact, I would even go so far to say there is nothing that a parent needs to do more than strengthen their child's natural spiritual awareness. How do I do that? Every parent wants to know. Okay, look at those statistics. Your child will be less at risk for addiction depression in this epidemic. 82% protected against suicide. When spiritual life is shared. Suicide is tragically the number one killer of high school students.
- [53:46]
A
Really?
- [53:46]
B
It's come to rival auto accidents. So it's not cancer Covid by our own hand. And yet we have the antidote. I mean, Louis, if I said, here's a pill, and you can give this pill to every high school student in the United States, and they are 4/5 protected against the epidemic of suicide. What school wouldn't give that out every day at lunch? What parent wouldn't give that to their child? And yet we have the antidote in us already. And it's the realization of how we are built to be in a sustained connection to God or higher powered. Why is this not happening? Why is this not happening? Well, I think you hit the nail on the head. Parents don't know how, and they don't know if they're spiritual enough. So I went on the road. I thought it was gonna be three weeks. It was three years with my first book, the Spiritual Child. And parents would raise their hand and they'd ask questions, how do I help my child be more spiritual? What is spirituality? But when parents started to cry was when they said, am I spiritual? So people don't know if, as a mother, as a father, I'm spiritual enough. And the answer is, you don't need to be because your child is spiritual. And all you need to do is listen and be totally in awe of your child.
- [55:00]
A
Kids are like a portal. They're already a spiritual portal.
- [55:02]
B
Yes.
- [55:03]
A
It's not, you know, it's your job not to throw on material, animal magnetism, types of thinking or thoughts or energy to diminish their spiritual power.
- [55:14]
B
Yes.
- [55:15]
A
And that's hard to do.
- [55:17]
B
But you know what? Parents are so in love with their child that if we can just hold our tongue and listen, you know, your child is going to come up and say, you know, I saw grandma.
- [55:27]
A
Right.
- [55:28]
B
Or your child is going to come up and say, does God love evil people, too? You know, and those are incredible moments. We don't need the answer. We can simply hold the moment and say, wow. Because often the child's actually not looking for an answer. They're looking to engage in the spiritual realm.
- [55:46]
A
Wow.
- [55:47]
B
And so they're really thinking, you walk with me here.
- [55:50]
A
When a child asks a question like, does God love bad people? Does God love evil people? Whatever, Any question. And a parent says, man, I think I know the answer, but I really don't know the answer. What should a parent do in that moment when a child asks a difficult spiritual question that the parent doesn't know.
- [56:10]
B
The answer to the child's question is an opening for the child to learn to listen to their own heart. So we can say, you know, deepen your inner wisdom. What does your heart say? Or we can say, you know, do you want to sit with me now in meditation or prayer and see what comes to you? Is the answer to that.
- [56:32]
A
Interesting.
- [56:33]
B
Teach the child to receive their own spiritual answers. I can tell you a story about that. I adopted my son from an orphanage north of St. Petersburg, Russia. The most delicious little boy on earth. Madly in love with this little boy.
- [56:48]
A
How was he?
- [56:48]
B
He was 10 months when he came back.
- [56:50]
A
Wow.
- [56:51]
B
I knew right away that this sort of, you know, secular, materialist culture was going to tell him a big story about not wanting, not having been wanted, and why did that mother leave you? And so I was gonna get ahead of this. And the way I was gonna get ahead of this with my husband and I together was by talking about our authentic spiritual journey to finding Isaiah. So from day one, we said, you know, we had really been five years list. We prayed hard for five years before we found Isaiah. And so from day one, Isaiah was a little 10 month voice used to hearing Russian. And we said, Isaiah. Mommy and Daddy, we prayed for Isaiah. And grandma prayed for Isaiah and grandpa prayed for Isaiah. And everybody prayed for Isaiah because mommy and daddy had been crying for you. And then one day we heard they'd found Isaiah. And we took little baby a plane to a train, to an automobile, kids love transportation. Ran up the hill and there, there was Isaiah. And we'd throw him in the air and we'd celebrate the finding Isaiah story. And that's, you know, when he was 1 2, somewhere around 4, he got a little older. And they like symbolic stories. So here was little Isaiah. He loved to play in our backyard by a little creek, a river. And we'd point at the river, he'd squish his toes, and we'd say, isaiah, you see this river here? You came down this river. You were our baby Moses.
- [58:20]
A
Wow.
- [58:21]
B
And he'd say, I may be Moses. So that's right, Isaiah, you came down. God sent you to us. So this was the story of finding Isaiah for a four year old. And we always told Isaiah the spiritual story of finding Isaiah. So sure enough, Lewis, now he's 8, driving my SUV. Everything in parenting happens from the second row.
- [58:41]
A
Sure is your Maria.
- [58:46]
B
His best friend? Johnny's back there. Mommy, Mommy. Johnny says, my name is not Miller, you are not my mother, and I am not Jewish.
- [58:56]
A
Wow.
- [58:57]
B
And I took a big breath. The day had come.
- [59:00]
A
He knew the original story, the story before the story, right?
- [59:04]
B
And sure enough, that's right, he was prepared. And I held my tongue, prayed. And Isaiah whips around, turns to Joni and says, I'm baby Moses. And Johnny said, what? And he said, no, I'm baby Moses. And pretty soon, Isaiah realized that Johnny just didn't understand, but that he was baby Moses. Mommy, this time we're desperate, more agitated. Mommy, Johnny says, what about the woman who gave me up the story I'd always knew was coming?
- [59:37]
A
Yes.
- [59:38]
B
Ten years before I expected it.
- [59:40]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [59:40]
B
But there it was again. I held my breath, said a prayer, and from the second row, oh, I know. God whispered in her ear and said that you were crying for me. So if we support the natural spiritual knowing of the child, when the tough questions come, they're ready to receive and perceive a spiritual answer directly from God. He, like every child on earth, has an awakened brain. But as parents, we build that day in and day out sense that just as you and your new wife have God in that bond, fueling your new wife, and God willing, your children will have God in that bond. And our message to Isaiah from day one was that this is a family built by God.
- [60:32]
A
Wow, that's beautiful. It sounds like.
- [60:34]
B
And it's true.
- [60:35]
A
Yeah, yeah. It sounds like you. You were practicing the first eight years. Step one, which is, you know, show him that he is loved and held by you and also by God. Right. You're loved and held by us, and the world is loving you and holding you high. It sounds like.
- [60:55]
B
And the river.
- [60:56]
A
And the river. Right. It sounds like step two, you know, understanding we're all guided. It sounds like he was able to remember that he was loved and held and be guided into, like, having the answers within him for when his friend was telling him, no, that's not true.
- [61:12]
B
This is.
- [61:12]
A
You were adopted or whatever it is he was saying. And it sounds like he had the inner strength to feel guided in that moment. And I'm curious, what have you learned as a psychologist about the science and spirituality of synchronicities, of knowing that we are guided and how to really have our antenna up and awareness up so that we can receive signals, signs, and the synchronicities of life, to know where to move our energy toward, to create more opportunities, abundance with our purpose.
- [61:50]
B
When you met Marta, was that a synchronicity?
- [61:53]
A
100%, yeah.
- [61:53]
B
Will you tell the story?
- [61:56]
A
Well, I mean, I probably told it on here a few times already, but, I mean, there was just too many synchronicities that were just like, oh, this is. It was weird. It was weird synchronicities. I was like, okay, this is. And let me keep exploring. And these synchronicities were so weird. That was like. I felt like I was on the right path. I was like, let's keep. Let's keep hanging out. After another few days, let's keep hanging out. You know, I didn't want to not hang out there, but I was like. Like, I need to keep exploring these conversations with you to see what unfolds. But the first day, you know, within the first five minutes where I knew something was different, I went to pick her up. I was visiting a buddy of mine in Mexico and near Tulum, and she was actually in Tulum at that time, and we had never met. We connected online, and I just happened to respond to something that she posted online. Right. She was posting something in nature, actually. And I replied to that, and I said, it looks beautiful there. That was it. I wasn't like hitting on her or anything. I just replied to what she was posting about. So nature was the first thing that I replied to within her track the online. And then she replied, hello, my friend, how are you? Are you ever in my country? And I don't think she knew I was in Mexico, but I was in Mexico at that time. And I was assuming she meant Mexico. So I said, yeah, I'm actually here with a friend right now in Plato Carmen. And it's like an hour from Tulum. She goes, oh, I'm in Tulum. Let's. Let's hang out if you have time. So we ended up just getting together. When I picked her up, I had my buddy's Jeep and I had my phone, picked her up for dinner. I had my phone in the middle of the Jeep, you know, in the middle of the seats in the front. And it was dark out because I was getting picking up for dinner. And so my phone screen kind of turned on as I set it down. Like the screen turned on and you could see my screensaver. And it was a photo of a boy, a little boy. And I could see that she looked at the phone because the screen popped up and you see this image of a little boy. And so I kind of looked at her and go, oh, don't worry, I don't have a son or anything. You know, it's our first time meeting. So I was like, oh, don't worry, I don't have a kid or anything. And she goes, I know what that is. She goes, that's you, and you're healing your inner child. And I was like, I get chills just thinking about it. I was like, yeah. And she took her phone, she goes, here's a photo of me. I've been doing the same journey when she was 5. I get chills thinking about it. I'm just like, oh, something's different. Right away, she understood the journey of healing that I was already on and that had been up there for, I don't know, eight months on my phone, right. So I've been a lot. Had it for a while. And she was like, yeah, this is something I was doing, like in the last year. And I've been healing and transforming and, you know, probably getting out of a depressed state. That was like a reawakening to seeing the world differently. And so even just in that moment, like, that unlocked the conversation. The whole conversation was spiritual from the first moment. There's no. There was no surface. I can't do surface anyways with anyone. You know, we talk Right away. And I'm like, tell me about this. Tell me about. You know, and so the whole conversation was spiritual. And the whole first few months was that, like, every time. And some people might say, oh, that's too deep when you're, like, going on a date or you shouldn't be, like, going so deep so quickly or having spiritual conversations. But I think why wait to. Why wait to have those conversations? Like, and they can be fun and lighthearted. They don't have to be deep and heavy. It can be like, wow, fascinating. You know, you can get to learn about someone's soul sooner rather than six months down the line, have those conversations. So for me, that was a synchronicity that said, oh, hang out again. And every time we hung out, there was just things like that that just kept happening that was like, there's. There's some force that's more powerful pulling us to keep exploring. And I think I allowed myself to be open and stay in it without rushing to. This is the person I'm meant to be with forever because of one synchronicity. And I think I wanted to continue to not rush a lot of things, but just dive deeper spiritually, which created safety. It created a sense of safety and feeling at home within me and her feeling at home within her. So it made us feel more at home together. Like, that was a powerful, you know, again, I would. I wish I would have learned this, you know, 20 years ago, but it happened at the right time, so. And I needed the painful moments, I think, to awaken to where I'm at today.
- [66:42]
B
It's a magnificent love story.
- [66:43]
A
Yeah.
- [66:44]
B
Yeah.
- [66:45]
A
It's beautiful. Yeah.
- [66:45]
B
And the deep question is, what is life showing me now? What is God revealing to me now? What has my higher power just put in my path?
- [66:54]
A
Yeah. And understand if we believe that we are guided. That's what I was like, doing. I go, okay, God, just show me the way. Let me just explore this a little more. Let me. Let's go hang out another day. Let's have more conversation. Let's just be guided into the possibility, whether it works out or not. I'm just going to lean into this without rushing to conclusions. So what did you then learn from the research of the science of synchronicities and spirituality together?
- [67:20]
B
The more we pay attention to synchronicity, the more we are able to perceive synchronicity. And on the one hand, it's because we strengthen our eye. We know, yes, this is real. We take it to heart. We think about and reflect on what it might mean. And then we act on it. You chose to go another day to both of you to look at this more deeply, to walk a little further. But that only happened because you said, wow, this is way too unprobabilistic to have happened by chance. This touches my heart in a deeper way. This has that type of high pixel hit that has information that's yet to unfold before me.
- [68:01]
A
Yeah, it's more 5D energy versus 3D energy.
- [68:05]
B
Yes. And you knew it, of course. So say yes to it. And we all have this capacity to say yes to it. This is real. Reflect what it might mean and then act on it.
- [68:21]
A
This episode is brought to you by Merrill with a dedicated Merrill advisor. You get a personalized plan for your financial goals. And when plans change, Meryl's with you every step of the way. Go to ML.combullish to learn more. Merrill, a Bank of America company. What would you like the power to do? Investing involves risk. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith Incorporated. Registered broker, dealer, Registered investment advisor. Member sipc. Did you know that skin care can start in the laundry room? All Free Clear is the number one laundry detergent brand recommended by dermatologists, allergists and pediatricians for sensitive skin. All free clear is 100 free of dyes and perfumes. It provides an effective clean that's gentle on skin. Plus All Free Clear liquid is safer choice certified by the US in epa. For a clean you can feel good about. All you need is All Free Clear. How does someone open their mind or their soul to synchronicities more frequently?
- [69:23]
B
It's a practice. So the first time I might sort of be a little curious. Wait a minute. I was just thinking about this guy. I haven't seen him in six years, and he's right here the same day I'm thinking of him or, you know, I have this question on my mind is, do I want to go, you know, east or west this summer? And a guy sits down on the bus next to me and says, you gotta go west this summer. So that might catch my attention and seem unlikely, but I'm not sold yet because I'm a skeptic. And the skeptic's okay. The skeptic's welcome. The skeptic can even fuel the deepening of the journey, right?
- [69:55]
A
I don't believe yet. Show me another sign.
- [69:57]
B
Show me more.
- [69:58]
A
Yeah, show me another sign. And if you show me another sign, then it's undoubtedly, okay, I gotta explore this.
- [70:03]
B
And so when we actually allow ourselves to be curious, we start Noticing how abundant the universe really is, how generous God is in laying synchronicities in our path to guide us. So the more we say, yes, this is real, the more we say, I'm going to reflect, I'm going to act on this, the more the next time we're quick to identify synchronicity, it's less likely to slip through our fingers. So when I started paying attention to synchronicities, I'd catch maybe one in three and then it meant to path. And now I've lived this way for 30 years and I catch 90%. There's still I miss balls, right? But even when we do, it comes around another day in another way.
- [70:45]
A
Interesting.
- [70:45]
B
Because we're on our path, we don't have to be perfect, right, to be on the path.
- [70:50]
A
What happens for you? What are you doing on a consistent basis mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually, to where you just have a heightened sense of openness, where synchronicities are just for like every day, it just seems like, of course this is a synchronicity that's just guiding me here, introducing me to this person, unlocking this door, of course, what are you creating energetically to be the highest frequency of synchronicities?
- [71:20]
B
So I open my day and everyone has their own language and their own practice, but I can share with you mine. So I open each morning with a prayer. I go outdoors and I mean, you know, it can be a sunny, bright day or it can be freezing cold and snowy. And I go outdoors and I open by saying, loving God. My word is God. Thank you for a new day. Thank you for sun and air and earth and water and trees and birds, and for all living beings of the air, earth and water and beyond. Please bless our family of life and please bless as a parent, our family and I name our family. And then I say, please, may I be present to you. Please use me as a vessel to serve you in love that I might view, see you and act you. Because all of us are emanations, like rays of the sun of God. Louis, you are God, and the magnificent Martha is God. And all your friends and family and trees and birds are God. So may I be you and realize our being. May I see you in Lewis and in Martin and all living beings. And may I act you then, please? At the end I say, may I serve you in love. And please bless you, God. I saw that when I've been to holy sites. Please bless you, God, unto yourself. And then I've opened the day in service. So each day is an adventure. It's a spiritual adventure. I don't know where I'm going, I don't know who I get to meet. I don't know if it's going to hurt or feel good. It could be a day of tremendous loss, it could be a day of great discovery, but it is always a sacred adventure. So I don't need to have control. And in a world that's highly volatile, none of us have control. I mean we have 2, 4% control. But to have a really big magnificent life is not to have the whole thing tightly clenched between our hands, but to have a stance, a sure footed stance in quest. What God do you reveal to me now? What universe do you ask of me now? How might I love more deeply? The quest is the sure footedness. And anything that comes, whether it's wind or tornado or the love of my life is part of this great spiritual adventure. It is the Star wars of spiritual adventure.
- [73:35]
A
That's a beautiful way to start the day. Is there a practice you have at the end of the day to open up to more synchronicities and in dream, dream life?
- [73:47]
B
Yes. Because the very same symbol that guides us through synchronicity that you both had the child on your phone is the very same symbolic language in our dreams and in our mystical experiences. It's a symbolic universe.
- [74:02]
A
Yes.
- [74:03]
B
And we're being talked to all the time and we're built to listen. So we're whole and we're guided and we're not anxious and we have love and connection when we are an open system to God and we are isolated and our heart hurts like hell when we're not connected.
- [74:23]
A
But what if someone's been hurt by the idea of God or someone that represents God or religion?
- [74:30]
B
Oh, very important, Louis. It's so important.
- [74:32]
A
If someone's been abused, abandoned any type of way from a religious figure, either from maybe from their parent who says they're religious or spiritual, but then yell, screams, abuses in other ways. How do we get beyond the hurt and pain that someone in our life who has a spiritual connection to God hurts us?
- [74:55]
B
Yes.
- [74:56]
A
Or hurts someone we know and shatters our faith in God, religion, the universe, Spirituality?
- [75:05]
B
Yes, yes. And that is exactly how that happens. So here's the flame of truth, God's presence, the fire. And here's the torch. And here's just me, the human torch bearer. And when we meet, particularly as children or adolescents, teenagers are exquisitely aware when we meet a torchbearer who talks about.
- [75:31]
A
The flame, the light.
- [75:32]
B
The light, the truth, but who does not walk the walks? When we see hypocrisy, there's a tendency to throw out the flame. Now, as the torchbearer, I could be a little foibled. I could be maybe hypocritical, judgmental or whatever.
- [75:47]
A
Yeah.
- [75:47]
B
Say one thing and do another. Or I could be quite egregiously foibled and transgressed. And the more that the torchbearer has failed the message, the more pain in the child and the more likely the child is to throw out the flame.
- [76:05]
A
Yes.
- [76:06]
B
Now, the good news is that a spiritual injury can be healed. Spiritual injury can always be healed because every one of us has the God given inborn innate capacity to connect to the transcendent relationship. Has the inborn capacity to renew the connection with our higher power. How? Right. And there's two ways. One is we meet a torchbearer who does walk the walk.
- [76:33]
A
Right.
- [76:33]
B
Right.
- [76:33]
A
It can be who restores our faith.
- [76:35]
B
Yes. Someone who embodied is holding the flame and does walk in step. Who is loving, who is unconditionally devoted, who speaks of God with the same love that they leave out towards us. And that could be a parent, it could be a counselor, it could be a coach, it could be anyone. Right. The second way is that we can invite one another to have a direct connection to the flame. And in some faith traditions, that can be through prayer or fellowship. But there's also practices in the language of life. And in fact, Louis, I had a very dear colleague, the late Dr. Gary Weaver, who for 36 years worked with boys who had been transgressed by torchbearers. And some of these boys had been so transgressed, they didn't want to hear about religion, they didn't want to hear about spirituality. And they'd be so abused that they'd become abusers. And so the third time this young fellow would go before the Judge, in came Dr. Weaver. And the judge said, okay. He loved Dr. Weaver. He said, you have a choice, young man, 15, 18 years old. You can go to prison.
- [77:44]
A
Who had been abused sexually and then. And then done the same thing.
- [77:47]
B
And then done the same thing.
- [77:48]
A
Yeah.
- [77:49]
B
And he said, no, you can go to jail or you can go out into the moab desert with Dr. Weaver. And there he shared with them a practice that invited them right back to the flame.
- [78:01]
A
Wow.
- [78:01]
B
And I've done this practice, Lewis, with bankers in Midtown. I've done this practice with generals in the US Army. I've done this with kids sleeping under the Brooklyn Bridge. I've done this with everybody, because there's one awakened brain and there's one source of all life, who I call God. You pick your charm, and we can all get back to the flame. May we try it?
- [78:20]
A
Yeah.
- [78:20]
B
Okay. It's 90 seconds. It's in the language of life. I'm gonna invite you to close your eyes, clear out 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. Anyone, living or deceased, who truly has your best interest in mind. And with them all sitting there, ask them if they love you. And now you may invite your higher self, the part of you that's so much more than anything you may have or not have, anything you may have done or not done, your true, eternal, higher self, and ask you if you love you. Now, finally, you may invite your higher power, whatever your word, however you know your higher power, and ask if they love you. And now with all of those people sitting there right now, what do they need to share? What do they need to show you now? What do you need to know? When you're ready, I invite you back.
- [80:31]
A
That's a beautiful exercise. Very beautiful. I should write down the position of everyone. So I had in my table, and I'd love for people, if they did this exercise, to comment below who is sitting at their table on YouTube or wherever you're watching this, to comment below in the. In the comments. Because I think it's actually a very powerful exercise of what you. What will be revealed to you. Sharmi on the left. So I was imagining kind of a circular table. I was sitting here. For me, on the left was Jesus, my father, who is no longer in this world. My grandfather has passed, my mom, who is here, and then Martha, my fiance. So it was a, you know, kind of a half circle. And they're all looking at me. And I asked them what you said, you know, what do I need to. Was it about love from each of them? Do they love me? Was that the question? Yeah. And they all just. I just felt like a big hug. I felt like this big kind of embrace from all of them, like a resounding yes. And they were. My higher self spoke to me. It was just like 100%, you are loved and I love you. Right? It was feeling that from everyone on the table. And then my higher self. And then when I asked God or what God, and all of them were kind of like speaking to me, what I needed to hear was Forgive greater, love deeper and serve more.
- [82:07]
B
Ah.
- [82:08]
A
And so it was like, just keep forgiving yourself. And it was like more reflecting, like, forgive yourself from everything, from the past where you feel ashamed, guilty, insecure. Forgive yourself and others. Love yourself deeper and love others deeper and continue to be of service more like, just serve, serve, serve. And going back to your question, like, how may I love more deeply? I think that's a beautiful thing that we should be asking ourselves, how may I love more deeply, which is what you mentioned a little bit ago. And I think it's really hard to love deeply if we don't forgive ourselves for decisions we've made from the past or if we've lost trust within ourselves because we made poor decisions where we got hurt, we hurt others, they hurt us, we allowed things to happen, whatever it might be. If we've lost that trust of love and that the world is good, we haven't forgiven ourselves for it yet. And I don't think I forgave myself for a long time until a few years ago. And I had to really learn how to accept all the parts of me that I thought were kind of bad or nasty or just that I didn't do at my highest level of consciousness and learning to forgive and accept so that I had the capacity to love myself. Because I don't think I fully loved myself for 35 plus years. And I think when I have learned to love myself, I can authentically serve greater. I can serve from a better place. Now. I still get frustrated in the human world and things still bug me, but I think I'm. I'm better at choosing back to how can I love and serve greater as opposed to how can I hold on to frustration? Frustration, because I know that anger or frustration, although maybe it's good to release it, isn't good to stay in it for too long and to give back to love and service. So, yeah, it's a beautiful exercise. What is that exercise you call hosting.
- [84:20]
B
Counsel, Hosting council and everyone at the table is a sacred, transcendent relationship, whether they're embodied or not embodied, whether they're here on earth or they've crossed over. Every single person are those who truly have our best interest in mind, our higher selves and our higher power. And we are built to be in that deep relationship. So hosting counsel is a way that we can re claim our birthright.
- [84:49]
A
That's interesting because I talk about the importance of having mentors and kind of leaders in your life that can lead you financially in business and your health and your relationships just People who have wisdom, who have already been there, done that. And I think it's powerful to have a spiritual council as well. Not just a physical counsel of mentors, but spiritual mentors, mentors, and really tapping into that inner power, that inner wisdom. Which may sound a little weird to do this exercise, but you feel something different. You feel more oneness, which is the third step that you talk about in the three circuits of an awakened brain. And you know, whether it's real or not, if you believe it's real, it feels real. You know, it feels like it is. For all I know, this could all be a simulation. I don't know if we're actually here in Earth or if it's dream. But if we believe it to be true, we create the blame that is awakened. And the science proves, based on the MRI scans that like, here's what's possible with an awakened brain, here's what's possible with an awakened heart. And when you synchronize them together, man, life is abundant and powerful. And it's just a better experience. Do you want to have a beautiful experience or a suffering experience?
- [86:15]
B
And the proof's in the pudding because who comes around the corner but Martha?
- [86:20]
A
Exactly. Yeah.
- [86:21]
B
So the question ultimately is answered by our lived walk. When we actually awaken and we perceive that we're loved, held, guided, and part of the great oneness, never alone. And then we show up for one another in service, as you said so beautifully, to be loving, holding, guiding, and never leave anyone alone. Then we're living an awakened life. And that is the glorious life that is our birthright.
- [86:48]
A
How does someone then figure out if they're just like, I don't know my directional life, I don't know what my purpose is. And I want to figure out my purpose. What is the science and spirituality? Tell us on how people can discover and live their purpose.
- [87:04]
B
So purpose is written in and through us, in and through our path. It's not something that we need to develop on a eight point list, but it's something that we can discover. Lewis, may we do one more practice?
- [87:20]
A
Sure.
- [87:20]
B
Okay. This practice, I call the road of life. Okay, I'm going to invite you to close your eyes, different breaths. I invite you to locate a time where you wanted something so badly. That red door was yours. You wanted that job, that school, that team. You wanted him or her or them to say yes. And you did everything right to get that red door. You researched it. You were tactical, you strategized. A plus, B plus, C. That red door was yours. When you go for your red door, you grab the handle, but the handle stuck. And you can't believe it stuck because you've done everything right. A plus B plus C, you might kick the door, you might rattle the handle, but only because it is stuck. You have to pivot. You pivot 40, 80, 120 degrees. And over there, over there is a wide open, sparkling yellow door. You might have said yellow doors don't exist. You've never heard of yellow doors. On the other side of the yellow door is someone who makes you feel alive, is a job that's more right for you, is a mentor who sees in you beyond what you knew was in yourself, a community where you belong. That yellow door was not what you had wanted. It was better and better for you. And as you sit back now and you think of the stuck red door and the hairpin turn that took you to the wide open yellow door that has everything to do with who you are and where you are today. Was there anyone at that hairpin turn who maybe told you a story? You could have met them for two minutes at a party or in a coffee shop. It could have been a counselor, a grandparent who for the first time shared a story you'd never heard before. A trail angel pointing you to the wide open yellow door. And now, finally, as you sit way back, stuck red door, hairpin turned trail angel, and wide open yellow door. How really are the most important parts of our lives found? Is it narrowly through planning? Sure, we have to do our part, but are we less makers of our paths and more discoverers of our journey? And are some of the most profound and important parts of our lives gifts of being in a deep dialogue with the journey of life? And in fact, speckled door, hairpin turned trail angel, open yellow door. Where in your road of life is your higher power? Where is God? Is God in the wide open yellow door and the stuffed red door? Is God in the trail angel, and in your openness to be in dialogue with the deep sacred force in us, through us and around us. Have you been on a spiritual path all along? When you're ready, I invite you back. And.
- [91:06]
A
That'S beautiful. The road to life.
- [91:09]
B
The road of life. The road of life, which is a spiritual path. We're never off the path. When we're depressed, we're on the path. When we're errant, we're on the path.
- [91:27]
A
This episode is brought to you by Merrill, with a dead, dedicated Merrill advisor. You get a personalized plan for your financial goals. And when plans Change Merrill's with you every step of the way. Go to ML.combullish to learn more. Merrill, a Bank of America company. What would you like the power to do? Investing Involves risk. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith Inc. Registered Broker Dealer Registered Investment Advisor Member SIP See. Did you know that skin care can start in the laundry room? All Free Clear is the number one laundry detergent brand recommended by dermatologists, allergists and pediatricians for sensitive skin. All free clear is 100% free of dyes and perfumes. It provides an effective clean that's gentle on skin. Plus All Free Clear liquid is safer choice certified by the US EPA For a clean you can feel good about. All you need is All Free Clear. What's been the most challenging part of your path?
- [92:31]
B
Well, in the Awakened Brain, I write about what almost broke us, which was my husband and I for five years struggled with infertility. And it was brutal.
- [92:42]
A
Wow.
- [92:42]
B
You know, Luz, people do not talk about infertility enough. And since sharing the awakened brain, men and women, but primarily men, have come up to me and said, you know, my wife and I struggled for three years. No one talked about it. There was no one. None of my buddies I could talk about this with. You know, the right child comes in the right way at the right time. Becoming a parent is part of the road of life. And whether it's because you carried a child or carried two or three children, or through marriage or through adoption, your spiritual child comes. God makes families.
- [93:20]
A
So that was the hardest time for you?
- [93:22]
B
By far the hardest time for us was the struggle to find our children in all time and space.
- [93:27]
A
What was the biggest lesson for you during those five years of trying to have kids but not being able to create it?
- [93:34]
B
At that moment I was deeply depressed, really, that we weren't conceiving.
- [93:38]
A
How old were you at this time?
- [93:39]
B
So I was 30. My husband was 31.
- [93:42]
A
So you're 19ish. When you had your first kind of dirt depressed season.
- [93:46]
B
Right. Six month range, which was emergence, emerging adulthood. And it was what I now know to be a hardwired spiritual emergence that first boots up as existential struggle. When we expand our spiritual capacity, it first feels like a half empty glass of spirituality. But this was different. Because while there are three bridges of spiritual emergence, developmental depressions that open into awakening, if we say yes, there are also hailstorms and rainstorms and very unwanted life events. Traumas.
- [94:22]
A
Yeah.
- [94:23]
B
And those are also a knock at the door for spiritual awakening, post traumatic spiritual growth, a spiritual response to Suffering. So my greatest discovery through our struggle of five years to find our family was that depression was the prison house of my ego.
- [94:45]
A
Wow.
- [94:46]
B
That I had made myself miserable. I wanted a family so badly. I was so depressed we weren't conceiving. There are half a million children in foster care. There are 20 million children up for adoption around the world. I could have been a parent in three months. And I made myself miserable. Wow. Because of my ego. My narrow view of what a parent was and where the world opened up to me was when I realized in this very painful, long journey that what a parent is, is profound love and ultimate commitment. And it does not matter if they have my nose or, you know, your DNA. Yes. At all.
- [95:24]
A
Huh?
- [95:25]
B
It is. God brings the soul on earth. It is your child.
- [95:28]
A
Yeah. And if you can imprint a spiritual DNA into someone through your nurture, your guidance, your love, that's almost more important than a physical DNA with a lack of that spiritual guidance.
- [95:42]
B
And that child is your spiritual child in the same way that you met Martha, your child comes, whether it's through Martha's body or four, through Martha's body and two, from another country on earth. Those are your spiritual children.
- [95:55]
A
Yeah.
- [95:56]
B
And through the road of life, God makes sure you find each other. And you know, in the same way that you knew Martha was your spiritual partner, that this is your spiritual child.
- [96:07]
A
If you. If you had you at 30 or from 30 to 35, when you were in this depressed season of life and allowing your ego to trap you in this prison of depression and choosing that.
- [96:21]
B
Yes.
- [96:21]
A
What would you tell your younger self? Maybe you wouldn't have listened, but what would you told your younger self on how to set you free from that prison of ego?
- [96:33]
B
Be up for this grand adventure. Open your eyes to the guidance. Now, as it turns out, God is good and the universe is abundant and the synchronicities come back and the road of life rises up to meet us. So it took me five years. It could have taken me 10. If I'd been a quicker study, I could have done it in two.
- [96:55]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [96:57]
B
It's a dialogue. It's not a race. And this, in the spiritual path is where we go from the measurement of the human to the witness of the awesome dialogue.
- [97:08]
A
Were you a clinical psychologist at this point?
- [97:10]
B
Oh, I was, yes.
- [97:11]
A
So as a, you know, psychologist, scientist, researcher, were you not able to see the practices that were also able to support you at that time, or were you just too much in your own way?
- [97:24]
B
Oh, so at the time that my husband and I were struggling with yearning for children and this sort of dogging, unexplained infertility which I now know as a spiritual impasse. There was nothing in mainstream psychotherapy that was remotely helpful to us. There was not one shred within mainstream psychotherapy, psychiatry. Nothing was there because we were having an ego death.
- [97:52]
A
It would just be here. Medicate yourself. Right.
- [97:54]
B
Or talk about your feelings of longing for a child.
- [97:57]
A
But it wasn't going away.
- [97:59]
B
Yes.
- [97:59]
A
Because the more you talked about it, you still had it.
- [98:02]
B
And there wasn't, you know, there wasn't an answer.
- [98:04]
A
There wasn't a solution.
- [98:06]
B
Right.
- [98:06]
A
So what do we do when there's not a solution yet in the material world to our physical problems or pain?
- [98:14]
B
Because I was stuck, Louis, in asking over and over, why am I not getting what I want? How can I research this more assiduously to get what I want? What strategy? What tactic? I'm going to bang that red door till I knock it down. And finally I got the picture. Wait a minute. Maybe I could stop asking what do I want and how am I going to get it? And instead say, what is life showing me now? What is life revealing to me now?
- [98:41]
A
Oh, man.
- [98:42]
B
Might there be a yellow door out there? That's not what I wanted. But better, right? And as it turned out, we found the most beautiful boy on the other side of the world who awakened my spiritual heart.
- [98:54]
A
Wow.
- [98:55]
B
The second I saw his video, I became a parent. Oh, my gosh. I had this soaring love like I'd never felt before. I loved this little boy. And Louis, that night, we conceived his sister, naturally.
- [99:07]
A
Come on.
- [99:07]
B
After five years?
- [99:08]
A
No way. Really?
- [99:10]
B
Because I had become a spiritual parent. Gosh.
- [99:12]
A
That is a synchronicity. That's crazy.
- [99:14]
B
Isaiah awakened my heart.
- [99:16]
A
Wow.
- [99:16]
B
And then I joined this infinite field of love. And Leah entered.
- [99:20]
A
Oh, my gosh. So five years of trying.
- [99:23]
B
Five years of ivf. We went to the team that invented ivf.
- [99:28]
A
My gosh.
- [99:29]
B
It was a non biological problem. It was a spiritual. In our case.
- [99:34]
A
In our case, because you tried everything physically, medically?
- [99:38]
B
Oh, everything. The best, naturally.
- [99:41]
A
You know, injections, all of it.
- [99:42]
B
Oh, I mean, IVF and the whole bit over and over. Five years, ivf, ivf, IVF and Lewis. It was a spiritual.
- [99:50]
A
I believe it. Well, I believe it because the day.
- [99:53]
B
I fell in love with Isaiah, after five years, we conceived Leah.
- [99:57]
A
That is insane. I mean, insane in a great way, but that's a powerful lesson. What an amazing timing of it.
- [100:09]
B
They're spiritual twins and they love each other.
- [100:14]
A
That's Amazing.
- [100:14]
B
And I share in the awakened brain. There were some synchronicities, of course. There were also some mystical experiences.
- [100:20]
A
I believe it.
- [100:22]
B
I had. You know, one night I woke up out of the blue. Louis. My husband was so depressed that he would lie on the floor.
- [100:30]
A
Oh, man.
- [100:30]
B
I mean, he was so depressed. So we had the jobs we wanted, we had the house we wanted. We loved our friends, and there was the biggest hole in our heart. And my husband, you know, 32, would lie on the ground, literally. I'd look over the bed, wavy, and he'd say, our lives are hollow and meaningless. Oh, my gosh, children.
- [100:49]
A
Oh, my. My gosh. Did you guys not have a spiritual practice then?
- [100:54]
B
I had a spiritual practice, but I had an impasse that I. A limitation that I'd set before myself, which was I still doggedly asked, why am I not getting what I want? You know, there's this notion of manifestation, of send it out and you'll get it. And that's sort of like the Amazon shopping list, you know? But the bigger view that you've shared in your story with Marta is not, you know, I'm gonna go on this app and that. And I want someone who's, you know, over five, eight, and someone who plays sports and someone who, you know, wants to focus on family. You don't make a shopping list and go buy a Martha.
- [101:33]
A
Right.
- [101:34]
B
It's not done that way. It's a shift from what do I want and how am I gonna get it to, wow, what is life showing me now? What has God just laid in my path? And that dialogue with life is an awakened life that is using your awakened brain. And Martha, you knew in your deep register of spiritual awareness that was an awakened heart that knew that. Wait a minute. High pixel head. This has meaning. This has profundity. This has sacred guidance that has yet to unfold before me. See, what do I want and how am I gonna get it? I call achieving awareness that only is built off of yesterday's information. You know, as a kid, I saw people, you know, and families look this way. As a kid, my parents always said, someday you'll be a mom. Do it before you're 30. And, you know, all that's archival, yesterday's information. But the hit in the heart, the awakened heart receives that high pixel hit that has information that's yet to unfold before in the future, the yellow door is better than what we want because we haven't even imagined what's on our spiritual adventure.
- [102:47]
A
Yeah. So what would you say as a clinical psychologist is the science of manifestation. Then what's the process of manifesting your spiritual desires?
- [103:00]
B
I would say that it is the Lewis approach, which is walking with an open spiritual heart, doing our part, but then looking with great love and respect and appreciation when someone comes along, when a moment comes along, when a teacher, a lover comes along. You didn't expect it. You didn't know it would be that.
- [103:25]
A
No.
- [103:25]
B
You didn't know it'd be ever.
- [103:26]
A
No.
- [103:27]
B
But you knew. This is real. I'm going to take it and reflect on this as a gift and I'm going to act on it.
- [103:37]
A
What was blocking you then from manifesting a child? Manifesting what you truly wanted, what you desired? What was blocking you from manifesting for five years?
- [103:47]
B
Yes. So I am to the wisdom, undergirding your point. I am convinced that we get just the impasses we need. Right. So why was I not?
- [103:57]
A
You don't want them, but we need them.
- [103:59]
B
Just the ones for our journey to inherit the next station of our lives, so that we might grow and awaken and flourish spiritually. To be prepared. So I had yet to be prepared to really be a spiritual parent.
- [104:12]
A
If you think he would have had the child at 30, at the beginning.
- [104:16]
B
On day one, first trip to the Caribbean, right?
- [104:19]
A
Versus five years later, what would have happened, do you think?
- [104:23]
B
So on day one, you know, I mean, we thought we'd do the answer. Let's start a family, right? As if we hit all the buttons and control everything. Let's get pregnant. As if humans decide when to get pregnant. Humans can create, if you will, the conditions. Humans cannot decide when to get pregnant. So off we went to the Caribbean, right? Lovely trip. Come back a few weeks later. What? Not pregnant. Oh, well, okay, first shot. Who gets first shot? You're off to Sedona, right? Great vacation. Come back, What? No baby. And after about six months of this, it started to terrify me because I had this haunting, depressive feeling that we weren't going to get what we wanted. Right. That's door number one, achieving awareness. What do I want?
- [105:10]
A
We have this goal. We have this vision. I want to go through the door and open it and receive the goal in mind.
- [105:16]
B
Yes. And?
- [105:17]
A
And it's not working.
- [105:18]
B
It's not working.
- [105:22]
A
So you started to feel anxious, scared, nervous, terrified.
- [105:26]
B
Yeah, terrified. Because no one sees this coming.
- [105:29]
A
And when you feel terrified, anxious, depressed that you're not getting the thing you want to manifest, what happens?
- [105:38]
B
Existential meltdown.
- [105:41]
A
Yes.
- [105:42]
B
Right. So it's not.
- [105:43]
A
Is it gonna come quicker if you're feeling terrified and depressed and anxious about it not coming.
- [105:49]
B
The invitation to go more deep and start witnessing life.
- [105:55]
A
I mean, is the thing we want gonna come quicker?
- [105:59]
B
Oh, no. The baby doesn't come more quickly just cause I'm completely depressed and trying harder. No, no. See, just that impasse was the impasse I needed to start to do something, parent or no parent, which was to start to look at the deeper nature of life. To stop thinking that I controlled things.
- [106:18]
A
Wow.
- [106:18]
B
Quite so. Absolutely. To stop being quite so careerist. I love my work. I'm passionate about my profession. But careerist is a certain ego attachment to it going my way. It's different than being passionate about your calling or your contribution. So this sort of layer of ego, this layer of control, I was bringing it to parenting. I'm ready. Let's start. Time for us to get pregnant. And what I realized in this journey was that synchronicity started showing up gently. Sometimes not so gently. That said, you know what? This really hurts. You feel really alone, but you're not alone. You are not alone. I'm giving some examples. So, you know, I came out of, you know, I mean, as a very healthy, fit NCAA athlete. I was a fit, healthy person. I couldn't believe my body was failing me.
- [107:14]
A
Wow.
- [107:15]
B
Like, how can I not be getting pregnant, you know? You know, I'd been a truer. I'd been a field hockey player. I'd been not a decapoli, but a hurdler. One of your 10 events. And I couldn't believe that my body was failing me, you know, mighty powerful. How could this be? And my husband's a fit guy. How could this be? So it really sort of was a ding. I'd say it was more than a ding. It was more like a crash. We were a wrecked chassis, and our identity was wrecked. And here we had this fabulous life that we thought is everything we wanted, and it was nothing without a child. So right when we thought, like, this is it, you know, even Louis, I'll confess, even reached a point where I thought, is my life worth living if I can't be a mother?
- [108:06]
A
Wow.
- [108:08]
B
I was 31 years old. I was in love with my husband. I. The work I loved. We had plenty of resources. Is my life worth living if I can't be a mother, if I can't have the thing I want? And it's not a bad thing to want. It's not. Is my life not worth living if I can't have $100 million? You know, it's like a baby, a God.
- [108:25]
A
The interesting thing is, like, now it seems like there are some women in society that their life is over if they have a child. Well, that's their journey, their identity, their freedom, their ability to do what they want, when they want is over if they have a child. That's kind of like. I see that sometimes now in some women in society that do.
- [108:43]
B
Well, everyone has their paths. I can only speak for myself, but in my path, the child was a spiritual awakening. The road to finding our child, our children, as the book tells me, was a spiritual awakening. And the child himself, the child herself, is this great, like a wellspring of God's presence. You can even feel it at the other end of the house.
- [109:06]
A
It's magic.
- [109:07]
B
Yes, it is sacred presence. It's like lasting.
- [109:10]
A
Like how a child is born is unfathomable. The magic that is created from conception to building these cells into a being that comes out of a woman. It's unbelievable when you think about it.
- [109:25]
B
And the child comes out as pure spirit.
- [109:28]
A
Yes.
- [109:28]
B
So take your child's lead would be the one bit. You know, I don't like to give parenting advice because it's more important to awaken the parent's own inner spiritual awareness. But that said, watch your child closely because every time that my 2 year old made us late, we showed up at the right time.
- [109:46]
A
Right, right, right.
- [109:47]
B
And every time that my child told the story, it ended up being a harbinger of what we were about to experience an hour later. Your child is a knower. Your child is born in nowhere with a direct connection to all the universe.
- [110:00]
A
When was the moment that you unlocked the ability to stop forcing what you wanted and get out of your own way to create the space for manifestation to happen?
- [110:12]
B
Yes. So, Louis, there was a gentle process. It took us five years. Where gradually I started to release the choke of my demanding ego. I gotta have it. I want it. How is it that we can't get pregnant? I'm gonna research the better doctors up in Boston.
- [110:29]
A
Right. What's wrong with me? What's wrong with you? What's wrong with God?
- [110:32]
B
What's wrong with the doctor?
- [110:33]
A
Yeah, what's wrong with the doctor? We need a better doctor.
- [110:35]
B
Point, point, point. And I stopped saying, why am I not getting what I want? And I started listening to God. I started listening to the synchronicities before me. I'll give you some beautiful examples. My shaman in my life is my sweet mother. And she called me one day and, you know, she'd been saying, when are you guys going to get pregnant. We didn't tell people we were going through.
- [110:56]
A
Yes.
- [110:57]
B
You know, it was so excruciating. I remember going home to visit my parents. Walked into the guest room, opened the closet, and my mother had all these baby clothes.
- [111:05]
A
Oh, devastating.
- [111:07]
B
And so she had been so disappointed.
- [111:09]
A
Dreaming about it. Yeah.
- [111:10]
B
Dreaming to be a grandma.
- [111:11]
A
Yeah.
- [111:12]
B
So my awakening in this road of becoming a parent was very gentle and gradual. There were a trail of synchronicities, each of them actually jaw droppingly unlikely to have happened by chance.
- [111:25]
A
Yes.
- [111:25]
B
So my mother calls and she says, honey, I just want to tell you a story. You know, there's this woman down the way. She couldn't be nicer. And she just adopted the cutest little boy whose name is Alan Jones from Russia. Bye, honey. And I thought, food. Another synchronicity. I'm pretty bummed out, like, very devastated. I just had a failed in vitro and I had still to go to work. I was a professor at Columbia. A lot of energy.
- [111:51]
A
It's a lot of energy.
- [111:53]
B
The students are in their chairs waiting. Where's Dr. Miller? So I get on the bus, I go up Broadway, and it's 11, I'm late. I'm not there at 8, I'm not there at 9, it's 11. Who gets on the bus? But a quite unusual looking gentleman. He was quite unusual. And I thought, oh, no, the unusual gentleman's looking at me. I mean, I was depressed. I just basically every failed in vitro feels like a death. That's how I existed.
- [112:19]
A
It is like a death.
- [112:20]
B
That's how in my heart it was felt and my husband's too. So this man keeps walking closer and closer to me. And I thought of all days, not today, don't talk to me. Yeah, I mean, I like to be nice to folks on the bus, but I was not at my best. And closer and closer. Louis, he sits down right next to me on the W.E. linoleum chairs. He looks so when he says, lady, you seem like just that type of lady that would go all over the world adopting children, a big happy family.
- [112:49]
A
Wow.
- [112:49]
B
And Louis, at the next stop, the gentleman gets off the bus. He goes one stop. Who sent him another synchronicity. So clearly the message is starting to come through. Then finally, you know, fellow living beings, all living beings are part of the same symphony, the same sacred path that we're on. So in our case, I'd come home again. This was probably the fourth in vitro. And I just had this haunting feeling. This had been with the team in another city that invented in vitro.
- [113:19]
A
Wow.
- [113:20]
B
I just had this haunting feeling that it wasn't going to take. I just. You know, again, the knowing, the deep inner wisdom. So, Liz, I walk up to the front step of our home, and on the front step, right in front of the door, there's something, like, slimy and moist. And I don't know what it is, and I haven't seen it before. And I look, and it's a little dead embryo. It's a dead duck embryo on my front step.
- [113:47]
A
Oh, my gosh.
- [113:48]
B
We've lived there now for 30 years. Never before that day, never after that day was there a dead embryo on my front step. So it was confirmation.
- [113:56]
A
Sure.
- [113:57]
B
Right. This is now. Does this mean the universe is against me? No. The dead duck embryo doesn't mean that the universe is against me. Just because I'm not getting what I want today. The dead duck embryo means that you are actually supported. You are on a buoyant path. There is meaning written into life itself. Your journey, your purpose is in you, through and in front of you, all around you. But it was still depressing and not what I wanted.
- [114:25]
A
Sure.
- [114:25]
B
So, I mean, I hit the hay. I go to bed. It's the middle of the day. Not even in our bedroom. I can't bear to face Phil. I go to my study, and I hear on my study window, sliding door. And I look. It was the mom. It was the mom and duck.
- [114:43]
A
Wow.
- [114:44]
B
Who come to my office door, sort.
- [114:47]
A
Of banging with the beat.
- [114:49]
B
And she brought me a worm.
- [114:51]
A
Wow.
- [114:52]
B
Her best gift. Okay. All living beings are connected. She was a mom who'd lost her hopeful baby.
- [114:59]
A
Oh, man.
- [115:00]
B
I'm a mom who lost my hopeful baby.
- [115:02]
A
Oh, my gosh.
- [115:03]
B
And we are in relationship. We are never alone. We are loved. Loved, guided oneness.
- [115:10]
A
Yes.
- [115:10]
B
Loved, guided oneness. And fellow living beings are in this with us.
- [115:14]
A
Wow.
- [115:18]
B
I'll tell you the most profoundly moving alignment. My husband and I, we're starting to get the picture, you know, that maybe there's a baby out there for us to adopt.
- [115:29]
A
You, man.
- [115:29]
B
To adopt? Yeah.
- [115:30]
A
Stop trying forcing this.
- [115:32]
B
Forcing. Right. But I couldn't get my sticky controlling fingers off it. You know, achieving awareness as A plus B plus C. How am I going to make this happen? So, sticky fingers.
- [115:41]
A
You're in your analytical brain, not in your heart.
- [115:44]
B
Yes.
- [115:45]
A
Yeah, exactly. I thought you were in your heart. I want to give love. I want to have a child. I want to start a family. But it was more like a controlling love, I guess.
- [115:52]
B
Yes. Versus a receptive dialogue with God's an alignment with God's path, the road of life. So, final story.
- [116:03]
A
Yes.
- [116:05]
B
We're lying in bed in solidarity, Phil by my side. I've just had an in vitro hopeful, hopeful, hopeful. We had gone to another city. We'd gone to Philadelphia to meet the team who, using Sea Urgency and Woodsville, had come up with in vitro. And they are excellent scientists and excellent doctors. But in our path for us again, I had that sinking feeling. So there we are, lying in bed and in this pretty overpriced hotel. It was only one night, so it was a splurge. The remote's broken. I'm like, why are we in an overpriced hotel in the remote street?
- [116:36]
A
Place doesn't work.
- [116:38]
B
My husband's hitting the remote. You know, he's normally chair of the remote. There's one channel. And in this hotel, we had no choice on bedrest but to watch four hours of a documentary. And what is it? It's a story of a little boy who lives in a garbage dump in another country. And the little boy, through the translator says, I don't care that I can't go to school. I don't care that I live in this trash heap. But it hurts so much to not be loved that I sniff glue to make the pain go away.
- [117:14]
A
Wow.
- [117:15]
B
And I thought, you know what? This little boy needed Parents. We needed a child. And what has kept us from being a family is our narrow mindedness is the prison of our own ego. And it was the opening to what became the road to find ising.
- [117:29]
A
Wow. That's beautiful.
- [117:31]
B
And a synchronicity.
- [117:32]
A
That's incredible. So being open and listening to synchronicities and then acting on it.
- [117:38]
B
Yes.
- [117:38]
A
Stop being, like, resisting them, you know, they're for you. Yeah.
- [117:42]
B
And if you say yes. The yellow door is so beyond imagination. It is so full of promise and splendor. It's not what you want. It is so much better.
- [117:52]
A
It's what you need. Yeah. Man, this is powerful. I got a couple final questions for you, Lisa, but thanks for. For sharing this. And I want to acknowledge you for being a gift and being a beautiful, wise inspiration for all of us and what's possible. And I do think there has been a spiritual disconnection. I think in society. I think there are forces that try to pull us away from a connection to God. The materialism of the world that tries to have us judge, compare, tear down others and build us up over others. The competitiveness, that's not a healthy competition, but angry competition. And so I want to acknowledge you for bringing, you know, science and research and practical advice along with spiritual wisdom together so that we can reconnect to that part of our soul and our heart that yearns and has thirst and hunger for spiritual connection. Even if we doubt it, even if we don't believe in it, even if we struggle to see the point of it all. I want to acknowledge you for being that voice and for constantly showing up for yourself, for your children, and for all of us. I'm really grateful for your time, Louis.
- [119:10]
B
I'm deeply touched and honored. And I want to thank you for being a clear, profound voice, body, mind and soul right in the middle of our culture. Fearless, answering only to one source.
- [119:22]
A
Absolutely. I appreciate it. Thank you. Two final questions, Lisa, but before I ask them, I want to send people to your site. Lisa. Lisa Miller, PhD, I believe is the main place where all your content and your books and all the things where people can get them.
- [119:36]
B
And I use Instagram Just Dr. LisaMiller.
- [119:39]
A
Dr. Lisa Miller, if you guys want to follow Lisa over on Instagram, but both of those places, we'll have them linked up. Up. And I love for people who are watching or listening to, leave a comment over on YouTube or over on Instagram and share your biggest takeaway from this conversation.
- [119:54]
B
Oh, I'd love to know how people resonate.
- [119:56]
A
And I highly encourage people to do the. Gosh, what's it called? Hosting the council exercise. Powerful. So do that and share who is at your table and what was said to you from that exercise in the YouTube comments below. I think that's a really powerful exercise. The road to life exercise as well. Feel free to do that one, but definitely do the hosting counsel exercise. This question is a question I ask everyone towards the end of the show. It's called the Three Truths. Imagine a hypothetical scenario. You get to live as long as you want in this earth, but it's your last day far in the future. You get to create and experience what your heart desires physically and spiritually. But for whatever reason, all of the content you've created, your books, this conversation, and anything you create until then goes with you to the next place when you pass. So the people on earth don't have access to this conversation, your books, or any of your work. Hypothetically. But on the last day, you get to leave behind three lessons, three things that you believe to be true. And that's all we would have of your content. What would those three truths be for you?
- [121:10]
B
Love your enemy.
- [121:12]
A
Okay.
- [121:14]
B
Love your lover, Love God.
- [121:18]
A
Why? Love your enemy.
- [121:21]
B
That doesn't mean expose yourself to your enemy.
- [121:23]
A
That doesn't mean be best friends with.
- [121:25]
B
Your enemy or that your enemy's right.
- [121:27]
A
Right.
- [121:29]
B
But as you said, Louis, the choice to forgive, to love them as a soul on earth, as flawed as searching, as trapped within their own ego and illusion, it frees you to be part of the ultimate field of love. Yeah, where anything's possible.
- [121:47]
A
Wow.
- [121:47]
B
And you're on the road of Life.
- [121:49]
A
Final question Dr. Lisa Miller, what's your definition of greatness?
- [121:54]
B
To be in deep connection to God and live an abundant godly life.
- [121:59]
A
There you go. Thanks so much for being here. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed this and if you found value, make sure to share this with one friend. Just copy and paste the link and text a friend where you feel would be truly inspired by this episode as well. And also make sure to click the Follow button on Apple or Spotify wherever you're listening to this episode. Because we have a massive episode coming up next that I do not want you to miss. So make sure to follow this and be on the lookout for the next episode coming with some massive content and guests. Also, I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy and if you are looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you want to make it easier, you want to make it flow, you want to feel abundant, then make sure to go to Make Money Easy book right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment. Moving forward. We have some big guests and content coming up. Make sure you're following and stay tuned to the next episode on the School of Greatness. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great. Cut the commute and up the convenience.
- [124:17]
B
For your next dermatologist. Visit non segmental vitiligo patients 12 and.
- [124:21]
A
Older can virtually discuss repigmentation with Opzelura Ruxolitinib cream as soon as today. Get started on your pursuit for repigmentation with topical Opletelura.
- [124:30]
B
Visit opzelura.com to connect with a derm to see if Opzelura is right for you. Provider availability may vary. For patients taking therapeutic biologics, other JAK inhibitors or strong immunosuppressants such as cyclosporine, Opzelura is not recommended.
- [124:43]
A
Opzelura can lower your ability to fight infections. Tell your doctor if if you have or had an infection tb, hepatitis B or C blood clots in your legs or lungs, heart attack, stroke, cancer, high cholesterol are a smoker or pregnant. Opzelura may cause serious lung infections, certain cancers, immune system problems, blood clots and low blood cell counts. Major cardiovascular events or death occurred in those 50 plus taking oral JAK inhibitors. The most common side effects were acne and itching where applied to learn more.
- [125:12]
B
About prescription opzeleura for non Segmental Vitiligo Imagine what's possible when learning doesn't get in the way of life at Capella University. Our game changing flexpath learning format lets you set your own deadline so you can learn at a time and pace that works for you. It's an education you can tailor to your schedule. That means you don't have to put your life on hold to pursue your professional goals. Instead, enjoy learning your way and earn your degree without missing a beat. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more@capella.edu.