The Psychology Of Spirituality | Dr. Lisa Miller

22:59The aperture widens, light comes in. And this process of connection to the transcendent relationship is universal. It looks the same, whether I'm Hindu or Muslim or Jewish or Catholic or spiritual and not religious. And it's characterized by three circuits. Yeah, this is great. So we become aware in these moments that we are loved, we're not worthless, but there's something inherently worthy in our very being. Whatever our words may be, that we have inherent dignity, we're divine beings, but we feel loved. We perceive guidance and we feel that we are not alone. Each of those core components to everybody's narratives has a distinct circuit.

23:45Loved and held is the bonding network. Guided is a shift from the narrow dorsal to the bottom up ventral attention network. And never alone does the parietal that puts in and out hard boundaries. so we all have the capacity to perceive that we're loved held and guided hit me with those sure so loved and held is the bonding network the same bonding network that's up online when we're babies in our parents arms okay guided is a shift in attention from the achieving mind i've got to have it the bowling alley the rigid bowling alley it's that and only that how did i not get it, what did I do, right?

24:23That's top-down dorsal attention to bottom-up floodlight ventral attention. And many people say, I'm sure you may know this well, a new door opens, a new direction pops. So loved-held bonding network, guided shift in attentional network. And the never alone is, I find this is one of the most profound and prominent findings in the neuroscience of spiritual awareness, the parietal. You know, a lot of people talk about a lot about the frontal lobe and the executive, but the parietal is in the back of the head. The parietal is effectively our capacity to feel unique, you know, that you're Mike and you're fit, you know, physiology in LA, right?

25:03And I could be in New York sitting in my backyard, right? Two different GPS coordinates, two different bio body suits, but part of one unit of reality on some level, some fabric of life. The parietal puts in and out hard boundaries. So we know we're a point and we're a wave. We are unique and distinct.

25:21Dr. Michael Gervais:It's cool. I've never heard anyone talk about the parietal. It's so fabulous. In that way. Yeah. I want to make sure I've got this right. There's three. Love and held is one experience. Well, they're concomitant. They move together. Okay. And this all happens at once, but I'm telling you the components. The components, yeah. Like the way a car runs all at once, but the carburetor's running it right. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Transmission, engine, da, da, da. All at once. Yeah. Feeling guided. Yes. Is it feeling guided or a sense of being guided? Perceiving. Perceiving guidance. Yes, these are all perceptions.

25:52But the perception can be both sort of cognitive visual and some people are quite kinesthetic in their pickup. They know it in their -

25:59Dr. Michael Gervais:And the third is never alone. Okay, this is like - Synchronicities, other people show up. Yeah. Everything counts. When I am in a, it was the last three-day meditation, noble silence, 16 hours a day of meditation. All three of these come online for me. Wow. Right? And again, go back to training. So there's a quieting that takes place, a connecting that takes place, a observation, a fatigue of refocusing that takes place, an agitation, an irritation, a struggle, and then a letting go. And when I can get to that place, I haven't heard them structured in this way or related to the brain regions you just did.

26:37Dr. Michael Gervais:But all three come online on a good training. And then I become more connected to them subsequently. So there's a glow after the intense training that takes place for weeks, whatever. And then when I'm feeding that glow, that kind of aliveness that took place or that this connectivity across the three that we were just talking about, I'm able to palpate it more frequently. Right. So when I go to the deep training and then I stay with some training, subsequently, I'm more connected in this way. Re-enter the perceptual zone. Yeah. And then I feel like I need to get retuned up, you know, every so often.

27:11Dr. Michael Gervais:And I think that people also speak to, let's call it different drug capabilities to open up these three functions as well. And so you're not suggesting in your research that drugs would do the same as spiritual training. All of our research has been drug free. So the people who have contributed to our studies have had spiritual experiences, if you will, endogenously versus exogenously. But, you know, there is a body of research to be done to see if perhaps things like psilocybin open the perceptual capacities that we can then through meditation, prayer, spiritual practice, deepen and sustain. And I think it's very helpful when people are stuck in some cases to, for those whose path seems to call for psychedelics, to then move from an exogenously induced awareness to putting deep roots and legs in for an integrated spiritual life.

28:09Dr. Michael Gervais:Yeah. And the research, I think, is pretty clear right now that it's emerging, it's fun, it's exciting, there's a lot going on. I am not participating in any way in that. But the idea that when some psychedelics, what they're finding is that their main impact or effect is that people feel safe enough to share their stories with a safe person. So they're more connected, if you will, in therapy, or they go to therapy and actually feel the depth of that potential. And so that is pretty promising, interesting in and of itself. May I share one little bit of science that is kind of new around that. Yeah, please.

28:46So I'm very appreciative that our lab at the Spirituality Mind Body Institute is in collaboration with a team at the University of Michigan who have over 5 ,000 cases of ecologically valid community use of psychedelics. And what the early findings seem to suggest is that when the experience itself includes a sense of deep connection and vastness, there is less depression on the other side. But if the experience is not one of really the parietal being engaged, of entering the unit of reality.

29:20Dr. Michael Gervais:So if the parietal region of the brain doesn't light up, is not engaged. Well, we have yet to get to put them in the scanner to know that for sure. Okay. But the trace of what we have seen in other studies as living through the parietal, which is the capacity for unit of awareness, the oneness. I see. Okay. Is essential to opening the gate. So it's not little me and I'm not no more than what I have. I want to share a practice. I travel a bunch. I'm traveling less now, which is a good thing for me. And when I'm away, this is a practice I do every night, is that I'm in bed, getting ready to shut her down.

29:54Dr. Michael Gervais:And I fill my sense up with loving kindness energy. Okay. You might call it God, call it loving kindness for just this moment. And then my heart shoots to my wife, to her heart, wherever she might be geographically in a different place. And then it shoots to my son. And then if I kind of have some more energy, I'll send it to some folks that I know would benefit from a little ping. But what you just did, so that's a nice little practice for me to be connected when I'm on the road, you know, in a different way than a phone call does. But I think what you just described was I was lighting up my parietal region of the brain for the never alone piece.

30:32Dr. Michael Gervais:Is that right? Yes, yes. Yes. Which is a simple little practice, which maybe helps me feel more connected the next morning, you know, or even in that moment, probably. So my question is, do you ever get a call or the next time you see someone who you pinged with love and kindness? Well, she calls or I call every day, you know, at some point, but you're taking out of that conversation. Beyond the immediate family. You know, it just happened two days ago that I was thinking about calling. It was a coach that I worked with in the Paris Olympic Games. We hadn't seen each other for a while. Marcia, what's happening?

31:03Dr. Michael Gervais:And I was thinking about Marcio and then he texts me the next morning. And I was thinking about him in a reverence and a loving kind, like just how much I miss him and how much fun we had together and how important he has been in my understanding of human capability. And the next morning he texts me, he says, Misha, I can't wait to get together. Let's find a window. And so I think that's what you're asking, right? Yes. So I think that takes us from knowing that the brain is capable of this awareness to, well, the proof's in the pudding. You got a call out of the blue, so-called blue, right after you'd send him love and kindness.

31:40So it's real. There is actual love and kindness, energy, spirit, consciousness.

31:46Dr. Michael Gervais:When you say it's real, I experienced that to be luck. I experienced it maybe to be something else. I don't know. There's lots of reasons I could come up with. Have you studied that? There are beautiful studies, yes. Yes. Yeah. Okay. I don't know the studies on it. Okay. So let's do this. How does one train spirituality without a religious practice? Well, as you were suggesting, for some people, their faith tradition has this embedded already in the sacred text and practice. So there are, for about two-thirds of people in the United States, it's through my Catholicism, Hinduism, Judaism, that I strengthen natural spiritual awareness.

32:22That's what two-thirds of people are effectively doing. But one third of people are every bit as much spiritual, but not religious. And it's oftentimes through practices in the language of life, in the language of lived experience of nature, that we can strengthen our spiritual awareness. But whatever the form, the deeper catch in the catcher's mitt is the deep transcendent connection. What we call it and shape it is downstream.

32:49Dr. Michael Gervais:Can you define transcendence or the transcendent experience? Thank you. So the people at our table are real. They are in a lived relationship with us. And they may be embodied or they may have crossed over. They may be pure spirit. But if your word is consciousness or spiritual consciousness or spirit, they are real. And we are built to be able to perceive them and know in a lived relationship their guidance, their love. Mike, what I think you might love is that we can then pivot and with 85 % overlap, use the same awakened awareness, the same awakened brain to be loving and guiding and never leave anyone alone.

33:30That relational spirituality is both how we experience those at our table and then how we pivot and behave towards others.

33:37Dr. Michael Gervais:This is the problem with self-help, that it misses what you just said. But so in the 80s, the self-help industry was booming and it was about you being better for you. And I find it to be repulsive because it's about you alone. Okay. So if you're going to invest in yourself for what aim, it's so that you can be there to help others. Okay. And so just go back into the world of transactional sport for a minute and think about business. Nobody does it alone. Roger Federer didn't do it alone. Kelly Slater, one of the greatest surfers ever, you know, 11 time world champion. He didn't do it alone. Nobody does the extraordinary alone.

34:19Dr. Michael Gervais:Even if they're alone on the wave or alone on the court, there's always a connection between people that are supporting and challenge them. Okay. Nobody does it alone. That means we need to be great teammates in the corporate world, in the entrepreneurial world, religious, nobody does it alone. We need to be great teammates to each other if we really want to understand our capacities. and that's why you invest in yourself so that you can be buoyant and you can be present and you can have a way about yourself that you have something to give. That's what a great teammate does. Hey, can I help you?

34:54Dr. Michael Gervais:Hey, that's not good enough. What is that? Come on now. I love that. That's great. Keep going. Hey, can you show me how to do that? Teammates, relationships are running the whole thing and emotions are running the relationships. And so if you think about the relationship with yourself, what does that mean? Finding Master is brought to you by ProtonVPN. For so many in our community, travel is part of the rhythm of doing meaningful work. Boarding flights, hopping between cities, working out of hotel lobbies and coffee shops. It's all part of what it takes for some of us to lead and build at a high level.

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38:08Dr. Michael Gervais:And so that piece is totally trainable. I'm so convinced, you know, in my own life, but I didn't have the research around it that you have pointed to. And you found it. Well, I think lots of people have, you know, and that's why people are attracted, one of the reasons people are attracted to formal religious studies, beyond the fact that they might have a difficult time to discern and think for themselves. But that's a different narrative, I think. So people will sometimes ask me, you know, how do you understand the things that don't go right within some religious communities? And I'll say, well, as a scientist, I simply ask the question, here's the truth and the light the flame.

38:49And down the long, long torch at the bottom is the human torchbearer.

38:55Dr. Michael Gervais:That's a good image. Yeah. Yeah. And the human torchbearer could be a teacher or a coach. The human torchbearer could be a clergy person. But when a young person sees a torchbearer, they say, are they walking the walk? Are they keeping with the light of the flame? And if the torchbearer indeed walks the walk, then the young person says, wow, oh, there's really something to that flame. But if the torchbearer does not walk the walk, is perhaps foibled or egregiously harmful, there's a tendency for the young person to throw out the flame. And that's called spiritual injury. When we give up our own direct connection to source because we met a bad messenger, it can be fixed.

39:35Dr. Michael Gervais:Yeah, I think that that's really difficult depending on the level of injury. Painful, very painful. Very painful. But the level of betrayal for some and the observed betrayal for others and the second order understanding of betrayal. People can be very harmful, but that's not spirituality. Those are human foibled bad messengers. A hundred percent. And I think that's a distinction that can be helpful to people. I think that you're pointing at something that has been a source of tension for me is to try to have a set of practices that keep me connected to a source that I don't understand but know to be true and not be mired by my disdain for the behaviors of some that have, I think, corrupted an industry.

40:23Dr. Michael Gervais:Bad torchbearers. Or an institution. There's been good torchbearers. There's been bad torchbearers. That's right. And, you know, there's just something that gets triggered. When I was in high school, my family was deeply connected to a religious practice. We had my seniors and priests over for dinner on Fridays and Saturday nights. And like, we were in it. And it was great. And then I walked downstairs one day and our priest was being massaged by his girlfriend. The priest is not supposed to have a girlfriend. Okay. Like maybe it was more than a massage. I'm not sure. So I was like, whoa, what is going on?

40:55Dr. Michael Gervais:One, two bad actors, if you will. Well, you saw hypocrisy. I saw the hypocrisy and I was like, I wanted to overlook it because this man was awesome. He challenged me at our dinner table on a regular basis. I'd say, what is God? And he goes, well, why are you asking like that? You know, and I said, well, I need to understand, like, what's your take on it? And he says, well, okay, let me ask you this, Mike. So he's got a chip on his shoulder back and, you know, with a glistening in his eye. And he'd say, well, is God inside the sunset or is the sunset inside God? You tell me. I go, I don't know.

41:27Dr. Michael Gervais:He goes, well, why don't you figure that out and come back? They challenged me. It was fun. And then to see the behavior, that's only one behavior. There was the worst of behaviors in our small community. the worst of predators. So that is something that really kind of spun me out. So that's a very important, profound story because the foibled, very egregiously foibled predator was not the flame. Not the flame. Not the flame, was not pure spirit, was not divinity. And so to - It was a foibled human. And to reinforce your appropriately set challenge is to be able to stay connected to the flame no matter what.

42:06No matter who may have misrepresented the flame. That's correct.

42:09Dr. Michael Gervais:And I'm less interested in who's misrepresented it and who is great with it and more interested in what it feels like for me to do the work. How to get back to the flame. Yeah, that's right. To be connected to it. I'm not sure I need to get back to it. I feel like it's always there. And I need to just be connected. I don't feel like it's outside of me. It's inside of me. Yes. I would say it's both. I'd say it's in us, through us, and around us. It's God in the sunset of sunset in God. Yes. The answer is yes to both. Okay. I do want to understand that. Yes. Let's go back to the original study that really lit me up when I knew that this was your origin story, is that you were studying depression and there was a question on it, which is like, are you religious or spiritual?

42:54How personally important is spirituality or religion to you?

42:58Dr. Michael Gervais:To you. And you check the box or not? It was high, moderate, low, no, not at all. And then the findings that you found while you thought you were studying depression, what did you find? So Mike, when I started out, there were very few studies, as in count on one hand, on spirituality, depression, addiction, really the whole field had yet been built. And there was nothing on the first two decades of life, our kids, our teenagers, our college students. And so I was looking at the time at data sets, the very creators thought had no measures of spirituality or religion, but somehow as I plowed through, you know, 50, 100 pages of questionnaires that were the backbone of these studies, way in the back, there was one question, one item, you know, thousands of items, one, how personally important is spirituality or religion to you?

43:48Personal spirituality. So I was thrilled because of what I'd witnessed on the inpatient unit. And I just had the deepest intuition that that single item may carry insight. So I ran the numbers. And sure enough, a high, meaning high, medium, low, not at all, a strong, high personal spirituality, with or without religion, turned out to be 80 % protective against addiction. We now know 82 % protective against completed suicide. that single notion of knowing in our heart if spirituality is important to us, living this. We don't have to be perfect, living it is associated with recovery from trauma.

44:32Post-traumatic spiritual growth is associated with the real struggle. Some people call it dark night of the soul, the tough times that just beset us out of nowhere. I mean, yesterday everything was fine, same family, same job. But suddenly today I feel this lurking existential dread developmental depression, which often then we are so designed gives way to an awakening.

44:57Dr. Michael Gervais:This is such a radical finding because those numbers, the percentage of protective benefits is greater than classical CBT. In other words, let me be more grounded in this. You're finding that spirituality has a better impact on mental health than classically trained cognitive behavioral training. Or anything else known to the clinical sciences. It's more important than any other single variable we've examined. It's more important than external resources. It's more important than whether my family is this, that, or the other. A strong personal spirituality is more protective against addiction, depression, and suicide.

45:42the diseases of despair than anything else known to the clinical sciences.

45:46Dr. Michael Gervais:Do it one more time, just for recency. The definition of spirituality is? Spirituality is a capacity to perceive a transcendent relationship. It is not a belief. Spirituality is a capacity to perceive the spiritual nature of life. And double click, transcendence means? The loving, guiding, real conscious presence in us, through us, and around us. Okay, so when somebody says, I have a strong value for spirituality, they have a stronger protective factor for all things that, let's say, eat away at mental health. The most prevalent ones, depression, addiction, anxiety, and now in this epidemic, suicide.

46:32Dr. Michael Gervais:So if somebody was a clinician and they're hearing this numbers, it would almost be negligent at some point if they read your work and understand it to say, oh, wait, I need to talk about spiritual practices, spiritual connection, spiritual practices is one of the best practices to help somebody heal, to be better, to whatever. And at very least, may I ask you about your spiritual life? Would you be interested in exploring your spiritual life? The clients, the authority, do you perhaps sometimes have feelings of spiritual connection or struggles? Oftentimes we found that when people come, they do want to talk about spirituality, but don't know that they're allowed to here.

47:15Dr. Michael Gervais:For the folks that did not indicate that they were religious. And I know the question was more about spirituality, right? How personally important, this is the item as it existed, right? How personally important is spirituality or religion to you? There are some people who have a deeply spiritually infused religion. So when they say my religion is very important, it is often indeed a spiritually infused religion. And I like the item because it also holds people who are spiritual and not religious. That's right. Yeah. And for those that would not normally click that box, what do you say about that?

47:51Dr. Michael Gervais:Or how do you think about that? that group of people. If they were coming in the depths of depression or if they were coming struggling with a trauma, I might invite them to explore where spirituality has been a point of illumination, love, where oftentimes people in childhood felt a great spiritual presence. In my course at Columbia, we start with a spiritual autobiography and nearly everyone can remember a time in the first decade of life where they felt a great presence of love or the numinous or where they had a very specific spiritual experience. Children are naturally spiritual beings. We're innately spiritual.

48:28And without a child, unless socialized out of it, a child will spontaneously express knowing continuity of spirit or consciousness after death. You know, I felt grandma's presence or I knew great grandma was here today. Science has identified what we call implicit spiritual cognition. I call it natural spiritual awareness, which is characterized time and time again by children perceiving continuity of consciousness or spirit after death, by children perceiving that we can know without necessarily having been told. When children are then socialized out of what we might call direct knowing, they quickly take the cue, oh, that's not real.

49:12As parents, in my view, based on 30 years of science, our most important parenting contribution is to support the natural spiritual awareness of our children. Three decades of science tells me the most important thing I can do as a parent is to support my children's natural spiritual awareness.

49:30Dr. Michael Gervais:Cool finding. How does one go about doing that? One-third innate, two-thirds environmentally formed is our natural spiritual awareness. We as parents and grandparents are tremendously impactful on the two-thirds environmental embrace. How do we do it? We don't need to be great experts, and we certainly don't need to be theologians to live out our own authentic spiritual life and then pull up the blinds, open the window, and share, be transparent with our children where we are in our own spiritual path, our own heart. So I'll give you an example. When we choose to pray out loud before a meal or in a time of struggle or in a time of gratitude, when we meditate and invite our children to sit by our side, when we use a language that says, thank you, God, for this glorious sunset, or I feel the great blessing of all life in nature, when we speak in sanctified ways, openly, in a forthright way, our children learn four tremendously formative, life-saving impactful dimensions.

50:38First, the child learns that the spiritual realm is real. Why? Because you said so, dad, and you are the authority on earth. The spiritual realm is real because you gave it voice. Two, the child learns there's a way in. I just watched you meditate. You invited me to sit by your side. I got to finish the prayer. there's a way in. Three, there is a roadmap to the spiritual reality. In times of suffering, we can turn and hand it over to our higher power. In times of doubt, there's a guidance, a golden thread. So the first is it's real. The second is there's a way in. The third is there's a roadmap.

51:16The fourth is perhaps the most important of all, which is our family goes to that depth. Our family is divine. Our family is sanctified. And with or without religion, our family is sanctified. So it's not just the three of us, it's the four of us.

51:31Dr. Michael Gervais:Very cool. You are the most important person in their life in terms of spiritual formation as a father, as a mother, no one can take your place. Now, if you're not there, there can be someone who steps in, but you are the most important person in the spiritual formation of your child. And by far 30 years of science says it's the most important work we do. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn. Earlier, I mentioned LinkedIn hiring pro, And I want to come back to something a little more personal. We talk a lot about the people who make extraordinary things possible. And I want to take a moment to acknowledge some of ours.

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53:15Dr. Michael Gervais:Again, that's linkedin.com slash mastery. Finding Mastery is brought to you by AG1. Summer is right around the corner, at least for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. You can just feel it, though. Days are longer, pace picks up, and there's this sense of momentum that comes with the season. For me, that also means more travel. It's more early mornings, more late nights, and it's just really a schedule that isn't consistent as I'd like it to be. That's exactly when having a simple, reliable, daily foundation, it matters. AG1 has been that foundation for me for over a decade now. One scoop and a glass of cold water in the morning, and I know I'm supporting my gut health, full stop.

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54:39Dr. Michael Gervais:It's a$72 value. Again, that's drinkag1.com slash finding mastery. One third innate, two thirds cultivated or environmentally influenced. What else is around one third innate that I could have? You know how sometimes you go, it's 700 feet tall and you go, well, how big is that? Well, it's as big as the Eiffel Tower or something. I don't know. Like, what else do you compare that is more pedestrian that it has like a one third innate capability? Do you have anything to compare it to? So one third is actually kind of on the lower end, which means it's very sensitive to our practice. Very sensitive.

55:19I mean, as I shared, you know, IQ is two thirds innate. And temperament, whether I'm introverted or extroverted, whether I'm laid back or tightly wound, that's half innate, right? So one third innate means we are built with these neural circuits, every one of us. The brain is built to awaken, But two-thirds environmentally formed means that our choices, both as parents and grandparents, but even our inner choices for our inner environment, your profound 16-hour meditation practice is a choice of environment that shapes the natural spiritual brain. That's right. How I speak to myself, whether I engage in deep connection to the transcendent relationship each day, all weigh in to shape the spiritual core.

56:04And Mike, we even track this in MRI studies. I shared with you the functional MRI study that tracks our use of the brain. We also did a structural MRI study that looks at the architecture of the brain. And when we sustain, the study found, published in JAMA Psychiatry, good, solid peer review. Well done. You know, not Dr. Miller's favorite opinion, but peer review, right? Scientific fact is so far as the system makes it, right? When we sustain our spiritual life over eight years in this study, we found cortical thickness processing power across the regions of the awakened brain, which means sustained spiritual life strengthens our natural spiritual awareness.

56:43And we then are neuro protected against recurrence of depression.

56:48Dr. Michael Gervais:When I read that in your book, I thought, my goodness, like this has to be celebrated because it's not Mike's opinion on how to live a great life. But there is real research that is observable, repeatable, that points to one of the greatest protective factors that my training in graduate school did not bring this forward. But we did not talk about this. We talked about environmental conditions. We talked about behavioral choices. We talked about cognitive behavioral interventions. We talked about the importance of feeling connected. We did not talk about the spiritual strategies to increase spiritual capacity as one of the greatest protective factors for illness, mental in this case.

57:28Dr. Michael Gervais:Well done. Really well done. I'd be remiss if I didn't ask or poke around your understandings of the afterlife. And I'm not a cynic. But if I anchor into that narrative, it's like, look, religion was formed because it's too damn hard to believe that there's nothing else. And it's a nice way to gain wealth. By whom, you say? By the people in power of the religion. This is a cynical view. Okay. The other benevolent side is like, no, this is a great community of people that are practicing to awaken the awakened brain or to strengthen the awakened brain. What is your position on the afterlife? Do you have any thoughts and or any research that you would point to?

58:08Dr. Michael Gervais:And I'm not suggesting you need to have research here. Mike, when we did the council practice, the first chair was filled with people who have your best interest in mind. And very often there's a grandparent there or someone who's crossed over, someone who is in the afterlife. What we found through the lens of systematic science was that when we do maintain a relationship with a grandparent, someone who's crossed over, an ancestor, we are protected against depression at the same level as when we feel a connection to our higher power. Whoa, really? Yes. So the actual target of that connection is immaterial.

58:46Well, what we actually found was that it tended to be people oftentimes from Asian ancestry who felt that the first chair was tremendously important. And those people who we've invited into our study from Asia, who had a strong connection with an ancestor, derived as much protective benefit against depression as people who from the United States derived protective benefit in relationship to their higher power.

59:13Dr. Michael Gervais:Very cool. I get the finding. Yeah. Do you want me to restate it? No, I got it. I totally have it. Yeah. Okay. So afterlife. So afterlife. Yeah. So I have not personally done studies on continuity of consciousness after death, but there are studies that look at the capacity of consciousness to be non-local. And there's an interesting study that was done not specifically on death, but on as we are alive, our capacity at remote distances to be in spiritual connection with one another. It's a beautiful study. Do you want to hear it? Yeah. And we did have a scientist, USC trained neuroscientist that had studied near-death experiences and remote viewing.

59:55Dr. Michael Gervais:And so like really interesting kind of on the fringe stuff, grounded in science was really remarkable. And Bruce Grayson at UVA does that. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. At Virginia, University of Virginia. Yes, yeah. Okay. Bruce who? Grayson. Grayson. Oh, good. Yeah, please share the study. So, Ackerhoff worked in a community hospital. Ackerhoff saw many, many patients come in and out of a community hospital in Hawaii. And some of the patients had a refractory illness. They just weren't getting better in the mainstream medical model. But Ackerhoff started to notice that some of these patients who seemed, you know, had been really told you don't have much longer to live, were sort of a lost cause in the eyes of the mainstream medical model, started to get better in their work with a traditional Hawaiian healer.

1:00:43Ackerhoff wanted to understand how, why, how is it that the traditional healer is working? The healer didn't often even touch the patient and could have even been working at a distance. How does this work? So Ackerhoff invited the healer and the patient into the hospital for an MRI study. In one MRI, the healer started to do his or her work. In the second MRI, often at a great distance in another building, the patient was there to receive the healing. As the healer did their traditional spiritual practice, a consistent pattern came up on the MRI, functional MRI, tracking blood flow. Mike, within an instant, the same pattern was seen in the patient's MRI at a distance.

1:01:27superposition one thing healing consciousness in two places expressed through the landing pad of the brain so increasingly we come to see the brain not as a factory that makes consciousness but as an antenna that receives consciousness and this vision that the brain can be a conduit to consciousness is an understanding of the brain that holds intuition gut instinct prayer and meditation realizations. The catch and the catchers met mystical experiences, even the voice of God.

1:02:00Dr. Michael Gervais:The intent is a really cool way to think about the brain as opposed to the, it's an emergent expression. It is actually a collective antenna that is collecting signals. Yes. So consciousness, I don't want to go down too far down the rabbit hole because I think it starts to spin me out, you know, but awareness exists and my job is to tap into awareness. Okay, so that's the first principle I have. And I think what you're saying is that consciousness exists and you can tap into consciousness. It's not something that is unique to you. Is that a collective consciousness? Yes, yes. And so memory is not something that's stored in my brain, but instead my memory is my ability to reenter, to tap back into the consciousness field.

1:02:49Dr. Michael Gervais:It's wild, isn't it? I start to get wrapped around an axle pretty quickly. Well, I haven't done a study on life after death. There are people who have. And the Ackerhoff study is a lovely example of who we really are to one another. We are healers and guides and ambassadors. We are what I call trail angels. We are people helping each other out in the most foundationally spiritual way. If we choose to, we have the capacity. Yeah, so that's pulling on one of your first principles would be free will, not deterministic, right? The choice to cultivate. Choice to cultivate is what you call. Okay. If leaders knew what you knew, how would they lead differently?

1:03:30Oh, Mike, it's such a beautiful question. I worked for three years with the Pentagon because when we worked with the very top four stars, the commanding generals, all the way through the chain of command to the company commanders, leaders, as you know, as a leader, very often count on spiritual awareness to make the most profound, challenging decisions. And in fact, I've spoken for many YPOs, Young President Organization, New York, Connecticut, Miami, Shanghai. I'll say to the room, I'd like you to all consider the most important decision of your life. How did you make the most important, often a moral decision of your life of tremendous consequence to your family, to your company?

1:04:13Was it narrowly and exclusively through achieving awareness, tactic, strategy, research? Of course, course you needed that. But bottom line, did you weigh out 18 pros and cons or was there a deeper seat of awareness, intuition, maybe something that came to you in a prayer or synchronicity where you knew in your deepest inner wisdom, an awakened form of knowing. 90 % of leaders made the most important decision of their life through an awakened form of knowing. Hands are up, 90%. who in this room was misguided? Almost everyone puts their hand down. It's a sure form of knowing that leaders themselves use, but can we authorize this for those with whom we work?

1:05:00That's right.

1:05:01Dr. Michael Gervais:And can we create in the rhythm of business practices for them to be more tapped into that stream, if you will, that intuitive being on a more regular basis so that decisions are informed by both tactics, strategy and the awakened brain. Yes. Yes. It's very important. You're so wise because just as, yes, they may have organically, leaders may have organically made an awakened decision, to be aware of the possibility that every decision could be an awakened decision, could be a spiritually grounded decision, widely expands the range of possibilities. and the nature of the decision often moves from something that looks a little bit more like a zero-sum game to something which looks more like kerosene on the fire yeah right yeah that really fuels something can you speak to the difference between the awakened brain and the achieving brain and what you think is a ideal model between those two brains we all have two forms of awareness we have achieving awareness which we need research strategy tactic how to plan a plus B plus C.

1:06:07This is absolutely essential. Our achieving awareness is essential to execution, but execution alone is insufficient for a full and meaningful life. And you as the world leader know this better than anyone.

1:06:20Dr. Michael Gervais:I need to embrace it more in my own life, but yes, I'm nodding my head and smiling. Yeah. I could hop on the A train and even maybe get there. But when I disembark, where am I? That's right. Why am I here? You hear this all the time from people of enormous accomplishment. What have I done? And why do I still feel empty inside? Because there's no amount of anything, money, fame, glory that can fill the spiritual hole in the heart. So alongside achieving awareness, very important, we have awakened awareness. And awakened awareness, built into every one of us, is our capacity for mystical perception, prayer and meditation, life, what we receive and perceive, intuition, gut instinct.

1:06:58Awakened awareness doesn't tell us how to get from A to B to C, awakened awareness built into every one of us is the capacity for mystical awareness, intuition, gut instinct, the receptive knowing that comes through the practice we shared of counsel or our prayer and meditation life. Awakened awareness answers the question, what is life showing me now? It is a receptive form of perception.

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1:10:20Awakened awareness alone would have us on the top of a mountain forever. Achieving awareness alone would have us in a life without any deep meaning. Can we wed the two? And indeed, we are meant to. We were built to have a moment of deep inspiration and figure out, wow, that was an awakened moment. I felt this calling. How do I execute achieving awareness? Or be grilling, just drilling on a problem in our achieving mind, working through achieving awareness and suddenly feel, wow, I didn't have the answer for four weeks. And then I got on the bus and the guy next to me spit it out of his mouth, a synchronicity.

1:10:59When we can unify both forms of knowing, our lives are one of quest. We are on really a great adventure where we ask questions and the universe guides us and provides an answer. Or God taps you on the shoulder and you figure out how to go do the job. Awakened and achieving awareness hand in hand is a deeply sacred, purposeful life of quest.

1:11:17Dr. Michael Gervais:You perfectly summed up what I am trying to do in my life. Early on, my path was going to be a spiritual path. And I was attracted to the monk life. And I thought, no, no, no, no, no. I've got another part of me. I need to be honest. Like I like the building and the achievement piece. I really like it. And then the pendulum swung like really far out of whack in that direction. And I've come back around to try to find this middle ground between the two. Look, thank you for your research, for coming in, for sharing, for the experiences that you've guided through us. It's great to know you. It's great to know you, Mike.

1:11:52And thank you for the way you move our world.

1:11:53Dr. Michael Gervais:Oh, ditto. Look, I hope if you're listening right now, if you're watching, purchase this book. It'll be worth the investment. Thank you for sharing the awakened brain. Thank you. Next time on Finding Mastery, we're joined by close friend and colleague of Dr. Mike, Seattle Seahawks head coach, Mike McDonald, whose leadership helped guide the Seahawks to their second Super Bowl win. In this conversation, Coach Mike opens up about leadership under pressure, why confidence is a skill that can be trained and the mindset that sits at the heart of how he leads, through, not around. From navigating self-doubt to building trust and helping people perform at their best, this episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at what it really takes to lead, both on and off the field.

1:12:38Join us Wednesday, June 17th and 9 a.m. Pacific, only on Finding Mastery. All right.

1:12:46Dr. Michael Gervais:Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify. We are incredibly grateful for the support and feedback. If you're looking for even more insights, we have a newsletter we send out every Wednesday. punch over to finding mastery.com slash newsletter to sign up.

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1:13:58Dr. Michael Gervais:Lastly, as a quick reminder, information in this podcast and from any material on the Finding Mastery website and social channels is for information purposes only. If you're looking for meaningful support, which we all need, one of the best things you can do is to talk to a licensed professional. So seek assistance from your health care providers. Again, a sincere thank you for listening. Until next episode, be well, think well, keep exploring.