EPISODE 122

March 11, 2025

Dr. Lisa Miller – The Science of Spiritual Awakening

Thomas and Dr. Lisa Miller, a clinical psychologist, professor, and NYT bestselling author, explore humans’ innate capacity for spirituality. Dr. Lisa explains how neuroscience and cutting-edge research help us understand our hard-wired drive for spiritual awareness and what these discoveries mean for the way we approach our spiritual journeys…and our entire lives.

According to Dr. Miller, we’re all receptive to transcendent relationships, we are all emanations of the same source, and there is hard science to back this up. She and Thomas discuss how connection with others can deepen our spiritual experiences and how important it is to align with life’s natural rhythms. They also explore how trauma can be a pathway to spiritual growth and awakening, and Dr. Miller offers a guided practice for experiencing transcendence and awakening to our spiritual awareness.

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“There is, in every single human being, inborn, an innate capacity to be in a transcendent relationship.”

- Dr. Lisa Miller

Guest Information

Dr. Lisa Miller

Lisa Miller, Ph.D., is the New York Times bestselling author of The Spiritual Child and The Awakened Brain and a professor in the Clinical Psychology Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is the Founder and Director of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute, the first Ivy League graduate program and research institute in spirituality and psychology, and has held over a decade of joint appointments in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical School. Her innovative research has been published in more than one hundred peer-reviewed articles in leading journals, including Cerebral Cortex, The American Journal of Psychiatry, and the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Dr. Miller is Editor of the Oxford University Press Handbook of Psychology and Spirituality, Founding Co-Editor-in-Chief of the APA journal Spirituality in Clinical Practice, an elected Fellow of The American Psychological Association (APA) and the two-time President of the APA Society for Psychology and Spirituality. A graduate of Yale University and University of Pennsylvania, where she earned her doctorate under the founder of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, she has served as Principal Investigator on multiple grant funded research studies. Dr. Miller speaks and consults around The Awakened Brain and The Spiritual Child for the US Military, businesses (including tech, finance, HR and sales), personal development, faith based organizations, schools and universities, and for mental health and wellness initiatives.

Learn more at:
lisamillerphd.com

Notes & Resources

Key points from this episode include:

  • The intersection of science, spirituality, and healing
  • How scientific research helps us to understand spiritual awareness
  • The connection between moral and spiritual injury
  • How our brains are structured to recognize interconnectedness

Episode Transcript

Thomas Hübl: Welcome to Point of Relation. My name is Thomas Hübl and I’m very honored to be sitting here with Dr. Lisa Miller. Lisa, very well, welcome.

Dr. Lisa Miller: Oh, thank you Thomas for having me. And foremost, thank you for being a source of spiritual life and a hub of spiritual community.

Thomas: Thank you. I know we get to know each other some already. I don’t know, eight years ago I lost track of time, but at the Columbia University.

Dr. Miller: Yes, I’m so grateful you came and you gave a keynote talk for us at Columbia University, our spirituality, MINDBODY Institute, and the students were so captivated and I’m so grateful that you included some members of your community.

Thomas: Yeah, exactly. As members of our community came in the mix and it was really about,

Dr. Miller: Yes.

Thomas: And so first of all, thank you for joining us. I’m happy to have this conversation because I think you also combine things that I feel very passionate about, like science, spirituality, healing, trauma healing. I think, and many people in our community really love to combine these three elements. And so maybe can you give me your take on how do you define spirituality? If you measure spirituality, how did you define it? What is that for you? Because that’s often a word that is being understood in multiple ways.

Dr. Miller: Yes, right. Spirituality is understood in so many different ways. And of course everyone is welcome in their own heart to have their own understanding through the lens of science. We don’t measure or define spirituality all told, we don’t make a statement that is theological or ontological. But what we can do quite elegantly is identify the threads of lived human spiritual life that are game changing onto the rest of our lives. And we can identify through the lens of science, the threads of lived human spiritual life that have a deep innate inborn origin. And to that avail, we have brought foremost the method of a twin study. We’ve brought the method of identifying through a twin study what in lived human spiritual life is indeed inborn and when realized game changing onto the rest of our lives. And there are two dimensions. The first is there is, in every single human being, inborn, an innate capacity to be in a transcendent relationship.

Now the words may change around our beautiful world and the faith traditions all have a different name for this, but built into us, hardwired is a neuro seat of reception through which we can feel and know a loving, guiding, transcendent relationship. And the second dimension of innate spirituality identified by science is that as we can know and feel that we are loved and guided, we can show up for one another to be loving and guiding and feel and know one another as emanations of source, much like a ray from the sun. Both forms of transcendent relationship can be understood as relational spirituality as my word is God. As I am in relationship to God, I feel God’s presence in you, Thomas. And so two, as you do your work with people who are transforming and awakening and fellow human beings awaken, there is a sense in our love for one another and our guidance for one another and awakening to God the two go hand in hand.

The first way we know this is through a twin study. We can look at twins raised together and twins raised apart and out their commonality as a function of genes and environment. And this method of the twin study has been applied to everything under the sun, from personality to temperament, to IQ, to risk for mental illness. Using this like a hammer, we can hit anything. So for instance, our temperament, whether we’re introverted or extroverted, is half innate, half environmentally formed. Thomas, you’re very bright. You were born bright. IQ is 60% innate. Your parents had our brilliant little baby. You started bright, 60% innate, 40% environmentally formed. The capacity through which we experience spiritual life is one third innate. It is hardwired. And yet two thirds environmentally formed means that our choices of environment, our choice to practice meditation or prayer, our service, our transformative work all weigh in to shape, quite profoundly impact spiritual awareness.

The second methodology that’s quite extraordinary is that we can track in an MRI machine, we can look at imaging, neuroimaging of the brain and even see the circuits that are common to every human being on earth. We are inborn, all 8.2 billion, naturally spiritual beings, just as we’re physical or emotional beings, we’re spiritual beings. And 8.2 billion of us all have the same spiritual brain, the same circuits run just like the same circuits run with vision or with hunger or with love. So we’re all spiritual beings. Now, of course there’s human variability. We can build and strengthen our capacity through practice like we build a muscle. But it’s not a question of am I spiritual? Are you spiritual? Everybody’s spiritual, this is yours. The question is, how will I realize my deep spiritual gift?

Thomas: Wow, that’s beautiful. So that’s lovely because I mean this touches very much on the essentials of our work, like how to get deeper and deeper in touch with our spiritual core and how to translate this into relationality and how relationality, again is one of the superpowers to heal our pain, our wounds, our past. I’m wondering

Dr. Miller: And Thomas, that relationality is divine also, that our love for one another when we’re loving and guiding and healing and help each other awaken. That is the sacred act. We are instantiating the presence of the sacred. We are joining the field of life, sacred life.

Thomas: Beautiful, beautiful. That leads me to the next question or I have two questions. One is because life is often viewed as human beings are kind of separate like a bottle. So there is a Exactly. You see, but you’re sitting thousands of miles away and

Dr. Miller: There’s one bottle.

Thomas: Yeah, there’s one

Dr. Miller: Bottle. Exactly.

Thomas: And so this we can say an individual is separate, but as it appears to me, and as I think more and more people also look at that, that bottle is not separate or a human being is not separate, but interdependent with its environment. And it’s not just that we are researching separate particles, but there’s something much more interwoven in reality. Maybe you can speak first to that a little bit.

Dr. Miller: I love your use of the notion of the particle because indeed we are both a point and a wave. I say this to my students at Columbia, and immediately Thomas, they resonate. Gen Z is so hungry for what we are discussing, the reality that there is at once a world of distinction and separateness. And at the same time, as separate as things may look, we are part of one unit of reality. And built into our brain is even the capacity to perceive and know this. There’s a region, the parietal region that literally puts in and out hard boundaries so that we know that we each have our chair and our bio body suit. And at the same time we’re part of one unitive force, one emanation of source. So I’ve never heard anyone argue that there’s two sources of life. There’s one source of life.

And most people seem to know this in our deep being. And we now know through science, there’s one human porthole shared by everyone through which you feel and know this deep unit of reality. So we are a point and we are part of a wave, and we are built hardwired in our brain the capacity to know that which allows us the narrative of love. It potentiates the narrative, love that when we help each other along, when you help heal someone who’s struggling with trauma and that person goes on to love and heal another person struggling with trauma as points on a Cartesian plane, we are acting out the unit of love. This is a deep felt knowing we’re all potentiated to feel the so-called stranger at the coffee shop. The stranger who walks in and is awkward and maybe even unpleasant and rude. They were brought by the source for you to love. That is the unit of reality at work at all, at every moment.

One of the reasons that I think there’s been confusion about separateness versus separateness and oneness, oneness, separateness always both at every instant is because we have made a very big mistake. Well, it was a growing pain, I don’t want to call it a mistake. It was a learning and growing pain. In most of the 20th century, we thought of the brain with the contemporary in its time, contemporaneous model of a factory making thoughts. We thought of the brain as a sealed brain in a box like a factory with ideas coming along. The assembly line ideas were secondary, they were epiphenomenal, they came up from the brain. So the brain made thoughts. And as you know, Thomas, increasingly in the 21st century, we think of the brain not only as making thoughts, but actually as receiving thoughts, much like an antenna. The brain is like an antenna we can receive and perceive consciousness.

Consciousness is built into the fabric of everything, all reality. These magnificent sisters and brothers, by my side, the trees and the plants, consciousness is everywhere we can dial in, we can tune in to this deep consciousness. Now, this idea that the brain receives thoughts is very comfortable to much of Gen Z. Gen Z grew up pulling information out of the air. And this idea that we can access all knowing is very comfortable. So when we have discussions like this, Thomas, it is nourishing. It is enlivening to the felt reality that’s already in so many young adults.

Thomas: Yeah, beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. That is very congruent with my experience and also my experience of many people growing and getting ignited. Again, part that seems from inside, something’s emerging and we are recognizing, it’s more like recognizing something we knew but kind of seemed sometimes dormant and now it’s being reignited. And that’s beautiful. I see that in many

Dr. Miller: And to give it voice as you do, we talk about that here. It is real. We can share this consciousness and then act on it.

Thomas: Exactly. Exactly. And so let’s talk about a little bit, that was my second question and you went there already halfway is how we looked at the brain and the 20th century. And so when we say there was a movement from a more religious based life into a more secular life, and it also is that there is a certain percentage of people saying, listen, there is no divine reality. There is science. You can prove many things through science and maybe many not because we’re not there yet, but they would argue, okay, that reality is not true for me and I live a secular life. What did you see in your research or what do you feel is the effect of that on our brain? So what do we get, lose? Maybe don’t get nourished enough or get nourished in different ways when we let go of a spiritual dimension and say, okay, one day, we’ll, to measure everything and the universe and we’ll prove that that was all our information. So let’s speak a little bit about that. How do you look at that?

Dr. Miller: So I think in much of the 20th century, Thomas, in much of the 20th century, there was a tendency to see two camps of people. There were some people who would say, I am a very scientific person. I’m highly rigorous. I only take to be true that which can be shown by science. I don’t know what the spirituality and religion stuff is. Science has not proven that other people have said, I know in my heart the spiritual reality to be true. I may see that through my religion or see it outside of religion, but I know this in my heart. I don’t care what science can show or not show. But finally it turns out science and spirituality really can go hand in hand. That science as a practice is really only a lens. That’s all it’s, and we can point that lens whether it’s a microscope or a telescope or an MRI study at a broad number of questions, including the nature of spiritual life in the human being, the two threads about which we’re speaking.

Now we can point the lens of science onto the human being. An MRI study, a genotyping study, a long-term clinical course study, and look at the nature and impact of spirituality in the human life that is a union of spirituality and science. Now, again, the scientist is not claiming the nature of reality. All told the scientist here is the clinical scientist is simply saying that we are built to be spiritual beings. This is how we are built to see and know. And when we do, life unfolds quite differently. And the scientist is saying a little bit more, which is, and when we look at the nature of relationship between human beings or between human beings and fellow living beings, we see that this deep unit of consciousness is in us, through us and among us, that the antenna brain is receiving and perceiving deep consciousness between human beings, between all living beings and where science needs to now heel strike, put a foot forward to adventure forward is what then? How do we see the fingerprint, the image of source in and through all consciousness? My fear for science is that we not repeat, please, may we not repeat a radically anthropocentric science where the human being is in the middle and we make everything happen and we control everything. I think it’s much more full of possibility to understand consciousness and sacred consciousness in us, through us, and among us. And the human is part of this field of life able to contribute and receive and perceive along with everybody else

Thomas: Very much. So that brings me that there are so many questions. I think we need to have two or three of these conversations.

Dr. Miller: Lovely.

Thomas: And because when you look, let’s take that. If we take that seriously and we look at, for example, as you said, we are very human centric. But if you look at how we interact, for example, with animal farming,

And then not only we interact with animal farming, which sometimes is almost like modern torture, but so we create something if we do it that way. There are other animal farmings that are way different and much more attuned, maybe and much more open. But I’m wondering, in this unity field, we’re also creating how we treat each other, how we treat animals or plants the planet, everything has an effect. So let’s speak a little bit about the effect of and what is it in us and maybe also scientifically and spiritually, what is it in us that feels that certain things are okay? They’re kind of aligned with that inner knowing and there are certain things that are not aligned with that inner knowing, but we still are able to do those. It’s not. So that kind of compass tells us, listen, you’re leaving the north and you’re going east.

Dr. Miller: So we know. We do know

Thomas: Exactly. We do know.

Dr. Miller: Our spiritual compass knows what is aligned with the path of love, of truth, of generativity, of life-giving, our inner compass knows.

Thomas: Exactly.

Dr. Miller: Yes. And that is completely consistent with the notion that we are receptive beings. We are an antenna receiving and able to really put it so beautifully, align with the truth. Something in science that is so beautiful that witnesses, pulls the mirror to what you’re already saying, Thomas, is this, when we look at people to recover from pain from trauma, post-traumatic spiritual growth from depression, develop mental depression into an awakening, into an awakening, an awakening where they feel the presence in and through us, what we find is that in people,to recover from trauma and despair through an awakening, there’s a tendency in e, EG studies through the lens of science to give off a certain wavelength in the brain, which is high amplitude, alpha high amplitude, alpha high amplitude, alpha of the spiritually engaged brain is vibrating at the very same wavelength that goes by another name in another field.

And it is schumann’s resonance, the constituent wavelength of life of nature from the earth’s crust up one mile all the way around the earth. The constituent wavelength is schumann’s resonance. What does that mean? It means that the felt sense of oneness, the relationship with all living beings, the sense of connection and family and unitive communication that we feel with all living beings is mirrored in the sameness of the wavelength. The oneness is absolutely real. So Eden, sacred Eden is not somewhere very long ago and very far away. Eden is here right now, and it’s our opportunity to enter Eden through our seat of being, through our awakening of the spiritual heart.

Thomas: Yeah, that’s very beautiful. That’s very beautiful. In my work, I also speak a lot about this constant wave that we can enter or feel out of sync with. But basically it’s all the time there. And as you said either

Dr. Miller: Oh yes,

Thomas: It’s not in the future, not in the past. It’s in the integration as a present moment. Exactly. And that leads me to

Dr. Miller: Thomas. You’re saying something so beautiful. I heard you say there is a rhythm or a wave that we can feel

Right. And I absolutely respond to that. I want to share with you a story. When I feel aligned with the rhythm, I can feel of what you speak the rhythm of the universe. And in childbirth, women feel this very strongly, ba boom, ba boom. It’s literally like a drum ba boom. You can feel it. As a woman in childbirth, it’s the same rhythm of the universe. We can feel it and know it. When I listen and I align with the rhythm and walk and step with this deep unit of rhythm, I am in relationship with all living beings and the synchronicities are abundant and I’m able to give and contribute and people show up in my path. We’re part of one symphony and that is the baseline of the symphony. Now the tragedy is I know in my heart when I am not with the rhythm, there’s a snaggy, snaggy ly nasty feeling I feel, and I’m off the kilter.

And when I’ve been in that space, often I’m in overdrive. I’m pushing hard. There’s something I think I want. I call it narrow achieving awareness. I’ve got to get there on time. Why did he say that to me? How will I get that interview? Pushing, pushing. I’m not part of the rhythm. And I have tragically that is the time where I’m driving on the highway and my heart breaks. I’ve hit an animal that is to my peril and every living being around me when I have not listened to the beat of the universe, when I’ve allowed myself to be an overdrive, to have the snaggy ly feeling. And all I needed to do was take a moment and it could be one minute. And for me, pray for some people, meditate, reconnect with nature and rejoin the rhythm. And then life is abundant and we’re part. We are where we are and we are in Eden. And the vibrant porthole is through us. So the rhythm, the rhythm is everything. And I do think that we can hear it at night in the cicadas, we can hear it. Everybody else is singing along. And when I’ve hid an animal, it was the most painful moment in my lifetime and it’s the most painful moment in my life. I knew I was off the path. The animal was on the path, the animal was in beat with the drum.

Thomas: Beautiful.

Dr. Miller: So they were not a stupid animal that crossed the street. They were in beat with the drum and I was off the beat. And I know that it’s a terror. And of course I prayed for forgiveness. I prayed for forgiveness. I apologized profoundly multiple times to the spirit of the animal. I asked God for forgiveness. I mean, that’s where I then was that I can say that that would not have happened had I been moving with the rhythm that is accessible to us in our heart.

Thomas: I think you’re saying something very profound for our relationship with everything of course. And also in our society. I think we see this very often when we are in sync with that rhythm. We call it synchronicities, we call it flow, we call it all kinds of things. But we anyway meet the right people at the right time and we can suddenly feel this supportive whole that everything is supportive of that movement. And that’s such an effortless state. And then we can also feel when we are out of sync. And you said something beautiful, you said, if when I’m out of sync, then I need to taste the ways how to come back into synchronization with that wave. And I think that’s what spiritual practice is about is exactly to get us back in sync. And we are. And

Dr. Miller: All the animals are there. All the animals are there,

Thomas: Everything.

Dr. Miller: All life is there. Eden is right there.

Thomas: Exactly.

Dr. Miller: And we just need to awaken and to awaken. It’s not just for the most pious or the best meditators. We can all take one minute and awaken, use our awakened brain. We have an awakened brain, we all have it. Nobody’s left out. There’s no one who can’t do this. We all have an awakened brain.

Thomas: That’s lovely. So maybe you speak a little bit about this because I completely agree that’s the most democratic, that’s the most fair that’s accessible for everybody. So let’s speak a little bit about your book. You also wrote the book about this like the awakened brain. And let’s speak a little bit about this. When you say the awakened brain, we all have it. Maybe you can share for our listeners a few more sentences about that.

Dr. Miller: Yes. So when we look at people of all faith traditions, whether I am Hindu or Catholic or Christian or Jewish or Muslim or Jane or Buddhist, whatever, my tradition may be spiritual but not religious. There’s the same neuro correlates that are running when we feel a deep awakening, a sense that we are loved and held and guided and never alone. And I’ll give you an example. Oftentimes we can be in a struggling snaggly distressed state of mind off the rhythm not aligned. And the narrative goes like this. I’m wondering why did I not get the job? Why the person who got the job was less qualified than me. I know that she was less qualified than me. I said everything right, A plus B plus C, I did everything. Why did I not get that job? I’m such a loser. I’m such a loser. It’s because I speak in a way that people don’t like. It’s because I’m not as smart. And then suddenly I saw light in the trees and I know that the universe has a path for me or God will open the right door for me and I am where I’m supposed to be.

That is a major shift from the view that we control everything, what I call narrow achieving awareness. I mean, of course we need to plan and make an effort and strategize, but that’s a tiny little sliver, less than 10%. And really where most of life is born is in the dialogue with the deep universe, the force that’s in us and through us and among us. The work that you do, Thomas so beautifully with many people to open to the deep force that’s in us, through us and among us to listen to say yes, that synchronicity is real. Reflect on what it means and act on it. This is a living in fact, may we do a practice

Thomas: Right now. Yeah. Lovely.

Dr. Miller: Yes. Good. Okay. Okay. This is called the road of life. The road of life. Okay. I invite you to take three rests to clear out your inner space. I invite you to locate a time where you wanted something very, very much. You wanted that job. You wanted him or her or them to say yes to be with you. You wanted the home, the apartment, the money, the opportunity. And you did everything right. A plus B plus C. The equation was intact, absolutely correct tactically that red door was yours. And so A plus B plus C, you have done it all. You reach for the handle of your red door, but it’s stuck and you cannot believe it stuck because you have done everything tactically, strategically, right? You might be shocked, you might kick the door. How could that impasse? B, you might even be depressed. But only because that door is jammed, it is stuck. You must shift, you stiff 35, 60, a hundred degrees. And over here is a wide open yellow door. You might not have heard of yellow doors ever known of their existence. The yellow door opens and you meet someone who makes you feel alive. You find a mentor who seizing you, what you did not even know was in yourself. The yellow door leads to a landscape that has so much to do with who you are and where you are today.

The yellow door was not what you had wanted. It was better and foremost better for you. And as you sit back now and you think of that stuck red door and the hairpin turned that led to the wide open, shining yellow door with a possibility that you’d had not even known existed. Was there anyone at that hairpin turn telling you information, pointing you with a story to the wide open yellow door? Was it a guide, a teacher, a counselor? Was it a dear grandparent or friend who for the first time shared a story? Someone you met for two minutes at the coffee shop, a trail angel pointing you to the open yellow door and finally stuck red door hairpin turned trail angel and wide open yellow door that has so much to do with who you are and where you are today. How really are the most important parts of our lives found?

Is it narrowly through strategy? Of course we have to do our share or are we less makers of our path and more discoverers of our journey? Is there a deeper force in us through us and among us? Where in your road of life is God, the universe? Whatever word is your source, is God in the open yellow door and the stuck red door is the force of life in the trail angel and in your being an open system to receive and perceive and give in dialogue with the source of all life. Have you been on a spiritual path, your spiritual path all along and I invite you back.

Thomas: Yes. That’s very beautiful. That’s very beautiful. I can share from my experience,

Dr. Miller: Thank you

Thomas: That this is very much the way how I experienced life. And every time there was something, when something doesn’t go a flow in one direction, I always found that life rerouted some of that energy into something else that went way beyond or it’s kind of, it’s trusting that turned out in my life to be absolutely right. And so I want to confirm this feels very, very aligned. If certain things don’t move, we don’t. And it’s not that we don’t, as you said, prepare or we put energy into some things. But if it really feels like it’s not moving, then there’s always a greater wisdom to it. And I can completely confirm that in my experience. At least that’s true.

Dr. Miller: And Thomas, so often we think that red door, I want that red door so much. Why did I not get that red door wanting? That red door is based on information today, backwards. It’s all outdated. Really. The red door is only historical in terms of why I want it. But the yellow door, as you suggest, has information that has yet to unfold ahead of us.

Thomas: Exactly. Beautiful.

Dr. Miller: We don’t know the glory on the other side of the yellow door.

Thomas: That’s beautiful. That’s beautiful. And I think that’s also where trauma comes into play. Maybe we speak about that and maybe we can have another conversation to get to all the other. Please,

Dr. Miller: Please. Yes, please.

Thomas: And we’ll be, it’s

Dr. Miller: So important, your work, Thomas, your work with trauma is exactly what every bit of science says is the only way through trauma. There is one path through trauma. And that is a spiritual deepening, a spiritual growth, an awakening to love more profoundly. It’s not like, oh, there’s psychological minus spiritual paths through trauma that is not going to take us there. Through the lens of science. We’ve looked at many people who have been in therapy for many years and they still have spiritual injury. We talk a lot about moral injury. Moral injury is when the world as I know it no longer holds, but under moral injury is often spiritual injury. And the only way through spiritual injury is a direct spiritual connection to open to God, universe, loving presence, to know who we really are to one another, to feel the guidance. The only way through trauma is post-traumatic spiritual growth. So in the end, as you know so well, it is not recovery. We’re not back to baseline. It is a growth. It is a renewal.

Thomas: Beautiful. Yeah. That also completely resonates with how indeed, and I think that’s also true for the collective dimension because I think the only reason for this non synchronicity are the scar that we don’t see that create this disorganization and even the possibility of not being with that wave. And that’s why I also think spiritual dimension is important. Otherwise the way how we look at individuals, if it’s only the psychology is too small, when we open, then there’s much more resource available. And I think that’s so true. Maybe. I mean you did it already. If there is anything else, because I’m sure many people that listen here, they have a similar experience or a similar interest at least to how to combine or why our spiritual practice is important for healing or growth. And also as you said, for the post-traumatic growth.

Dr. Miller: So Thomas, shall we end on a practice? May we do that? 

Thomas: I love practices. Yes.

Dr. Miller: Beautiful. This is a practice which opens up a transcendent relationship with who we really are, who we are to one another in a deep, sacred transcendent relationship. And to our higher power. Whether our word is God or universe or source or Jesus, Hashem, Allah, whatever our word is, remember that spirituality is your birthright. It is innate. Religion is a gift of the environment. Religion is not innate. It is a gift, whether it’s Hindu, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, it is environmentally transmitted. And for many people, religion can cultivate their natural spiritual core. Two thirds of people say, I am spiritual and religious, but spirituality is all of ours. Whether or not we are religion, whether or not we are religious. So this invites you to awaken your natural spiritual awareness. And what I’m going to do is share the practice as it was shared with me. I always thank my teacher as Thomas. I’m sure many people now. Thank you. I thank my teacher, Dr. Gary Weaver, and then I will add a bit that is related to trauma.

Okay, good. Okay. I invite you to take five breaths and clear out your inner space in your inner chamber. With your eyes closed, I invite you to set before you a table. This is your table. Into 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. Ask them if they love you. And now you may invite your higher self, the part of you that is so much more than anything you may have or not have, anything you may have done or not done. Your true eternal, higher self hire self and ask you if you love you. And now you may invite your higher power, however you know, whatever word is yours, your higher power. And ask if they love you. Ask if they love you. And now with all of those people sitting here right now, what do they need to tell you now? What do they need to share? What do you need to know right now?

When you’re ready, I invite you back. This is your council and they are always there for you. It is your birthright to be able to receive and be in deep, loving, guided relationship with all members of your council. This is your awakened brain. And no one can ever take this away from you. This is your divine being. Body, mind, and soul. In the case of trauma, we can go back to counsel at any time who shows up, may change depending on where we are. And we can ask what’s on our heart. In the case of trauma, we can invite the trauma to take on a persona, take on an image. And very often the image can be surprising who it shows up as. It can be some strange looking creature. It could be someone that we hadn’t thought of in a long time, and we can bring that person with us to council, show up at council with that person and ask right there before our counselor, those who truly have our best interest in mind, our highest self, our higher power, what say you. And that is a divine response. It is a spiritual visualization that welcomes the dialogue.

Thomas: That’s beautiful. Thank you for this lovely practice. And also the synchronization of maybe our heard parts with our timelessness and divinity. So that’s a lovely resource. I would love Lisa, I would love to continue this conversation if you can. There are so many

Dr. Miller: Lovely.

Thomas: We could.

Dr. Miller: Yes. You are my soul brother Thomas.

Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. I feel there’s so much resonance and I think we could pick much more, which get started now. There’s so much more to talk about.

Dr. Miller: How lovely to join you. Thank you for including me in your community. You’re very sacred community. Thank you for what you’re doing in our world, being, part, you’re a catalytic hub, right? You are a catalytic hub of transformation, welcoming in source.

Thomas: Yes. Yes. So thank you Lisa. This was great. I think. Thank you. The lovely inspiration. And everybody will take a lot out of this conversation and maybe we do it part two and then until then, you and your friends around you. Right. I wish you a beautiful time.

Dr. Miller: Beautiful. Thank you. Blessings.

Thomas: You too. You too. This was lovely, Lisa. Thank you.