Neuroscience, Spirituality, and the Quest for an Inspired Life | Dr. Lisa Miller

What if there is a possibility of tapping into a heightened awareness of the world around you and your place in it?

A possibility of moving from an achievement orientation, where so often the questions center around what do I want and how can I  get it?

To a more expansive, open and receptive way of relating to our experience as human beings?

Today’s guest will is Dr. Lisa Miller. She’s a psychologist, a scientist, and a professor at Columbia University, and in her extraordinary book The Awakened Brain, she explores these questions and ideas in-depth. 

What she will reveal in this conversation (and more thoroughly in her book)  is that humans are universally equipped with a capacity for spirituality, and that our brains become more resilient and robust as a result of it. 

Through her wonderful storytelling (which you will hear a lot of today) she will offer profounds insights into the surprising science of spirituality, and how to engage some of the lessons from her groundbreaking work practically in our lives.

Today's conversation is deep, wide-ranging, and may be the most personal I’ve had on the show yet.

In the first half of the episode: 

• Lisa will share some of her story of trying to have a child. She will openly  describe many of the struggles  her and her husband faced with infertility, and a most unexpected, but beautiful turn of events that led to ultimately adopting their son. 
• I will also share some of my own story of being adopted, as well as the challenges my wife and I  faced with having a child of our own.

From a planned perspective this interview went off the rails as we shared our stories back and forth for the first 25 minutes or so, and you’ll hear us laugh about that later in the conversation, but as Lisa so aptly reminded me many times - so often plans can go awry and letting them do so, by loosening the grip of trying to control things, is actually a step toward awakening. 

In the latter part of the interview you'll hear more about:

• The two modes of awareness (achieving and awakened awareness) that Lisa has mapped in our brains through her fascinating work in neuroscience
• How to tap into awakened awareness and be in dialogue with your life
• The many ways of knowing (logic, empiricism, mysticism, and intuition) and the validity of them all
• How adversity can often be the doorway to growth and transformation.
• The role of spirituality in medicine, clinical treatment, and healing 
• A guided meditation she’s used with thousands of people. If you’d like you can participate yourself during the episode. Or if you’d prefer to do the practice later you can find it here: Practicing Courage #15: Being in dialogue with your life
• And more!

More about Lisa:

Lisa Miller, Ph.D., is the New York Times bestselling author of The Spiritual Child 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. Her innovative research has been published in more than one hundred peer-reviewed articles. Dr. Miller speaks and consults around The Awakened Brain and The Spiritual Child for the US Military, businesses, personal development, faith based organizations, schools and universities, and for mental health and wellness initiatives. For more, visit: lisamillerphd.com

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