Nurturing Your Soul, Spirituality, + 'Holiness' for All Belief Structures #holiness

Foreign.

It's a journey within. Listen, here's what's funny to me. When we examine the different ways people approach holiness, whether through the religious examples that I've talked about or other philosophies, we see a lot of common ground. First, living an ethical life is a big deal for everyone. Even Ralph Waldo Emerson said the purpose of life is not to be happy, it's to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you've lived and lived well. I mean, that's probably an undertone of every beyond your Default podcast episode we've ever done. Whether it's following religious commandments or sticking to personal values, making good and just choices seems to be key for us humans around this kind of idea or conversation. Compassion and kindness also shine through across the board, whether you're looking at religious and different religions or the non religious side of this.

Welcome back to beyond your Default. I'm your host, Liz Morehead, and as always, I'm joined by one of my favorite humans in the whole wide world, George B. Thomas.

Good morning. Good morning. How are you doing this morning? You're one of my favorite humans as well. There's a probably like a tear somewhere. I'm not going to get into that, but I'm glad that you're here. I'm glad that we're doing this. It is an exciting Monday morning.

I love the way you phrase that, Liz. You are in the top of ESPN power rankings now, where you're actually ranked. Let's not get into it. Yeah. And that's fine considering you have your whole family and a bunch of other people. You know what? Happy to be nominated.

There's a lot of humans in the circle.

Absolutely. So let's kick things off right the way we always do. Talk to me about your highlight and your low light of the weekend.

So it's funny because I was trying to think of a low light. I'm like, sheesh. Like, I don't know if I have a low light, which isn't a bad thing. I worked a little bit on the weekend that could be considered a low light for some folks. But, like, nobody passed away. There were no large arguments. There was nothing I was really beating myself up over. I actually even took time to work on my inbound 24 talk draft that was due a week ago. But I took time to, I mean.

You know, art takes time.

Yeah.

So with somebody rushing Picasso.

No, come on now. Come on, seriously. But we're getting that in a good place. So I don't know, as far as a low light now, highlight. Highlight was super easy for me this week. I actually have multiple, but I'm going to pick one. I know that's amazing, Liz, for me just to pick one, but I'm going to pick one. My wife and I went to a concert, and it was Sticks and Foreigner and some other guy. I can't remember his name, but I knew his music. Like, as soon as he sang a couple songs, I'm like, ooh, I. I know that one. Okay. It's funny, the concert actually isn't the highlight. Like, spending time with my wife is amazing because it was just her and I, which is very unique. Usually there's children or there's friends, but it was just my wife and I. And so that could easily have been the highlight. Being at a concert could have been the highlight. But there was this one dude there, and when we sat down behind him, he turned around and he warned us. He goes, hey, just so you know, you might not want to sit behind me. I stand up, and we're like, oh, that's okay. You can stand up. Like, we usually look at the screen anyway, because we're, like, in lawn seats, and you can see the stage, but there's a big screen you can watch. We're like, cool. And I immediately was like, well, that's cool that he, like, just did that in general, like, was a good human. He looked like he was right out of, like, the 80s rock band. Like, he had this long, kind of reddish blonde hair, but seemed really down to earth. And, Liz, the music started, and he stood up and he knew every word, and he had these hand gestures, and he was banging his head. And I immediately was like, now, that, ladies and gentlemen, is true freedom. And I sat there and I watched him. Like, I'm supposed to be sitting there watching the concert, but I was torn from watching the concert to watching this guy just with every ounce of his core being enjoying who he was and what he was doing and where he was at. Even leaned over to my wife, and I go, that dude is making me happy right now. Now, Liz, here's what's funny. After about the fourth or fifth song, these three girls. And when I say girls, by the way, this was an older crowd. Like, we were all older. Like, these are, like, people from the 80s, the 70s. Like, we're listening to Foreigner and Sticks. Okay? But these ladies come over, these three ladies, and they just want to get a picture with them. And so I watched that happen. And then it's like four or Five songs later, and these two dudes run up and they start headbanging with him. And I lean over to my wife and I go, girls want photos of them and guys just want to be him. I'm like, look at this dude's energy. And like, it was infectious. And so for me, like, just seeing that in a human, in thousands of other humans, and that was the one place that we chose to sit. And I was able to experience that and just see, like the ripples that he was making just by being him. That was my highlight for sure.

You know, you texted me a photo of him while you are a video of him while you were at that concert. And I remember just thinking, like, man, if we had more hymns in this world, world would probably be a better place.

Yes.

And what I love about that whole scenario is that two things had to occur, right? You had to have a person show up who was just. We talk about being a whole ass human. He is his whole ass self unapologetically. And he's doing it from a place of joy. He's doing it from a place of pure happiness. And then he was also in a circumstance where the people around him were celebrating that. And often people can be too cool for school or we see people like that, we're like, tone it down, buddy. In this economy, you know? But it's just, it was so refreshing to see that, to just how often do we allow ourselves to be happy and how often do we set the conditions for other people to experience the pure joy and happiness that they are entitled to as part of the human experience?

And I love the idea of freedom. I love the idea of joy. And what's fun is you're right. In the whole situation, I saw more smiles and people wanting to engage than like the usual judgment. It was just so good.

That's amazing. You know what? I'm very similar to you with low light. I'm almost thinking we should retire the low light and maybe it just becomes highlight of the weekend. I don't know.

Careful. As soon as we do that, like, some real low stuff will start to happen.

You know what? I'm finding a low light. You know, by the time I get to the. Hold on, let me see.

It made me nervous, by the way, me not having one. I'm like, oh, I don't need one.

I got one, I got one. You ever get irrationally cranky about things like irrationally cranky, irrationally bougie cranky. Like, I mean, so this is so actively dumb. But I'm not Tempting the low light gods. Particularly in light of today's topic. I am not tempting them.

Facts.

I went to three different grocery stores this weekend to find one flavor of the most popular type of kombucha. And it was sold out everywhere. And I'm just. I have to drink guava now. Do I understand? Am I the whitest of white women who shopped at Whole Foods this weekend? Right now I have. I am. So this is the low light. Not only do I not have what I want, I am a stereotype right now. I am a stereotype. I'm one cat away from being a divorced cliche, kombucha swilling. Where is it? In my Whole Foods type of woman. So we're just gonna move on. See? Okay. Low lights. God satisfied. My low or my highlights. I. I'm gonna break my own rule. I'm gonna give you two first one's really quick. I didn't see anybody this weekend. I didn't see anyone. I had a Liz weekend.

That's not a bad weekend.

I spent the weekend running errands, going to the gym, reading some new Carl Sagan books. I just got. Took myself out to dinner last night while there was this gorgeous heavy rainstorm happening outside. It was just so nice. I loved it. I loved it so much. But my actual highlight comes from beyond your fault.com forward/newsletter. So the Weekend Edition went out.

Yes, it did. Thanks for the personal attack.

Really. Because that's exactly like. Go ahead, get to that in just a second. I had a friend of mine reach out and he said, wow, way to make a personal attack more palatable with science lessons about how galaxies are formed. What is wrong with you? I'm taking it as a highlight.

I'll double click on that.

So let's get into that for a second because this issue is all about polarity, opposites and contradictions, and the fact that the things that we seek often lie at the intersection of those. Right. Because galaxies. And this is what I was teaching in the newsletter. Right. Galaxies are only possible through the violent union of two opposing forces. Baryonic matter, which is normal matter, stars, space, goo, all that stuff. And dark matter, which you can't see, but the gravitational pull of it is what makes all galaxies come together. But I personally attacked you. George, Please go on.

So you got to remember that, which, by the way, you cheated, so I'll cheat. I have an extra highlight too. I also did 15,000 steps before 8:30 this morning. So anyway, there's that.

Was that you working through the existential.

Crisis as I was reading the newsletter. So. So, first of all, you have to realize I'm a nerd, right? So as soon as you start talking about two forces and gravity and force and friction and pull, I immediately go to Star wars and the dark side. And man, did it just make me. And especially I think it was on the back of, like, working on what we are going to talk about today. It just really made me focus in on this journey that I've had of, like, battling to be on the good side of the force, but knowing that there is like a Darth Maul or, you know, a Sith Lord that looms with inside me that I, like, keep at bay on a daily basis. And so there was just this, like, internal understanding of good and evil that, like, we all deal with in our own ways. But you are beautifully painting it with fricking stars and crap. And I'm like, yeah, that's not really what she's talking about. I mean, that's what she's talking about, but that's not what she's talking about. It just easily led into, if you let it. The inner workings of your mind, your soul, your spirit, and this, like, just journey that we're all on with trying to be our best selves that we can be. Is the podcast over yet?

No. In fact, are you ready?

I guess we have been circling the.

Drain on this topic for months.

Yeah.

It's a topic that is deeply important to you, and it is also a topic. Wow. Okay. So, ladies and gentlemen, you cannot see. See this. I'm watching. He's doing some stress stretches right now. He's slapping his hands. Because this is a topic that also makes you feel wildly uncomfortable when you're trying to discuss it on this podcast.

I've been on both sides of the.

Fence, but when I sent you the outline, I explicitly said, I am curious to hear your thoughts. And you know what? I heard crickets. I heard nothing. But, oh, he's gone to his brain oven. He's gonna be baking for a little while.

Yeah, sometimes you gotta go to your cave.

I know. I'm like, is your silence a cry for help? We're just gonna let it ride. I'm just glad you showed up to the mic this morning, because this week, yeah, we're talking about soul work. We're talking about spirituality and what you call holiness, if some of you may recall from our superhuman framework episode of our beyond your default journeys. So I want to be very clear. I want to set the stage here. Do not flip that Station. Do not turn that dial if you do not consider yourself religious.

Yeah, please, please.

We are not here to preach. We have zero desire to convert. In fact, parts of our conversations today, critical parts of our conversations are around this idea of soul work in agnostic or secular contexts. Yeah, because soul work, nourishing ourselves as humans, man, being on this podcast instead of hub heroes, it's very confusing when we don't have that reverb.

I know, right?

But like, nourishing ourselves as part of the human experience, who we are, what our purpose is in this world. These are important concepts, and there are different labels for them, which is why we're talking about soul, spirituality, holiness, and we're going to be talking about a bunch of different things. This idea is we are contextualizing, nurturing ourselves, our souls from within, no matter what we do or do not believe. I don't care if you are worshiping the altar of the Church of Adam and Eve, the Church of Adams, under a microscope. I really don't care. This conversation is for you. But, George, you know what the first question is? Because it took up like a paragraph.

It did. It was the longest question known to man.

Because I wasn't going to let you get away with it. There is no squirreliness here, my friend.

How do you create a question that is also offense? Oh, this is how you do it.

I do it very carefully. It's one of my great superpowers. Over the course of this podcast, George, you've made no secret of your faith. Yeah. How it informs your decision making, your moral compass, how you move through this world. And at the same time, you've also consciously and explicitly stated discomfort on multiple occasions when you've brought it up. Like, you'll talk about your faith, you'll bring up scriptures from the Bible, and you're already apologizing before it gets out of your mouth.

Or you're.

You're doing a lot of verbal scaffolding around it. And yet here we are having this conversation dedicated to the idea of whole holiness and the fact that you consider it to be a critical pillar of this superhuman framework, the blueprint we should use to live a life beyond our defaults. Right. But I want to know how you feel about that today. Talk me through this contradiction of passion for this topic and your concerns around discussing it, because clearly it's important enough for us to move through this discomfort together, because I, too, have some heartburn.

Here's the thing. There's a scripture. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. Here's the important part. If anyone causes one of these little ones, those who believe in me, to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. That's Matthew 18:6. Listen, I have been on both sides of the fence when it comes to this conversation of religion. I have probably a maybe weird perspective around spirituality versus religion, which then leans into what I would consider holiness. And so many times we have this conversation. It's like one mind, one perspective, only educated on this individual path that you've been on. Listen, what I'm trying to say is this conversation is complicated, ladies and gentlemen, because my relationship with this topic has been a bumpy road filled with twists and turns and hills and really deep valleys and. Listen, when I was younger, I would travel from Montana to Ohio to visit my grandparents on my mom's side. And while we were there, we attended church. But I didn't get it. Like, I just, I didn't really understand it and the life that I lived. You know, many of you have heard stories of like the one room log cabin and the one room schoolhouse and riding my pony to school, like, but I didn't start going to organize church in any type of consistent manner until I was 14 and we moved to Cardwell, Montana. And I met Doug and Arse Shaw, who were our neighbors, but also our landlords who started to take me to church. And it was like I went from never going to going on Sunday mornings, Sunday nights and Wednesday nights, right? So at 14, I was like, what some might call like, on fire and trying to digest as much information as I could. I was in the Navy by 17 and a half. So do the math. That's three and a half years of having this, like, ability to have a growth or hotbed. But at 17 and a half, I was in the Navy as a high school dropout. Now, let's just say the Navy wasn't the best breeding ground for a life focused on being religious or spiritual. At least not for me at such a young age or even, I'll add in the mindset that I was in as going into the Navy as a high school dropout. By 20, I was working at Faith Ranch partly to avoid being homeless and because I felt my first calling into the ministry, or at least I thought that was what would happen next, although it wasn't. I literally went from three and a half years Again, working at a Christian camp, teaching kids about Jesus to selling furniture in Cleveland, Ohio. So that wasn't the plan that I thought we were going to go along. Along this spiritual journey. I've studied Catholicism, Judaism, Buddhism, and several other like, world religions. By 24, I thought Christians were the most hypocritical people I knew on the planet. By 27, I was going to school to be a freaking pastor. And by 30, I was a youth pastor and then an associate pastor at a church in Ohio. By 32 and a half, guess what? I no longer worked at the church.

Why?

Because we lost what they said. And it makes me sick to even say this. We lost 12 giving units so they couldn't afford to pay an associate youth pastor anymore, by the way. 12 giving units, in other words, we lost 12 families. Humans. They left the church due to a restructuring of like, constitution versus covenant, like over political church crap. What the actual heck? But like, if I look at this and I try to sum it up, I'm the only guy that I know there might be somebody else out there, by the way, but I'm the only guy that I know who has gone from bouncer at a bar to pastor at a church. Like, the entire journey has taught me a few key things. So. So my hopes for this podcast episode are that I can vocalize those things and help those who have also had maybe a bumpy road or maybe a non existent road with this thought around. And we're using the word holiness, Many use the word religion. Sometimes we even lean into spirituality. But I have to be perfectly clear, and you kind of alluded to this at the beginning, Liz listeners. And Liz, because you have to go through this with them as well, what I'm not trying to do is WFIELD A religious two by four over my shoulder and beat you into submission or make you feel guilty for who you are or where you're at in your spiritual journey right now. Like, that is not even close to the goal of the conversation that we're having today. That's where my brain is. Liz, what about you and today's episode? Like, where's your brain at? Where are you hoping we get to talk me through that?

I remember when I saw holiness tucked in very modestly toward the back quarter of the list of the pillars of the superhuman framework.

I just kind of slipped it right in there.

I remember being really happy about it. And I'll admit I have had a complicated, complicated relationship with religion throughout my life. I was raised primarily by my mother's side of the Family. So I grew up Catholic. I think a lot of people who come from the Catholic faith, we have a. We have a lot of complicated feelings about it. But I will say, even in my moments where. And there were many of them, and they were quite protracted, where I had stepped away from faith, where I had felt abandoned, I would still go back. Because I lost many people in my mother's side of the family when I was younger, just because my parents had me when they were older. Like, I was very close with my grandfather, for example, and every Sunday I went to mass with him. I was like 6, 7, 8 and 9, 10, 11. I didn't get to go to Sunday school. No. I sat with him through full mass, right? Which at the time I'm like, this is. This is great. This is awesome. But I remember periodically I would just go back because it was a way for me to reconnect with a familial tradition. It would help me feel closer to people whom I had lost. But the reason why I was so happy to see this discussion is that when I look back over my 40 some years on this earth, I've never gone full atheist. And again, I have very similar goals to you. We came into this episode very aligned, right? Like this is for all believers and non believers, because even that is a belief system that is sacred and should be cherished, right? We are all entitled to our own belief structures and how we view the world. But over the past 40 some years, I have gone through a wide range of belief structures. But when I look thematically, I've seen the importance of whether it was a monotheistic way of looking at the world, something a little bit more broad, more spiritual, more universal. This idea of nourishing my soul and showcasing a reverence and an acknowledgement of something larger than myself is something that has always helped me get through very challenging periods. Whether I was doing it consciously or I see in hindsight, this was something that I needed to do because, you know, I moved out on my own when I was 19, I was homeless. I've gone through a lot of pain and things in my life. There are things that I've talked about on this podcast. There are a lot of things I haven't talked about on this podcast. But, George, you and I have had personal conversations about them and. And they are things I get really kind of squirrely talking about because I don't want to be defined by that. It's weird. And on the one hand, I would actually. I've gotten to the point now where I wouldn't trade my life for anything. Not a single moment, not a single pain. Because it means that I'm only here able to have these conversations, doing this work that we are clearly meant to be doing because of that path that I walked.

Yeah.

And at the same time, I only got through those things because for some reason, I just kind of never gave up on a concept of a greater good, no matter how agnostic or secular or spiritual I perceived it to be based on where I was in my life story. But like you, I'm the same. I had. I've had a fear of judgment going into this conversation. Will people think of me differently? Will people look at me differently? And I just, I'm kind of tired of that. You know, we talk a lot about being our whole ass selves. I preach and constantly work every single day for people to show up as their whole ass selves. And this is a piece of myself that I tend to pull back.

Yep.

Because I'm worried about how I might be perceived. But I think this conversation is so important because it solves a critical problem that we have on this beyond your default journey. And that is not losing the concept of the self and where we fit into the greater narrative of what we exist within, whether that's the universe, God's plan, or something else.

It's funny because I wonder how much of it truly is worried about how you'll be perceived. And I think there's a little bit of that. But this is literally why I started with the first scripture that I threw out there. Is that for me? Yeah, there's maybe a little bit of how I perceive like, oh, he's a Jesus lover or whatever they want to throw out there or oh, that he's close minded. He'll never, you know, embrace us because we don't believe that structure bull crap more. For me, one of my biggest fears, and I don't fear a lot, is that I would actually be the stumbling block to somebody's spiritual journey. And so like sometimes I, I think I use less of a megaphone and less of a 2x4 because I'm trying to have this more Johnny Appleseed plant some seeds along the way as I go quietly and just see if the they'll grow on their own versus like, listen, let's go back to the concert I just went to. There was a dude with a megaphone talking about how going to Foreigner and Sticks meant you were going to hell. And I was like, in what universe does this make sense for you to be out here? I have been a pastor. I am one of maybe the most spiritual human beings that I can be. And I know going to this concert, I'm not going to hell. And I don't want to be that kind of spiritual leader or mentor or. Because again, for me, it's not about the specific religion, it's about what we're cultivating in the core with this conversation.

I love that. Let's dig into this conversation now when we, you know me, word nerd, we're always going to come back to a definition I want to hear from you. We danced around this a little bit, right? We're like, we're throwing a lot of words out. It could apply to anybody. But when you say holiness, George, what do you mean specifically? Because what's interesting, and we've alluded to this already, is that when we talked about this during that superhuman framework episode, you went out of your way to note that this idea is very much applicable to those on their journey, this journey, who consider themselves to be either agnostic or atheistic in your their belief structure. And so I want to understand what it means to you when we say holiness.

There's this part, by the way, I am not a great theologian. I am only giving you the thoughts of one man who has had his own journey in trying to answer this. But there's this part inside us that we need to pay attention to, that we need to nurture and cultivate and you might call it our essence, if you will. Heck if I go to like the way that Christians talk about this. They say that when you accept Jesus in your heart, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside your heart. Now, by the way, I'm in no means disagreeing with that at all, but many times I've wondered if that part of you isn't there by default and that this is just a way to activate it and think of it more or to get people to think of it more by actually naming it something. And I know this is a weird kind of concept and I'm definitely teeter tottered on a very narrow fence right now for those of who are listening this and are devout Christians and have a whole belief structure about like when you get the Holy Spirit or not. But one thing I know to be true is we humans are not very good at paying attention to things without naming them first. And so I've always felt like I had this inner guide in me even before I went to church, knowing that I didn't start going to church till 14. So tell me, what was that inner Guide. What was that thing that always knew there was a greater good? What was that thing that knew that I should or shouldn't lie or should or shouldn't do these things? Like, is that spiritual part that what the Christianity religion would call the Holy Spirit? Is it there, like that essence of who you are? And, and here's the thing where I'm getting with this. It wasn't until later in life that I realized that maybe, just maybe we all have a vital part of this religious or spiritual conversation wrong. And what I mean by that is so many people, when you ask them, will say, oh, I'm just a human trying to have a spiritual experience when they go to worship services or they go to do something that they would consider like this experience that they're trying to have. But what if the opposite of what was happening? We didn't realize that, like, it was the exact opposite of the way that we thought we are living our life. And that there came a time where. And again, you know me, I'm very much of a like, flip that switch guy. And that's just like, okay, now it's this direction. I, I have been for years a big believer that we are all spiritual beings trying to have a human experience, which is the exact opposite. Liz, by the way, I thought I was clever when I came to that realization. And yet there's literally a quote out there that when you were doing research and putting the show notes together, I think it's Pierre Talhara Del Chardin. I probably jacked that name up. But it doesn't matter.

All of France is mad at you, but we also forgive you.

I'm sorry for all the French speaking people. It was the country coming out in me. Probably the Montana and the North Carolina got merged there, but it says exactly this. The quote literally says, we are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. And I think when you realize that, when you get to that point, like, there's a different set of dominoes that just start to fall. And so many of us humans, we've picked different paths to take that human journey, or even more importantly, maybe connect with our spiritual insides, that essence that guide, if you will. And when we talk about holiness in a religious. And that's the thing, because you're asking me, like, what is it really? What, what we need to do is we need to have an open mindset, a learner's mindset, and we need to start to think of it in a broader perspective because there's multiple things that have to go into play here when we talk about holiness in the religious context. Each faith, by the way, has its unique approach to this. For Christians. Holiness for us often means connecting with God through prayer, worship, and following the teachings of the Bible. Mother Teresa said this holiness does not consist in doing extraordinary things. It consists in accepting with a smile what Jesus sends us God. And it consists in accepting and following the will of God. Now, one of the things you're going to find is there's some matching and pairing that happens here because Muslims find holiness in their dedication to the five pillars of Islam, including daily prayer, fasting during Ramadan, and a pilgrimage to Mecca. Hindus might pursue holiness by following their duty or their dharma and practice devotional worship and performing selfless actions. Sounds a little bit like servanthood. Buddhists, on the other hand, strive for enlightenment through the Eightfold Path, which includes right actions, mindfulness, meditation, and they're all aimed at achieving moral purity and compassion on that one. To quote Buddha, to live a pure, unselfish life, one must count nothing as one's own in the midst of abundance. I can find about 17 biblical scriptures that go in a line with that idea or thought. But here's the thing, Liz, that was just talking about it from a religious and multi religion perspective. If we shift gears on this question of what is holiness and look at non religious ways to think about holiness, Humanism is a great example of how holiness is about living ethically, being kind, constantly working on your personal growth. People who even practice secular mindfulness focus on meditation and awareness to find inner peace and live a compassionate life. Sounds familiar. Then there's Stoicism, which we've talked about, you know, here, there during the podcast episodes. But a philosophy that teaches us to cultivate virtues like wisdom and self control, helping us manage our emotions and and live rationally. Heck, even existentialism encourages us to live authentically, take responsibility for our actions, and create our sense of purpose and meaning in life. I think it was Rainer Maria and Man Roki Reiki. I don't know the last name, but the quote is amazing stated, the only journey is the one within. When you think about this spiritual context and when you think about the religion and the non religion side and when you're trying to answer the question what is holiness? It's a journey within. Listen, here's what's funny to me. When we examine the different ways people approach holiness, whether through the religious examples that I've talked about or other philosophies, we see a lot of common ground. First, living an Ethical life is a big deal for everyone. Even Ralph Waldo Emerson said the purpose of life is not to be happy, it's to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you've lived and lived well. I mean, that's probably an undertone of every beyond your default podcast episode we've ever done. Whether it's following religious commandments or sticking to personal values, making good and just choices seems to be key for us humans around this kind of idea or conversation. Compassion and kindness also shine through across the board. Whether you're looking at religious and different religions or the non religious side of this. For example, if we start to like connect the dots, which is one of the things that I love to do just in general, like even on the HubSpot side, marketing, sales, service, like I love doing that. But this, this was for me an exciting dive into this. Islam and humanism both emphasize acts of charity, while Buddhism and mindfulness practices focus on empathy and awareness. Personal growth is another shared goal. Christians aim to grow morally by following the Bible and humanists work on self improvement through reason and ethics. Inner peace is essential. Meditation helps Buddhists and those practicing secular mindfulness, while prayer serves a similar purpose for us Christians and for Muslims. Magandi hit it on the nose, Liz, when he said prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission to one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart. Our soul, our essence, our inner core. And what does that beg for but community and connection? And these are also crucial pieces that are connected up. Religious practices often bring people together for worship and gatherings, while non religious philosophy stress the importance of social bonds and freaking. Helping each other's responsibility and accountability are common themes that thread through all of what we talked about this morning. Everyone is encouraged to take responsibility for their actions and their impact on others. Whether it's living according to divine, the divine will or personal principles, everyone seeks meaning and purpose in life. I mean this might be achieved by fulfilling religious duties like in Islam, or by creating one's own purpose. I mean, despite the different foundations, these holiness approaches share many similarities. Like they focus on ethics, compassion, growth, peace, community, responsibility and even meaning of life. Listen, what I'm trying to say in answering this question. When it comes to holiness, when it comes to this thing that we many times label religion or spirituality, what I would want the listeners to understand, what I want everybody to see, is that we are more the same than we are different.

Can you Share your personal experiences with how an emphasis on holiness and feeding your soul in your life has impacted your beyond your default journey. Because I appreciate how you've contextualized this for all of this to make this more accessible. But let's talk about your personal journey here.

The hot seat. Listen, it's my core, it's my anchor, it's my gps, it's my everything. Those are the words that I know how to put around this. But most of my lessons of life and I'm using air quotes. If you're listening to this, you have no idea that I'm using air quotes. Lessons of life. Air quotes usually happen during times I was either purposely or unpurposely, like not knowing I was feeding my soul. And sometimes I'll even be as honest to say that, well, sometimes, maybe even many times God had to break me or tap me on the shoulder to get me to focus inward and on me. Sometimes broken, sometimes a tap on the shoulder. I'm pretty thick headed, let's be honest. Many times he had to like, stop me in my tracks. And we've talked about the stories around this, but like, listen, when I almost died, 13 hours away from dying in the Navy, I landed at Faith Ranch and I had this ability to focus on my belief around time and what time is and what time isn't and the importance of time. And Liz, we've done a podcast episode on like time and timing. And if I didn't have that time where I could focus on the soul, if I didn't have the time to nurture and unpack the inside of what had happened to where I was at, I wouldn't have this fundamental belief structure around time, which by the way, is a link or a linchpin to the fact that there's other beliefs that came along in my life that are, that are based on that. It was also at Faith Ranch the same time that I was learning and unpacking this belief structure around time and timing and importance of time. And again, we've told this story, but that I learned a really large lesson around ego and humility. And we literally, last week we talked about this conversation around humility and being humble and. And I couldn't have that belief structure. We couldn't have had that conversation if I hadn't had a time where I was able to focus on the core, on the soul, on being able to nurture it through what that actually meant. Being a pastor at the church is where I picked up the blessing bomber. You know, this idea of being at an Indian reservation and this prophetess walking up and and me a week earlier being like, I've changed my entire life. Why don't I see the blessings? When is God going to realize that I've got my act together? And her touching me on the shoulder and saying, when are you going to realize you're the blessing? And picking up this blessing bomber mentality. It wouldn't have happened if I wasn't at a place where I was focusing on my soul, nourishing my soul, thinking about spirituality or holiness. It's the same place when I was at that church that we did this thing called the Fish philosophy as one of the sermons. And it was play, pray and make their day. I can't tell you how many professional talks I've had where I talk about going to play instead of going to work and the mental mind shift. But that would never exist if I hadn't been focusing on, by the way, make their day. Is the link to my importance of servanthood and leaving people better when I leave them than when I found them is because it's play, pray and make their day. Because you're a blessing bomber and there's only a limited amount of time. So walk this world with humility and not a two by four so that you can enable the Johnny Appleseed who you're supposed to be. I feel like I'm preaching for a second just. And so like it's been everything again. It's the anchor, it's the core. It's the thing that, and you said this earlier, it's the thing that while I've walked away from religion and while even sometimes I felt like I may have walked away from God, I've never been able to really walk away from the holiness, the spiritual, the essence, the core, the guide who has always brought me back to where I believe that I'm supposed to be on the path and journey that I'm supposed to go down. Liz, that's enough of the hot seat for me. What are your thoughts?

It's funny and I wrote about this in the newsletter that went out last night for the weekend edition beyond your default. Com newsletter.

You're getting good at that, by the way.

I am getting real good at that. But I'm bringing this up for a very important point because in it, the whole idea, the whole thesis is that as humans we tend to cling to sameness and homogeny out of a desire for safety and security. But that is not how we are built as humans to function because that is not how the universe is Built to function. Everything is about finding that perfect balance of contrasting opposites. And I wrote, opposition, polarity, contradiction. These are the real building blocks of our lives. And we see this truth play out every single day. Want life to get easier? Do something hard. Want peace? Pick up a sword. Fight the right battles. Want relief? Run at your pain? Want something to happen faster? Slow down. Want proof of God? Study science. Want to love someone else? Love yourself first. Want to make a dessert? Really saying, throw a dash of flaky sea salt on top. But I want to go back to want to find proof of God, study science. So I mentioned the fact that I have drifted here and there and everywhere across what some might consider the religious or spiritual or agnostic spectrum. And what was very interesting to me is that I found my greatest level of soul work through the study of science, which is why I put that line in there. Want proof of God? Study science. One of my favorite authors is an astronomer named Carl Sagan. Incredibly famous man. And just to your point, George, it's always been for me about. For some reason, I've just had this. This weird, optimistic hope. I was talking with a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago, and he was saying, given everything that you've been through, I don't know how you do it. And he mentioned another person that he knows. You know, I don't know how so and so does it either. Like, if it were me, I might have just like, done drugs, something else. I don't know. I just knew. I'm like, look, first of all, you're looking through. This is a very polished lens, right? And now, did Liz effort develop a drug addiction? No. But did Liz make a lot of great choices throughout her life also? No. You know, but I'm 17 gerbils in a trench coat just trying to make it work. And I think that's probably pretty typical of the human experience, right? We're all trying to make it work. But I've always had this optimism. I've always had this thing about, like, we are more alike than we are different. And my journey of the study of that maxim, which in many ways some people consider to be religious and be spiritual, started in science. There's this incredible image that the Voyager 1 took of the Earth when it turned around right as it was passing Saturn, and it's the tiniest little.it's this little speck. And Carl Sagan wrote, look again at that dot. That's here, that's home. That's us on it. Everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone You've ever heard of. Every human being who ever was lived out their lives, the aggregate of our joy, our suffering. Thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines. Every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in history of our species lived there on a moat of dust, suspended in a sunbeam. And that is from an astronomer. That is not from a Bible. That is not from any sort of spiritual doctrine. And so when we think about, you know, that quote from Chardin earlier about, you know, we are humans having a spiritual experience versus however you want to define it.

Yeah.

There's also a secular version of that as well, and Carl Sagan wrote it. The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself. I remember when you heard that, you had a reaction to it. I want to continue with my thoughts, but I remember sharing that quote with you when we were preparing for this and you did one of my favorite things, which is when I know you get excited, you kind of back hop off the mic a little bit, and you go, oh, your body physically reacted to that.

Yeah, it's the God is in us. It's funny because when I hear you talk about the pieces that you're sharing right now, it's like, everything is so complex. How can you believe in chaos? Everything is so orchestrated. How can you believe it's not defined or destined or divine? Right. Like, and so we want to think that it's such a separate thing, like, there's God and then there's us. But it's like sometimes I get this vision of where it's like, no, it's. It's just all together. It's our own lens that we're looking through that makes it feel separate or look separate, but it never is. The reason I get excited about this conversation and these conversations and when, like, these things come up, like you said, when I back off the mic and get a little bit hype, is because it's one of the most important conversations and one of the most important journeys that you can allow yourself to at least go down and see what happens on the other side. And so many humans that I've met because of, usually, historically, other bad humans refuse to allow themselves to get in the boat and just see where it leads.

That's what happened for me. And I mean, I Just, I kept studying science. I just kept studying it.

Yeah.

And what was so amazing to me is that whether your pathway through soul work or this recognition that, like, guys, I understand taxes suck, and we make jokes about. And in this economy, we are on a tiny pale blue dot on a motive, dust suspended in a sunbeam. Carl Sagan has another quote. We're like butterflies who flaps its wings for a day and thinks it's forever, right? It is. That man is a poet of the stars. I cannot recommend his work enough. And what was funny is that I have this book. I have all of his books. The Demon Haunted, Science as a Candle in the Dark. And I remember being very excited about this book when I first picked it up because. So Carl Sagan has never gone as far as saying he's atheistic, he's more agnostic, but he is very challenging. I'll be straight up. He's very challenging of organized religions, the Hubis that hubris that they sometimes present, a lot of New Age stuff. He also was not a huge fan of. So when I opened this book, I was very excited to do just kind of see the scientific inquiry approach to the marriage of the idea of spirituality and science. But I honestly thought that his stance was going to be more like, can we just talk about atoms and matter? And like, no. And instead, spirit comes from the Latin word to breathe. What we breathe is air, which is certainly matter, however thin. Despite usage to the contrary, there's no necessary implication in the word spiritual that we are talking of anything other than matter or anything outside the realm of science. On occasion, I feel free to use the word. Science is not only compatible with spirituality, it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light years and in the passage of ages, we grasp the intricacy, beauty and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary, selfless courage, such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both. And so when I think about my own personal experiences and how this emphasis, for me, His Holiness has always been a practice of looking to the stars. For me, I go to church. I have these other pieces of me. But when I think about the moments where I feel the true, greater connectedness, it's because, like, there's looking within yourself. And this is where I think it's fascinating. We talked about mindfulness, we talked about cultivating awareness and empathy. My pathway was actually to set myself to the side entirely, to not exist and to just become endlessly and relentlessly curious when looking up and understanding where we are. And that was more my pathway to recontextualizing my role. Because humans, we are. So there's the reason why the folly of man is even a phrase to begin with. We humanize and center ourselves in such a way that we lose the thread, we lose the story. You know, we wake up every day and I understand that this is a very tough world to be living in right now. A lot of people are scared and varying degrees of scared. And a lot of people have rights to be scared. But what happens is that when we get sucked into that very tunnel visioned, myopic way of living, suddenly we are living a life of me instead of a life of we.

Yeah.

And that's where I really challenge myself and I pushed myself to push myself to the side to achieve that. I'm not perfect. I'm an only child. I like affirmation and attention more than breathing, you know, like. But it is a challenge. It is a practice.

It's funny, you. You mentioned something and immediately this popped into my brain. So I'm going to share it. And too many of us, myself included, by the way, because there's different parts of my life and different parts of my story, but too many of us are comfortable with being confident versus curious. And with this conversation we're having around holiness and spirituality, you've got to embrace curiosity and wonderment and belief and understand. Out of all of it, out of the curiosity, out of the hopping in the canoe and going down the river and letting it just happen. What belief structures just kind of put themselves in play because just for a moment, you're willing to be less confident of what you think everything is.

What I'm finding striking about this conversation as we continue to go through it is that the holiness, this idea of holiness as a pillar and humility are so deeply intertwined because you have to be. And I wrote about this as well. You've already heard the URL, so I'm not going to do it again. Just kidding. Beyond your default.com/forward/newsletter, anytime you really want something, you have to humble your subscribe. You have to humble yourself before it. Things that are greater than you require you as a human being to de center yourself from the conversation and say, wow, there is an experience outside of myself. There is something greater than myself. It Makes things harder and easier at the same time. Like, I have this thing that I call the bomb rule. How did I get through last summer, George? Because I knew that unless I physically exploded and became a bomb myself and then just, it just boom, everywhere, the next day was gonna come, I was gonna have to get up and time is a relentless little mistress. And she will just keep going.

Yep.

I don't care if we're talking about the elasticity in which you can perceive time or experience time. It moves, is going. It is a human construct that keeps moving, that clock keeps ticking. So what are your different practices or ways you can encourage those in their beyond their default journey who may struggle or feel resistance to the idea of nurturing their soul for whatever reason on a path to their own version of holiness?

First off, if you feel resistant, I need to ask you a couple questions. And again, you might get your notepad out or not for these, but do you want inner peace in your life? Do you want emotional well being in your life? How about personal growth? Maybe, just maybe, you want purpose and meaning in your life. What about resilience? Compassion, empathy, happiness, fulfillment? Anybody out there listening this podcast want a balanced life? I love Psalms 4610, by the way. It says, be still and know that I am God. Just thinking that or keeping that in mind sometimes in my life has kept me balanced. Nurturing your soul is about caring for your inner self, which leads to what we'll call a more harmonious and fulfilling life. Regardless, by the way, if you haven't caught on yet of your religious beliefs, so I have to ask you, if you want those things that I just asked the questions around in your life, why are you struggling? At the end of the day, if you want those things, then kill the struggle and just start the journey. Like, in my personal opinion, you shouldn't be struggling. And so I want those things, George. I'm willing to mentally kill the struggle and I want to move forward.

Forward.

There's three what I'll call powerful ways that I think you can make nurturing your soul part of your daily routine. The first thing is that you have to take time for yourself. You have to set aside a few minutes to reflect on your thoughts, your feelings and actions that you've taken or been part of every single day. This simple practice can help you better understand yourself and your inner needs, your essence, your core, the place of spirituality and holiness. Listen, it doesn't have to be a huge thing. Like so many times we put these like super goals on ourself. Start with just five minutes in the morning or before bed and watch how it transforms your self awareness, because that's a conversation. I think self awareness is very much tied into this holiness conversation. And we talked about, you know, stoicism and stuff like that, but Socrates said, the unexamined life is not worth living.

What?

The unexamined life is not worth living. Listen, if you're not taking time for yourself, you're not examining the life that you're living, but don't be hard on yourself. The next thing that I think helps us with this holiness spirituality, growing your core, your soul, is that you have to focus on building meaningful connections. So many times we try to do this junk ourselves. We all need to feel supported. We all want to be understood. So make an active effort to connect with others in meaningful ways. I don't care if this is joining a support group or going to a worship service or hanging out at McDonald's because you're 57 and all 57 year olds sit at McDonald's and drink coffee in the morning. I'm just kidding. They all don't. But you get my point. Like, wherever your group of humans are, make sure you're participating in community events, or at a minimum, contact a friend. So many times I've been the idiot that's like, well, they didn't contact me, so why should I contact them? Like, no, like, realize this is an important piece. These connections can provide the support and understanding that we all crave, that we all need in this journey, especially if we allow them to lean into these types of conversations that we're having today around self awareness and belief and resilience and spirituality. The other thing that we're fundamentally bad at is humans. And I literally have this written on my whiteboard where it's like, I've come a long way since 2013, and sometimes I keep myself beaten down or beaten back to who I was. Not so much anymore. But I used to be really bad at this. But the last thing I'll mention that I want folks to pay attention to is like, if you're nurturing your soul, if you're hopped in the canoe and you're going down this river, if you're willing to be curious that versus confident, reap the rewards. Nurturing your soul leads to incredible benefits, like better mental health, greater resilience, a more profound sense of fulfillment in your life. So remember, sharing your journey and hearing other stories can be incredibly motivating. And you can reap those rewards if you're paying attention to them. And Sharing them or listening from others, those communities, those relationships that you're building. A great quote, and I think it's roomy. Again, I suck at names. Is when you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy. So take time to celebrate the benefits together and inspire each other to keep growing. And when we say, hey, what do you want out of life? And most humans say, I just want to be happy or I just want to be joyful. When you're doing things from your soul is when that happiness and joy show up. So if you make these simple actions part of your daily life, reflect, connect and embrace the benefits of nurturing your soul. No matter how religiously you focus on it or take them or not religiously you take them. No matter what you're feeding your soul and that spiritual soul side of who you are and what you have.

I'll throw in my 2 cents. Read a book, learn about something. Honestly, it kind of plays into what I was talking about with polar opposites. Like, you want peace, go to war, right? You want to find a way to be holy? Don't try to be holy. Just be curious about the world around you. If you're interested in history, pick up a book about history. If you're interested in science, pick up a book about science. Go out of your way to learn something about something where you are curious. And that is a really incredible way to decenter yourself in terms of a larger narrative of the human experience and what it means to be a human on this little floating marble in space. What I I will say though, just from my personal adventures, I loved science as a pathway to this because science is like the ultimate parent. You'll be a toddler and you'll be like, why? Well, because atoms do this. Why? Because protein tons do that. Well. Why? Because electrons do this. Well, why? Because neutrons do that. But why? I freaking said so. That's why. Eventually you're just gonna hit a threshold of, well, we don't know why. Yeah, because science said so. And that's where I always think it's really fun. Because then you're like, oh, and then that black hole is still going to suck you in anyway. Like, science will be like, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to scream at you. I thought feel really bad about. But doesn't change the rules, right?

Still coming.

Universal rules still happen. And that's what I love is that just stop searching for soul and just start being curious, right? Like, you want wealth, don't chase wealth. You want Happiness, don't chase happiness. Right? You want soulful, fulfilling feelings. Don't chase holiness. Just get curious. Learn something outside of your bubble. If you're feeling a craving right now, it's because you're just feeding yourself the same mental, spiritual and soulful junk food. And maybe some of it's good, but even if you just eat all carrots all the time, you're going to turn orange. Like, you know, you gotta diversify your curiosity diet. So, George, one last question for you before we end today's conversation. I gotta ask because I can imagine there are some people listening to this who still might be thinking, is this really that important? Is nurturing your soul really that flipping important? George, think about it. We talk about growth, mindset, we talk about goal setting, we talk about morning routines. How is any of this important?

So, first of all, absolutely. Like, that would be my answer to the question, but I have to back up for a second, Liz, because I'd give it a caveat of absolutely. At least it is or has been for me. It's a personal journey, but I think it is also for you and I think it also is for the listeners of this podcast as well. Nurturing your soul is important, period. Like, we could just stop there, but so many people look at it as that'd be a nice to have. Maybe I'll plug that in someday. Oh, well, if I plug that in, then life's gonna be boring and I want to go do this and I want to be this. The funny thing is, nurturing your soul, it isn't a nice to have. It is super important and it's essential for living your best life and being the best human that you can be. It's literally an unlock. I want you to think of it this way. Your soul is the core of who you are. You're a spiritual being soul, having a human experience when you take care of, which, by the way, we're bad at taking care of our bodies. Well, some of us are. Some of us are getting better and we can see our bodies. You can't see your soul. Think about how difficult it is to take care of that and nurture. But when you do pay attention to it, when you do take care of it, it's amazing how everything else starts to fall in in place. Proverbs 4. 23 says, above all else, guard your heart, your soul, your core, your essence. I'm adding those words, above all else, guard your heart. Everything you do flows from it. If I go out of the book of Proverbs and go into the book of George. Above all else, guard your spirit. Above all else, guard your soul. Because everything else you do flows from it. Nurturing your soul brings inner peace. Finding moments of tranquility can make a huge difference in a world that's always on the go. It's non stop in this digital, crazy, chaotic contraption that we live on. Nurturing your soul helps you stay centered and handle stress better, which in return helps your emotional well being. And when you nurture your soul, you become more in tune with your emotions. This makes you less likely to be overwhelmed by them, which we've talked about emotions again historically on this podcast. But as Caroline Miss said, the soul always knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind. When we can silence the mind and let the soul heal itself, we can get into this world where we can talk about the word resilience, which we all need to survive, in which where we're at right now, listen, life throws us all curveballs. Maybe one or two, maybe 17 or 27 curveballs. But a nurtured soul can bounce back stronger. It helps you navigate these challenges that not if they come, but when they come. And they help you navigate it with grace and strength. And when you're compassionate and empathetic again, important words that we've talked about on this podcast, you not only make the world a better place, but you also build deeper, more meaningful relationships. And we've talked about the importance of that for nurturing your soul and this journey of holiness. For many of us, Liz, happiness and fulfillment are the ultimate goals. Like you can ask family feud surveyed 100 humans and they said, right, happiness and fulfillment are going to be like answer one and two. When your soul is nurtured, when you take time to focus on this, you feel happier, you feel more content, you feel truly fulfilled. At least that's what I've seen in my life. That's the way that I felt when I've focused on this versus walking away from it. It brings this sense of balance. It integrates all aspects of your life, physical, mental, emotional. Again, it creates this kind of harmony in the well being. And Liz, this podcast is called beyond your default. It is a personal growth podcast. So when you ask me if nurturing your soul is that important, I could have just answered you, by the way, with this. Personal growth is a lifelong journey and nurturing your soul keeps you on that path. I could have answered with that because of what this podcast is. It pushes you to constantly improve, to be more self aware and to live a life with intention. Understanding this in turn helps you find your purpose and meaning in life. Do you want to be more fulfilled? Do you want to be happy? Do you want to have purpose? Do you want to live a life of meaning? Like, knowing why you do what you do gives you direction and motivation. So yes, nurturing your soul is freaking necessary. It's the foundation for a thriving, resilient and meaningful life that you're trying to live. But hey Liz listeners, don't take my word for it. Try it for yourself and see how it transforms your journey to a life beyond your default.

Sa.