When Bad Things Happen to Good People

This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. In 1759, the French writer and philosopher Voltaire published a satirical novel about a young man and his tutor. Pangloss, the tutor, instructs the student, Candide, that they live in, quote, the best of all possible worlds. As the story unfolds, Candide witnesses war, disease, natural disasters, torture, and death. Pangloss encounters many of these tragedies himself. Yet, no matter what happens, he continues to insist that everything is unfolding exactly as it should. It's from this character that we get the word Panglossian, describing someone who relentlessly maintains that everything is for the best. Most of us are not as optimistic as Pangloss. But many of us do carry assumptions in our heads about how life works— that good choices lead to good outcomes, that the world is fair, and that everything will make sense in the end. These assumptions are often unconscious and unarticulated until something happens to destabilize us. This week on Hidden Brain, and in a companion episode on Hidden Brain Plus, when bad things happen to good people. Support for Hidden Brain comes from Planet Visionaries. Professional climber and environmental advocate Alex Honnold hosts Planet Visionaries, a podcast spotlighting the people tackling climate challenges with real hopeful solutions. Throughout season 6, Alex brings together extraordinary changemakers for powerful conversations about grit, determination, and the power of hope to fuel our fight for a better future. In partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, this is Planet Visionaries. Listen or watch wherever you get your podcasts.

Quick question. Do people come to you for answers at work? Maybe you're managing projects, training new hires, or just the one everyone relies on. That's leadership. Through UVA Darden's Part-Time MBA in Rosslyn, we help professionals like you turn real-world experience into recognized leadership credentials without stepping away from your career. Whether you work in healthcare, education, government, or business, this is how you take the next step. Learn more at darden.virginia.edu/ptmba.

Support for Hidden Brain comes from Progressive. Whoever says saving money is hard doesn't know that new customers who bundle and save with Progressive save hundreds. Because switching your home and auto insurance is better than cutting down on those iced lattes you love. Switch to Progressive and see if you could save. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, affiliates, and other insurers. Not available in all states. Modern life gives us remarkable control over our surroundings. We can navigate unfamiliar cities, communicate across continents, and order almost anything with the touch of a button. Day after day, the world responds to our wishes. It's easy to start believing that life itself works this way. That with enough effort, planning, and good decisions, we can shape our destiny. But sooner or later, many of us encounter a reality that refuses to submit to our wishes. At Duke University, historian Kate Bowler has studied the currents that shape people's cultural and religious worldviews when they encounter these unexpected events. She's also had occasion to think about this in the context of her own life. Kate Bowler, welcome to Hidden Brain.

I'm so glad to be with you.

Kate, by the time you were in your mid-30s, you had achieved some significant personal and professional milestones. What was your life like at the time?

Well, I finally got my ridiculous dream. I know not everyone wants to be a historian when they grow up, but both my parents were professors, and all I wanted was to live in a tower with many books and gargoyles. And so when And I got a job, like, right out of grad school at Duke University. It was truly so much better than I ever thought I could achieve.

You were also, I understand, married, and you just had a child?

Yeah, I married my high school sweetheart, and I'd had years of infertility and finally had this, like, squishy little baby that smelled like applesauce and cookies. And just like, it was just one of those, like, seasons in the sun. This kid came to me as a complete revelation. I never thought I could have him. And so when I was finally just— he's in my arms, it really felt like everything had come together.

So amid all these positive developments, you'd also been experiencing some stomach pain. And I understand this was bad enough that it would make you periodically keel over for a few minutes?

It was, like, very sharp, sudden pains, and it would just come and go. So I would be walking down the hallway and then all of a sudden just, like, double over and need a minute. And I thought, well, this is, like, not normal. So I went to every doctor who would have me. And because I'm at the university, it was really only, like, a 2-building-over walk to try to see every single specialist. But every time they—

Hmm.

Couldn't find anything on a scan and said it was probably normal.

Hmm. You had one memorable meeting with a gastrointestinal surgeon. Paint me a picture of that encounter, Kate.

By the time I got this appointment, I was truly at my wit's end. I didn't look well. I looked like sweaty and like my mouth was tinny with like the saliva that you get from being in too much pain. I looked Fried. I felt fried. And then when I just got yet another, there's nothing we can do, I lost it. I was like, I'm not leaving this. I'm not leaving this room until you give me another scan.

And what happened?

I went and did the scan and went home. I figured they'd find something in my gallbladder. There was some talk of, like, maybe it was just kind of, like, wonky numbers in my gallbladder, and they would just have to do a minor surgery and no big deal. And so I was at the office the next day. I was walking on my little treadmill and got a phone call from a nurse who I'd not met. And she said that the results of my scan showed— and then it was very blurry in my mind. Like, I knew she was talking and I couldn't figure out what the words meant. It was something about how it was everywhere. And I said, I'm sorry, I don't understand. What's everywhere? And then she said, cancer. And I couldn't— I think she was trying to, like, get me to come into the hospital right away. But all I could think to say was, but I have a son. Because it was like— It was honestly the best argument I could think of, like, why it shouldn't— why this can't happen and why this shouldn't be me. And I, like, left my office in my work outfit, went to the hospital, got admitted, got changed into one of those blue rough cotton gowns, and felt like I suddenly started a very different life.

So you were 35 years old at the time, Kate, and you went from basically nothing to stage 4 cancer in one conversation.

Yeah, that's right. And I honestly, I don't even think I knew what cancer was. Like, I didn't have cancer in my family. I knew it sounded bad. I thought it was something that happens to you if it's passed on to you or you have something obvious. It just— it truly had not one framework in my mind that it could happen to me.

I'm wondering what conversations you had with your husband, Kate.

I'm sure that the things that happened in those, like, in what feels to me like forever, probably only happened in, like, 2 days. But it felt like it was just a whole new world. I had to suddenly say everything. I love you. I'm so sorry. Please take care of our son. Has anyone called my parents? Like, it's the weirdest thing. You're not sure if you should prepare everyone for the worst or if you should suddenly start acting like I was somehow gonna find my way out of this.

You're a religious person, Kate. Did you find yourself praying at the time?

Prayer is not—

I don't know.

It's just always been like breathing for me. And all of it was rage. Like, just rage. I can't believe this is, you know, and just like, God, why is this happening to me? Haven't I been faithful this whole time? I sometimes think of it as like you've got 2:00 PM prayers and 2:00 AM prayers. And like 2:00 PM prayers are like pretty reasonable.

Mm-hmm.

They are nuanced. They have some measure of, like, okay, I can see the reality of this whole thing. 2:00 AM prayers are like, God, make it stop. I will do anything. And there's also a complete surrealness to it. Like, is there anything I can do? God, I swear to you, if I get through this, I will, you know, do anything you want, be anyone you want. Just get me out of this.

At times like this, Kate, I think what we end up mourning is not just what's happening to us, but we also mourn the things that we thought that we would do and we fear that we are not going to be able to do. Talk about that. What were the dreams that you were mourning that were not going to come true now?

I really wanted to see the pyramids. When I was little, I got a hieroglyph set. Why wasn't I an Egyptologist? Why didn't I work for the UN? What about all these people I thought I would be and places I thought I would go? And the person in particular I thought I would make my son by being able to go everywhere with him. I used to change his little diaper in those sweet middle-of-the-night moments and be like, wow, I just want to— I want to take you everywhere. I would say it over and over and over again. So the idea that I would not become all of those people and that somehow it would foreclose a story for everyone else, and it felt like there could have been so many more worlds to discover.

In the wake of her diagnosis, Kate struggled to deal with the ways her beliefs about herself and her life had been shattered. But as she began to share the news with others, she encountered a new problem. That's when we come back. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

Quick question: Do people come to you for answers at work? Maybe you're managing projects, training new hires, or just the one everyone relies on. That's leadership. Through UVA Darden's Part-Time MBA in Rosslyn, we help professionals like you turn real-world experience into recognized leadership credentials without stepping away from your career. Whether you work in healthcare, education, government, or business, this is how you take the next step. Learn more at darden.virginia.edu/ptmba.

Support for Hidden Brain comes from Progressive. Whoever says saving money is hard doesn't know that new customers who bundle and save with Progressive Save hundreds. Because switching your home and auto insurance is better than cutting down on those iced lattes you love. Switch to Progressive and see if you could save. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, affiliates, and other insurers. Not available in all states. This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. When someone we know experiences a tragedy, most of us instinctively want to help. We offer comfort, advice, prayers, whatever we can think of. These gestures are often sincere and generous, but they can also be driven by something we rarely acknowledge. Other people's tragedies force us to confront the possibility that our own lives are not as predictable or secure as we'd like to believe. Kate Bowler is a historian at Duke University. After she learned that she had stage 4 colon cancer, she found herself observing the ways people in her life reacted to her situation. Kate, some of your friends, and these were primarily your fellow academics, responded in a distinctive way to the news of your cancer. I understand it involved extensive use of internet search engines?

Yeah, I think— I think researchers want to research. And there was a very frantic attempt to out-know this very sudden diagnosis. And so, yeah, my colleagues just were looking into genetic mutation possibilities. I remember How tempting that was. My mom found me one time at, like, 1 in the morning sitting in the middle of the floor. And I'd printed out all the blood work and all the paperwork and all the— from everything that, you know, they'd— that everyone wanted to try. And I had them spread out around me. It looked like rings of a dying tree. And my mom said, oh, hon, like, you can't out-know this. And everything in me was like, yeah, but I have to try.

Another group of your friends, Kate, responded somewhat differently. These were your hippie crunchy friends. What did they say?

They were very eager for me to explore the nutritional reasons why this had happened to me. I think every cancer opens up, like, a different kind of conversation about causality. And colon cancer gave me all all the food medicine people. I got 3 new juicers, unwanted juicers. I got like, there had been a recent spate of cure your cancer with, kale was very hot at the time. So I really got a lot of very highly specific diets, nutritional advice. People just came over and poured vegetables on my doorstep, basically.

Hmm.

The reason why that was more uncomfortable than the attempt to out-know it was it was really starting to creep into the, wasn't it your fault?

Mm-hmm.

Like, have you been eating a lot of red meats? I had somebody actually slap a cookie out of my hand at one point as I was, like, sitting after chemo, just absolutely exhausted, and, like, slap a cookie out of my hand because didn't I know that sugar causes cancer? And it was very— it was hard to go from now trying to live in a newly highly medicalized world where all kinds of things have to happen to your body that you don't get to pick, and then the second you get home now have all of everything that I put in my mouth be evaluated.

So your academic friends were trying to help you think your way out of cancer. Your crunchy friends were trying to help you eat your way out of cancer.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

Now, you're a professor at Duke University's Divinity School, and many of the individuals you know are people of faith. I'm wondering how your Religious colleagues and friends responded to the news of your illness.

It was actually one of the most meaningful things I have ever experienced. Right after I was diagnosed, they held, like, an impromptu church service. And I saw the recording later. And it was, it was, like, shocking to me to see people that I'd only seen in very respectable settings, like, Beg and plead and weep on my behalf. Like, the desperation that comes from a certain kind of faithfulness that, like, God hears, God might answer, maybe God might intervene.

So you wrote about your diagnosis in an essay that was published in The New York Times. And you received many letters subsequently, Kate. Not all of them were as kind or as generous as your colleagues at Duke University. Tell me about some of the feedback you received.

I thought that I had tried to write an article that was basically saying that it's incredibly painful to die in a culture where everybody has a reason. And one of the great ironies, of course, was that many people read that article and was like, oh my gosh, it feels like this woman would really like me to let her know what the reason is. I will send that to her now. And so I got, like, I mean, thousands of pieces of mail. I got banners with triumphant scripture that I was supposed to repeat over and over again so that I could be healed.

Wow.

I got I mean, I think one of the meanest ones was somebody wrote the reasons why he thought that I probably deserved to die on the back of a church bulletin. And I think most of the attempts were trying to pour certainty over pain and to say, let me fill in the spiritual gaps and give you a spiritual explanation for how God works. God is just. There must be something in here about God's justice that you're not acknowledging.

Hmm.

God is is understandable. Surely you can sift through your own spiritual past and find some kind of opening, some kind of causality. Or actually, maybe God has provided a set of spiritual tools that you're not using. Let me explain them to you so that you know what to do. And some of them were from other religious traditions. For those who believe in reincarnation, don't worry, your story will go on. Or, I mean, I will never forget the love in some of these very heartbreaking notes about, like, Kate, I have wasted my own life. I wish there was a way that we could— that you could take a little of mine and I could take a little of yours and we could make a world that is fair.

Hmm. I understand that at one point, one of your neighbors stopped by your house to share a sentiment with your husband?

Yes, I had a neighbor stop by, and she told my husband, well, everything happens for a reason. And he immediately just said, I'd love to hear it. I'd love to hear the reason my wife is dying.

The responses to your illness were so consistent that you eventually divided them into different categories. And you describe these groups of people as the minimizers, the teachers, and the solutions people. Unpack those terms for me, Kate.

Well, the minimizers are pretty sure that whatever is going on, it's probably not as bad as I think it is. And so these were at least— any sentence starting with at least is typically a minimizer. At least you're at a good hospital. I remember when we were in the earliest days really struggling with whether or not this would bankrupt me and my family and my parents, actually. At least someone said, you have the intellectual resources to deal with it. I always wanted to push back of like, at least it's not stage 5 cancer. When do I graduate into your compassion? So yeah, at least minimizers are pretty easy to spot. The teachers want you to Learn something that might save your own life. And it could be an emotional lesson. It could be a medical lesson. But that there's always— have I heard about drinking the blood of ducks from Albuquerque? Like, it could get increasingly ridiculous. But there's just such a— in the face of this much pain and uncertainty, they need to hand you a lesson so that you can climb your way back onto the boat. The solutions people are upset that there is not more certainty and that you should be on a quest to really solve the problem of pain. And so solutions people are not going to believe that you've ever done enough, and they're going to want to hear you say that There's a new clinical trial that you're in, that there's like another faith healer that you're listening to or seeking out, but they will never accept that illness is likely something that's happening to you and not with your consent.

So I'm hearing a common thread in all of these responses. People are trying in some ways to preserve a sense of logic and order around an event that was frightening in its randomness. Does that sound right to you as an explanation for these different veins of feedback and advice?

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. There's a genuine discomfort with that degree of uncertainty. And the immediate next step is to try to transform a tragedy into a kind of lesson or staging ground for some kind of next step. And this seems to me to be, like, a deeply American impulse, is that there's no setback, just setup. That this can't simply be an undoing. That there has to be math here. This somehow will have to add up.

Hmm. You know, one thing I'm thinking about here is the concept of a just world. This is described by the psychologist Melvin Lerner, for example. And he theorized that people have a deep-seated need to believe that the world is fair, that life gives you what you deserve. And in some ways, this might be a defense mechanism. You know, this terrible thing happened to Kate because somehow she deserved it, but I don't deserve something like this. So it won't happen to me.

I think too, one of the extrapolations, particularly in, I mean, most theological traditions, is also just working back from the character of God. If God is good, if God is loving, if God is dot, dot, dot, then surely, like, what good God, like, as a little snippet in the New Testament says, when your child asks for bread, would give them a stone? And so I think some of it, too, just comes from an intuition about the goodness of why we were made. So why is it then that it looks, when you look around, like we're all just stumbling headlong into pain after pain?

Talk a moment about the desire for control here. When you tell me about your colleagues Googling the heck out of the Mayo Clinic website, I see desperately trying to reassert control over something that feels uncontrollable to them.

Yeah, this definitely stems from, I mean, the many forms of what I think of as, like, everything is possibilism, particularly in American culture, is they're worried that if not everything is possible, then we sink into nihilism and despair and nothing is possibilism. And what it's really lacking is the kind of precision and nuance around being able to define a space between these 2 totalizing frameworks, but people will immediately assume that it looks like you're just giving up.

You found yourself growing angry at the reassurances that were offered by people in your life and by the culture at large, and your irritation came to a head one day when you were at the hospital gift shop. Can you describe for me what happened, Kate?

I am a researcher who has spent so long studying these forms of American certainty, I'm really good at spotting which books in the marketplace blame people for their own illness. So when I was walking by the hospital gift shop, I noticed that there were a number of books for sale in the hospital that offer a pretty simplistic solution for why people have cancer and why people are sick. And so I went in with just a a researcher's certainty that that shouldn't be there here in this hospital. So I started dismantling the bookshelf, just, like, clawing these books off the shelf, looked over and realized there was, like, basically a 12-year-old running the gift shop that was like— probably looked at me and was like, ma'am, are you crazy?

But— and then—

and then I just thought, no, no, no, I should probably explain. So I was like, I promise I'm not crazy. This is my area of expertise. But of course, I just looked absolutely unhinged as now I'm, like, stacking them on the ground. And being like, no, no, no, I will— don't worry, I'll give you recommendations of what other books you could— that you can put up here instead. So as I'm tearing them off, some very sweet manager has been brought out to, like, put them back on and assure me, of course they don't know what these books say. And— but I just— everywhere I looked, there was somebody trying to sell a solution that—

It becomes a particular form of cruelty So as a historian of religion, Kate, you recognize the roots of some of these ideas in a phenomenon called the prosperity gospel. Explain this idea to me.

The American prosperity gospel really comes out of a series of religious ideas from the late 19th century. And they are mostly ideas about the power of the mind. They argue that every person, through the incredible latent power of the mind, that they can harness their own thoughts and channel them in a positive direction.

Hmm.

And if they can channel the power of their mind, through positive words that they'll be able to unleash reality. So just as God said, let there be light, and there is light, so too then believers, any right-thinking, right-speaking person, should be able to create a new reality. And that's a religious tradition called New Thought, and it starts in a very rarefied religious form, but almost immediately it makes its way into Good Housekeeping magazine and the very cheap emergent genre of self-help. And so soon people from the very rich to the very poor are beginning to hear more and more how a certain kind of very positive American can live out the American dream if they can think and speak in a particular way.

And how does this theory then account for people who are suffering, for people who are diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer?

Well, I think the most straightforward answer would be that we have failed to produce the results of the right kind of faith, and that we would need to double down on thinking positively, speaking positively, that our symptoms are effectively lies. that are acting louder than the truth, which is that we have control over our bodies. This is a very mind, mind, mind theology. It acknowledges the reality of the body. It's not like Christian Science. It's a cousin of Christian Science. But it says, actually, like, the body isn't evil, but it needs to be tamed by these positive words.

Hmm.

And so that— and everybody has the power to do it. So there's no exception. But if there's no exception, that means there's no excuse.

So in other words, the guy who's writing on the back of a church booklet and who sends you that booklet in the mail is basically saying, look, if only your thoughts were redirected in the appropriate way, you wouldn't be suffering. And the fact that you are suffering suggests that your thoughts are not directed correctly.

That's right. I think what prosperity believers get frustrated by is that people like me are not harnessing their power as effectively as they could. So sometimes they'll say things like, it's like you were handed a check and you won't take it to the bank, or it's like you're— there's a light switch right there and you just won't flip it. So this power is inside of all of us. We just need to activate it, and then we will be able to see the results in our health, in our wealth, and in our overall happiness. So just look around. You are your own show and tell.

Following her cancer diagnosis, Kate discovered that when tragedy strikes, people often rush to explain it. Some see a lesson, others a blessing in disguise, still others a test of character or faith. Beneath these different stories lies a common impulse: our desire to make sense of the senseless. When we come back, what would happen if we didn't seek to control, to explain? What would happen if we stopped asking, why me? Also, in our companion story to this episode, available exclusively to subscribers to Hidden Brain Plus, we take a deep dive into the fascinating origins and surprising spread of the prosperity gospel that Kate has studied. If you're a subscriber, that episode is available right now. It's titled The Gospel of Success. If you're not yet a subscriber, please visit support.hiddenbrain.org or apple.co/hiddenbrain. You'll instantly have access to all our subscriber-only content, and you'll be helping to support all the reporting, writing, and fact-checking that goes into each episode of the show. Again, that's support.hiddenbrain.org. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

Quick question: Do people come to you for answers at work? Maybe you're managing projects, training new hires, or just the one everyone relies on. That's leadership. Through UVA Darden's Part-Time MBA in Rosslyn, we help professionals like you turn real-world experience into recognized leadership credentials without stepping away from your career. Whether you work in healthcare, education, government, or business, this is how you take the next step. Learn more at darden.virginia.edu/ptmba.

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The truth is, I was very lonely. It had been all of that cultural messaging about how it was, I mean, probably my fault. You know, what could I still do? Why wasn't I fixing this already? And my illness was just like, it wasn't just that it was a 3-month stretch or a 6-month stretch. It just went on for years. And so in that long period, I realized how desperate I was to tell a different story and really to hear the stories of other people who'd gone through similar things. And so that really began my deep desire to try to create a little bit more loving ambiguity around why people suffer.

I understand that you actually have some anti-self-help sayings on your bookshelf.

Yes.

I have a few favorites. What doesn't kill you will try again tomorrow. Really makes me laugh. We made a big one, me and my friends, that said, live, laugh, ugh. That really brings me joy. Yeah, I think— I think things not having to constantly improve us give us the kind of liberation to be whoever we ended up being instead of whoever this story was supposed to make us.

Hmm.

I'm wondering what you would say to people who would tell you, you know, I actually find comfort and reassurance in those kinds of messages.

Well, I think there's a difference between forcing people into stories of exhausting, contextless hopefulness, and I think what people are really asking for in times of suffering, which is they want to be able to look into the eyes of someone who loves them and say, First, will you be a witness? Will you see what this has cost me? And then we need them to say, I will keep pace with your hope.

Hmm.

I will hold your hope when you can't any longer. And also, I won't turn away from the difficulty of what you're trying to do, which is still hold possibility, but not be blind to reality.

There's a tension here, Kate, because I think there is some medical evidence that people with a more optimistic outlook tend to do better, both when they're dealing with illness, but even when they're not. But also, of course, being relentlessly optimistic, relentlessly positive can also be delusional. And there's a real tension between those 2 things.

Yes.

I think we should parse the word optimism. there, because there's— I think these are different flavors of, you know, of feelings that we want to group onto the positive end of the spectrum. I would imagine that it's people who still hold open what better might look like, that there are still beautiful things ahead of them. That, to me, is a deep, stubborn kind of hopefulness that I imagine does have enormous health implications.

Mm-hmm.

Those kinds of people are going to hold a sense of self-continuity between the person they were before, the person who is frankly being robbed in the meantime, and the person who they might yet be. Now, I think this is different, though, than a certain kind of blind optimism, of why we would say toxic positivity, is because people like that who say, I will be okay no matter what, Those people are not emotionally flexible. They are quite unlikely to listen to the advice of their doctors who might be giving them what they would then consider negative confession, or that's the religious term for negative words that they worry might create reality. So I've been to prosperity gospel funerals, people who died after having Forced everyone around them to say that this could never happen to them. And the kind of devastation that happens to the people who were never allowed to admit the truth, I, like, I can't overstate how awful it is to be forced to live inside a world in which only good things can happen.

You draw on the work of the philosopher Charles Taylor to argue that we can endeavor to remain porous. Explain this idea to me.

I think Charles Taylor is the genius of explaining the modern self. And he has a very helpful distinction between the way we imagined our selfhood, our relationship to the world in a premodern version as being porous, as being the idea that ourselves are— the very nature of our being is open. And he meant it not just in a sentimental way, like to God, but also to terror, to despair, to reality, big R reality as it is. Now, that we prefer to have what he called the buffeted self, which is the self as a sealed-off, project. This is the modern self.

Hmm.

Frankly, this is the— this is the self that's most likely to be an optimizer, to want to make every act of both meaning and longevity and happiness a kind of project. And the problem with that kind of self is we're going to look at ourselves and see only homework. It's just like a project to be finished. And I think what's so exhausting about being us now, in an age of AI and social media and endless, endless everything-is-possible-ism is that we think of every dark chapter as something that has to be contained and then not just maintained, but improved.

Hmm.

And what's kind of lovely about Charles Taylor's vision is that, like, if we are the porous self, if we're the one that is sometimes acted upon, Then maybe we don't have to have such a fists-clenched attitude toward us as a self-improvement project.

Mm-hmm.

Maybe we are more open to both the good and the bad. But when we relinquish that kind of self-making, I think we will find that in that possibility, More beautiful than bad will come our way, and we will have spared ourselves the delusion of that much control.

I mean, in some ways, the idea that pops in my mind as you describe the work of Charles Taylor is that if you think about species that have scales on the outside, they are Hunker down. So if you think of a tortoise inside a shell or a turtle inside a shell, you have the hard stuff on the outside and it's armor that protects you against the world. And it is something of a radical risk to put your nerve endings on the outside because, of course, that exposes you to pain. And many of us respond to that by trying to build psychological armor to protect ourselves. But really what I'm hearing you say is that when we do that, we also seal ourselves off from everything that is good and positive and beautiful.

Right.

And not just things that are painful.

I think that's— I think that's perfectly said. I think this is partly why our— the modern self is so impervious to beauty, is because when they tried to immunize themselves against uncertainty, they, they accidentally made a prison.

You also talk about the importance of embracing the absurd. And I understand that you've actually gone to some lengths to try and embrace the absurd.

You're saying that in such a nice way because you know my answer is so stupid. I really love dumb stuff. And I think it's partly because when I was diagnosed with cancer, it was frankly like it was like all of tragedy is, it's just absurd. It's just dumb. It's for— it's for no reason. And what I noticed is that just like the worst moments can hit you in a senseless way, strangely, like, beautiful things of absurdity can also hit you in the it's for no reason way that actually can light you up. So I love to go visit, uh, world's largest objects, uh, world's largest ball of twine, world's largest Thermometer, world's largest and smallest Paul Bunyan. And, like, it is, like, so dumb. But what I found is that, like, because inside of joy, one of the primary emotions is delight. And for me, like, the feeling of random adventure and being opened up to the world that I don't always get to choose, it's that that, like, it makes me feel like life is full even when in a moment it should have been empty. But look, there it is.

The world's You also write that we can get over our fear of asking for help, a fear that you yourself experienced. Talk about this and the importance of doing so.

I think one of the great lies of pain is that it will never end and that no one wants to hear about it because isn't it so dark and frankly costly? And it is costly. We'd be lying if we didn't say it doesn't cost the people around us when we are miserable. But those lies will convince us of something which is utterly untrue, which is that people don't want to help. Yes, it will be costly, but people want to reach out. They wish they had something to do. They love to feel useful. And frankly, like, in the end, we are all going to be group projects. And so I had initially really believed that because all these bad things were happening, that somehow I was the bad thing.

Hmm.

And that I shouldn't burden people with the reality of how scared I was. And frankly, all I needed, like in the early days, I had to get medical treatment outside of the state and I couldn't afford my own plane tickets. And it was so embarrassing because we don't want to say the thing that is true, which is that medical bankruptcy is the number one form of bankruptcy in the United States. And that it's not just that something bad happens to you, but it threatens to take everything that you love. And so we get really scared that if people knew that, that all of a sudden you'd be alone in a different way. And it frankly, like, it just isn't true. Like, we have to find more and more ways to let people know how they can help. And frankly, like, it will create new kinds of relationships and friendships that you wouldn't have dreamed if you just stayed an autonomous robot your whole life.

You talk about the importance of rousing ourselves to provide service to other people. And in some ways, this is related to what you just talked about, but perhaps not just providing service at a time when someday in the future, when we are past an illness or past a period of suffering, but even when we are suffering, to ask ourselves how we can be of service to other people. Why do you think this is important to do?

There is a really weird relationship between joy and service that I think is underestimated. And I say weird because it's just not good math. It should be that when we give, we have less, because that's how subtraction works. It's like, it's just not how it is, though. So partly, so joy is socially contagious, and it's highly connective, meaning we feel closer to other people, and we feel more enlivened, and it often is triggered by service. So sometimes when we, we think, when some— we're going through something awful, like, I should just carry this by myself, one thing that we will have forgotten is people derive enormous satisfaction and meaning-making from being able to do something useful for others. I told every single person I know how much I love gummy bears. Do I love them that much? Not that really, but like, I knew that what people wanted was to feel like they had a way to delight me when they knew that my life was It was pretty awful. And so I still get gummy bears from friends. And what they're saying is, we're all desperate to find a foothold into each other's lives. Give people an opportunity to share in your delight, and I swear to you, it will bring them joy.

A reminder, has this conversation evoked your own experience with adversity and loss? If you have a personal account you'd be willing to share with the Hidden Brain audience, or a question or comment for historian Kate Bowler, please find a very quiet room and record a voice memo on your phone. 2 or 3 minutes is plenty. Then email the file to us at feedback@hiddenbrain.org. Use the subject line Suffering. Again, that's feedback@hiddenbrain.org. So Kate, in August 2024, you were able to announce that you are in durable remission from cancer. You've said that even though you are now cancer-free, there's no going back. You write, I am forever changed by what I discovered. Life is so beautiful and life is so hard. Unpack that idea for me, Kate.

Life is so beautiful and life is so hard is just something I realized I was saying over and over and over again right when I got sick. It was— I could feel my own heart breaking for my own life, for my own son, for my own family. But then I'd be at the hospital and someone would lean on someone else's shoulder and they would put a strand of hair behind their ear. And I realized just like— How beautiful everyone is, like, how heroic everyone is, as they are all going through things that we can't possibly understand. And that cracking open to the beauty and the tragedy of the world, it did convince me that a broken heart is an open heart. And it's that kind of hero's journey feeling that I feel like I— once I was set on it, it has utterly changed how I I hope to see other people forever.

The beauty and tragedy that Kate sees all around her, it's all around us too. It's just harder to see this big picture when we're caught up in the busy details of our daily lives. Our minds focus on work meetings and our kids' schedules and the chores we have to do around the house. It isn't until something big and terrible happens that we pick up our heads and even notice the bigger picture. It's precisely at times like this that many people turn to spirituality and religion. When Kate was diagnosed with cancer, she resorted to 2 AM prayers, as in, God, I will do anything Recently, we heard from a listener named Anne. One Saturday in 2003, she felt a piercing pain in her head. Anne shook it off but brought it up with her sister, a nurse, just in case.

Upon hearing the symptoms, she put her arm around me, tisked, and said I should have gone to the doctor. Promise me, she said, you'll go to the doctor first thing Monday. And I vowed that I would. On Monday, I got the kids off to school, packed my duffel with tennis clothes for a lesson that evening, and went to work. I called the doctor's office and gave the details to the triage nurse, who said she'd get back to me. Within 20 minutes, she called back, and she wasn't messing around. Go to the emergency room immediately. Have someone drive you. Don't finish any work tasks. Go now. You may have had a stroke.

At the ER, the doctor gave Anne a scan and diagnosed her with a brain bleed. Anne stayed in the hospital for more testing, including an MRI.

I was never so afraid. The gravity of the situation had finally hit me. I could die. Situated in the MRI machine, I waited while the technicians finished their prep. Just lie still, they said. So as I lay there, I began to pray. Dear God, don't let me die. Don't leave me. I'm scared. Don't leave my boys without a mom, I pleaded. And in that moment, a weight of what can only be described as physical and utter peace came upon me. It felt like someone lowered a warm blanket of calm and love and certainty on top of me. Certainty that all would be fine. I'd never had a physical experience like that before. Wheeled back to my room, I was met by the concerned and worried faces of my husband and pastor. They couldn't know why I was almost giggly as I hopped onto the hospital bed. That evening, a neurologist came to my hospital room and announced all tests were negative and I could go home. In fact, he quipped, pretend it never happened. It was an anomaly. Just to be sure, they rechecked in 6 weeks and all was good. That was 23 years ago, and I'm still here and in good health.

For most of the 20th century, science had little to say about moments like the one Anne experienced. It would be filed away as a coincidence or wishful thinking or a trick of a stressed mind. Psychology in particular tends to treat spiritual experiences not as something to be explained, but as something to be explained away. But there are some researchers who've been asking, if the capacity for spirituality isn't a glitch in human cognition, but a feature, something built into the architecture of the brain. When we come back, listeners share stories about their spiritual experiences, and we ask whether there is a way to think about these experiences scientifically. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Support for Hidden Brain comes from Instagram. Instagram Teen Accounts automatic protections limit who can contact teens, the content they can see, and the time they spend on the app. Teens are automatically placed into Teen Accounts. Teens under 16 will need a parent's permission to change any of those settings to be less strict. And we're going to talk about how to do that. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com/teenaccounts.

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This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. The Western world tends to pit science and spirituality against each other. Science is based on testable hypotheses and evidence— rationality. Spirituality, on the other hand, is rooted in faith. It requires a belief in the supernatural. At Columbia University, psychologist Lisa Miller seeks to bridge that gap. She studies spirituality and transcendence from a scientific perspective. She's the author of The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life. Lisa was a guest on 2 previous episodes of Hidden Brain, Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain, Parts 1 and 2. Today, she joins us for Your Questions Answered, our segment in which we bring back guests to respond to listener questions and comments. Lisa Miller, welcome back to Hidden Brain. Thank you.

Oh, Shankar, it's wonderful to have an opportunity to come back and share some more, particularly around people's questions.

To just remind listeners about some of the ideas we discussed in the earlier episodes, you found that just as we exercise certain parts of the brain when we're doing a math problem or eating or painting, we engage certain brain areas when we are praying or meditating. What are these brain areas, Lisa?

Yes, we all, every one of us, are born with the same circuits in our brain for transcendent relationship, whether it be through prayer or meditation or a deep relationship with the spirit and through nature.

The brains are common and universal amongst all of us when it comes to transcendent And is it possible to actually measure changes in the brain as people are undergoing spiritual experiences?

Yes. When we put these 3 networks together, we perceive, not just believe, but perceive that we are loved, held, guided, and never alone. We have measured the engagement of these 3 sets of circuits in the brain Real time. Real time in an MRI study in which through their recounting in a very detailed way of their direct spiritual relationship to the source, their higher power, in real time, we could track the circuits. And it does not matter if I am Hindu or Jewish or Muslim or Catholic or Christian or spiritual, not religious, nature is my cathedral. The same 3 Hmm. Whether I say I am in deep relationship to God in the pews of my childhood house of worship, or I am in Glacier National Park seeing light on the water, and I feel part of all life, the same neural circuits run. There is one awakened brain, and we all have it.

So this leads us to an interesting question that I think many listeners had, which is, How are you defining spirituality or a spiritual practice, Lisa? It sounds like your definition is actually quite broad.

You know, scientists do not define spirituality all told. We are very good at identifying threads of lived human spiritual life, which are profoundly game-changing onto the rest of our lives. And we are very good at understanding the pathway or etiology, if you will, in the development Of these dimensions of lived spiritual life. In The Awakened Brain, I focus on that dimension of lived human spiritual life, which is inborn, has a home in the brain, is absolutely game-changing onto the rest of our life. And that dimension is a capacity to perceive a transcendent relationship.

Mm-hmm.

That is not a belief. It differs from the most frequently used sense of faith, which would be tending more towards a belief. Spirituality, as we understand it through the lens of science, and in particular, that thread of spiritual life, which is game-changing onto the rest of our lives, innate, and has a home in the brain, is the capacity for a direct, authentic— Relationship to the higher power. And again, source, force, God, Hashem, Allah, Jesus, the name doesn't matter because how we conceptualize of this great source is downstream of the foundational perceptual catch in the catcher's mitt, the direct perceived experience of relationship with the source.

Hmm. Now, you found that engagement with a spiritual practice is associated with reduced stress, improved resilience, and faster physiological recovery. We heard from several listeners who shared stories along these lines. Here is listener Crystal.

I used to travel and hike around the world, but I am now a homebound, disabled 46-year-old woman, and I leave the house twice a week, often I can't feed myself. I have a spiritual practice that I call the Goddess Meditation, which I practice 5 to 7 times a day. It grounds me in my core essence, guides me in my decisions big and small, and has transformed my relationship to time itself. I no longer despair at obstacles or loss. I see them now as the necessary bridge to what is bigger and more lasting, and ultimately making me stronger, more grounded in my existential worth, and more focused on my highest priorities. I don't belong to a religion, but the one thing I do know about God is this: infinite love is infinite, and I now understand I am in an infinite relationship I am unstoppable.

Wow.

I am unstoppable. I have to confess, Lisa, I feel a little envious of Crystal.

Yes, Crystal is unstoppable. That was absolutely magnificent and beautiful and profound. Crystal, thank you. We are indeed built through profound challenges, even traumas. To deepen spiritually, to widen the lens and discover. So as Krystle shared, 5 to 7 times a day, she's in a deep transcendent practice, a goddess meditation in relationship to divine force. So while we all do have this ability to grow spiritually through trauma, it is the choice as made by Krystle To say yes and practice, deepen, observe, and shift our conceptualization of the nature of reality based on the hard data of direct experience.

Hmm. You say that another benefit of an awakened brain is an increased capacity for purpose, meaning, and constructive engagement with the world. How does a well-developed spirituality make us better neighbors and team members?

Yes. Well, what I find perhaps most beautiful in this body of science is that the same neural correlates through which we experience a direct, authentic relationship to God, the higher power, whatever one's word may be, the same neural correlates through which we experience an authentic, direct relationship to the source of life are the same neural correlates through which we feel the loving presence of this source through fellow human beings and fellow living beings. This commonality in the neuroseat of transcendent relationship brings together a humanist who says, my ultimate understanding of life is human's relationship to human, with, on the other hand, perhaps an Orthodox Jew or an evangelical Christian who has a, if you will, God-centered or divine-centered understanding of relational spirituality. As you do unto others, you do unto me, because there is one core deep seat of relational spirituality.

You mentioned a second ago that many people find themselves leaning on their faith or becoming spiritual for the first time when tragedy strikes their lives. We heard from many listeners who had experiences like this. Here's Mariana, who is a Quaker.

I grew up in a Quaker camp where we spent time in nature, sitting in silence, discussing the inner light and singing and joy together. It's been an important part of my life, my whole life. And yet it wasn't until I had a relapse of a disabling chronic illness that took away my capacity to work and the dissolution of my 20-year marriage that had been the center of my life, that I realized that my spiritual grounding was in fact the only thing that was still there for me as many things fell apart. My question is, What is the relative role of suffering and hardship in people's turning towards those circuits of our brain, if you will? And has your scientific study found anything about the relative role of hardship and suffering in a spiritually guided life?

What do you think, Lisa?

Oh, we do have very good science that mirrors exactly what Mariana knows through The wisdom of her direct experience. And it's this: together with my colleague Myrna Weissman, we looked at people over 35, 40 years. And what we saw was that for many people, suffering is a knock at the door to spiritual deepening. 250% more likely to have felt betrayed, to have felt abandoned, to have faced an illness that changes our way of life, or lost someone we love before their time. The real hardships of life don't break us if we can turn to the deeper source of life, prayer, meditation, open the aperture. We don't need to shoulder pain alone. And in fact, we're not built to.

We heard from several people, Lisa, who experienced a sudden turn to religion. Let's hear from 2 of them. Listener Danny was raised Christian but rejected religion as manipulative.

One day, while I was working alone in a field, I heard my name spoken, even though no one was around. In that moment, I was overwhelmed by a simple realization: trying to make life about myself would never bring lasting satisfaction. My desires were too fickle, and everything was ultimately temporary. But if life was about God and participating in His eternal purpose, Then everything made sense. My priorities changed almost instantly. From that day forward, I embraced Christianity. I had a hunger to read the Bible, pray, listen to sermons, and I finally understood the joy and conviction that I had once dismissed in other believers. I also became much less judgmental, realizing that sincere faith is something people grow into.

And listener Heidi shared this story about an experience she had when she was young.

I had broken up with my boyfriend when I was 16, and a few months later my mother ran into him and invited him for dinner. She came back and told me, I've invited, you know, your ex-boyfriend over for dinner. I screamed, why would you do that? She said, I have no idea why I did it. He came, we had dinner, We took a walk after dinner, and we were walking. It was rainy, it was dark, it was quiet. And I remember very distinctly hearing a voice that said, if you move forward with this, it will be forever, and is that what you want? And I remember not really having an answer, but thinking about That, that might be a profound question. Anyway, he's my soulmate. Been married over 40 years. And I do very much remember that day. And it felt like an external voice asking me what I really wanted.

So in our previous conversation, Lisa, we talked about these moments called synchronicities. Explain what synchronicities are.

Hmm.

Yes, a synchronicity is when 2 events reveal a A deeper unitive meaning or direction. I would even say in this case, we are hearing stories of mystical experience. We are loved, we are guided, and we are never alone, but we need to show up perceptually to perceive and listen. And then what both Dani and Heidi do is act. They hear the mystical experience as a blueprint for action. Dani makes a choice to live a divine-centered life. Heidi is given quite clearly a choice. Will it be forever? And she makes a decision and follows it through. In other words, mystical experiences are not only to be seen, perhaps appreciated, and then tucked away in the back drawer of our inner mind. Mystical experiences are the opportunity of our lifetime. They are opening the double door and showing us a path forward to a sunlit landscape that is ours.

When we come back, is intuition a form of spiritual guidance? You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Support for Hidden Brain comes from Instagram. Instagram Teen Accounts' automatic protections limit who can contact teens, the content they can see, and the time they spend on the app. Teens are automatically placed into teen accounts. Teens under 16 will need a parent's permission to change any of those settings to be less strict. Learn more about Teen Accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com/teenaccounts.

Quick question, do people come to you for answers at work? Maybe you're managing projects, training new hires, or just the one everyone relies on. That's leadership. Through UVA Darden's Part-Time MBA in Rosslyn, we help professionals like you turn real-world experience into recognized leadership credentials without stepping away from your career. Whether you work in healthcare, education, government, or business, this is how you take the next step. Learn more at darden.virginia.edu/ptmba.

This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Today, we're exploring the intersection of neuroscience Lisa Miller is a psychologist at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her work seeks to bring scientific tools to the study of spirituality. Lisa, before the break, we heard from people who heard voices that they interpreted as being divine. We received an interesting question about how to interpret that kind of voice from listener Elizabeth.

I'm not a religious person, but I do often experience nudges in the right direction. For example, when I really should have already left, something encourages me to go back into my study, and then I see that I have left something important lying there.

Another example is when a task on my long to-do list suddenly stands out as urgent. A specific business phone call, for example. And then it turns out that I shouldn't have called a day later because your office would have been closed for weeks.

Even when things go wrong, I can often trace them back to moments when I ignored a mental nudge in the right direction.

I have been more alert to this lately, and it feels like something intangible that I can trust. I call it intuition. Is intuition a form of spiritual guidance? What do you think, Lisa?

What Elizabeth is calling intuition, I might call direct knowing. And here I find it is very helpful to take just a step back and wonder, how does our brain really work? For much of the 20th century, we thought of the brain as something like a factory that makes or constructs thoughts. Increasingly, in the past 10, 20 years, science has started to investigate the brain as a conduit to consciousness, as more of an antenna. We are built to be able to receive information. Now, where this gets very interesting, I often hear from creatives When I am in a state of painting or composing music or even listening to music, I am in a spiritual state. And indeed, in music, in art, the creative is using inspiration much like the mystic is receiving, if you will, the divine touch on the Sistine Chapel.

Many listeners wrote in about synchronicities and had questions about what to make of these moments. Here is listener Kerry.

The woman who was to become my stepmother was married quite young and had a baby who died at the age of 17 months. My stepmother-to-be divorced after that and lived a single life for 10 years until she met my father.

My father was a single parent, and when my stepmother-to-be came into our lives, I was about 10 years old.

Only years later did I learn that my stepmother's baby had died on the exact same day, month, and year that I was born.

But we always felt that this was some kind of divine intervention.

What were the odds that her baby would die on the same day that I was born, and that 10 years later I would become her stepdaughter and she would become my beloved stepmother.

Lisa, you told me during our last conversation about some amazing moments when you felt you were guided on a journey. And you told me that if you had dismissed these moments as mere coincidences, you would've missed out on some of the most important relationships in your life. But as a psychologist, you also know that our brains are wired to find patterns, to seek out meaning. How can we tell apart the patterns that our minds generate from moments where the universe is trying to tell us something?

It's a very important question. I hear this a lot. How do I know I'm not making up a synchronicity? What's the difference between imputing a pattern or wishing a pattern upon the universe and really listening inductively to the voice of the universe? This is a practice. It's a practice that we can We can all engage to really perceive in our heart when we feel we are being guided and when we feel we're taking perhaps a more anthropocentric stance and pushing the universe. Now, that said, people who are new to synchronicity, people who are new to trusting synchronicity, people who might feel unsure about whether synchronicity is real, The invitation is to be your own scientist, to pay attention to the patterns that are so bold they hit you over the head, and which in our deepest inner wisdom don't just tap a maybe, but which undeniably hold deep meaning.

One of the complicated factors in studying spirituality and religious belief is that these terms mean a lot of different things to different people. The major world religions often differ from each other in the number of deities, the style of their rituals, the moral codes they espouse. A listener named Deborah shared some thoughts about that.

Not all religious or spiritual practices create that sense of feeling held, feeling guided. Not all of them activate those neural networks. I'm thinking, for example, of a client of mine who is gay and was raised in a fundamentalist Christian community, very tight-knit community. Her faith was strong, but in this community she felt that she did not belong. She felt not held. She felt excluded. I'm also thinking of another client who was Raised in a cult that involved ritual abuse, a very strong spiritual practice and belief system of those people, but it inculcated fear and none of that sense of being loved and held. Lisa Miller alludes to this point in passing, but I think it deserves more emphasis that it depends on the nature of the. spiritual and religious practice. It depends whether they activate those networks that she's talking about.

So, in some ways, what I hear Debra saying, Lisa, is that your version of spirituality is a kinder and more generous version of spirituality than the spirituality that many people encounter in religions around the world. How would you respond to Debra's comments?

So, I would say there is a natural Inborn human spirituality. We know through twin studies that this capacity is heritable. We know through MRI studies that there are common circuits, universal circuits in the brain through which we feel and know we are loved, held, guided, and never alone. That is our birthright. In other words, that is natural human spirituality. The capacity to perceive a universe, if you will, perhaps a higher power, God, who is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-present. There's a match there. Now, if I encounter a practice that violates loved, held, guided, and never alone, if I meet an ambassador who has donned upon themselves the name of a faith, That is only a human rendering of whatever that perspective may be. And if I feel from that human rendering that they are not aligned with natural spirituality, then there's the opportunity to authorize ourselves to feel and know if there's truly an alignment with our natural spirituality and that which is being taught or professed or practiced. In other words, just because something is presented as so-called spiritual or so-called religious or so-called anything else that has an -ism on the end, it may or may not align with natural spirituality.

When we come back, practical steps to take when you're searching for spirituality. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Support for Hidden Brain comes from Air France. Air France business cabin offers comfort throughout the journey. With priority check-in, boarding, and lounge access. Onboard, enjoy menus from renowned French chefs, wines and champagne selected by a sommelier, and free high-speed Wi-Fi. When it's time to rest, settle into a fully adjustable lie-flat bed with added mattress comfort. The art of travel, elevated, because Air France Business Cabin goes further in every detail to make your journey exceptional.

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This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Lisa Miller is a psychologist at Teachers College, Columbia University. She's the author of The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life. Lisa, in some nations, religion plays a dominant role in the culture. You can see this in the institutions that are a part of the community, like churches or synagogues or mosques or temples. You can also see the impact of religion in charities like the Salvation Army or in healthcare institutions like Catholic hospitals or in groups like Alcoholics Anonymous. But many people feel either that they've been burned by organized religion or they feel like spirituality is an intensely personal topic that they would prefer to experience alone. Here is listener Heather with a question along those lines.

The guest, Dr. Miller, has really provided a Pretty big tent for us to, to sit under together to think about not just religion, but spirituality and just interconnectedness as part of what becomes a more awakened brain. And for that, I'm very grateful. I also had a question about building community in that sense. It's a lot easier to join a church than it is to find like-minded people who are really feeling into interconnectedness and the belief in something greater than themselves that may not follow a specific religious tradition. And I'm wondering if Dr. Miller has any ideas about building that sort of connection with like-minded people in the US.

What do you think, Lisa? Is there a secular version of spirituality, I think, is the question that Heather is asking.

Shankar, do you remember from the brain science study, perhaps one of the most moving findings we— I felt in the whole body of work was that the same circuits in the brain through which I feel a deep relationship to God are the same circuits in the brain through which I feel that ultimate love towards you, my brother, my sister, our fellow living beings. In other words, relational spirituality shares the same neural correlates, whether it's directly to the higher power or the ultimate presence in one another. Traditionally, as she put very beautifully, it is true that it has been within faith traditions, whether that is a synagogue or a church or a temple or a mosque, the type of relationships which are loving, holding, and guiding have been centered around faith traditions. But now that we have many people who are not affiliated, there is a movement to create intentionally spiritually grounded relationships in all sorts of settings, oftentimes in settings of service. Where the science chimes in once again is that when we looked at what form of spiritual practice most What appears to cultivate and strengthen our spiritual awareness at the level of the brain? It is service. Service is prayer in action. Service literally strengthens the cortex across the regions of spiritual perception. If I were looking to build a community built on relational spirituality in which all are loved, held, and never alone, I would build that community around service because already we have mobilized an opening of our heart and an augmenting of our spiritual perception.

Hmm.

Let's talk a moment about people who are struggling with their spirituality. Many people experience peaks and valleys in their faith practices. Here is listener Julie.

For 40 years, I was a pastor, a minister in a progressive denomination. And then in 2023, my oldest daughter died of a rare and very aggressive cancer. And of course, this was devastating for all of us. I did not feel the presence of the divine, of God with me in ways I had in the past, but I did have a sense of being held. I did struggle with God's absence, or what I perceived to be God's absence. And then in April of '24, my husband and I drove a distance to see the full totality of the eclipse, and we watched the solar eclipse from a small hillside. It was an experience I'd never had before. It filled me with awe and also this immediate profound sense that the universe was so much bigger, that the divine, the mysterious, was so much greater than anything I had ever comprehended before. And since then, I have been on a spiritual search and continue to try and be open and awake and asking those questions. I'm grateful again for this program. Thank you.

So I feel for Julie, Lisa. Losing a child has to be one of the most difficult experiences anyone can go through. Now, we've talked on the show about the experience of awe and its psychological benefits. Talk for a moment about the intersection between awe and transcendence and whether awe itself can be a spiritual experience.

It's very interesting. In the whole experience of awe, when there is exactly what Julie felt as she looked at the eclipse, when that experience of awe holds a sense of vastness and connection to the universe, at the same time that we might even have a sense of ego dissolution, We effectively become part of the vastness. There is often a spiritual growth, even a spiritual awakening, and people tend to say that they move forward in a more uplifted, less depressed, less anxious, more wholly meaningful way. Awe has within it for many people, a dissolution of the bonded self that moves us out of the little s self, as Carl Jung put it, to the big S Self, that which is part of the greater field of life, part of the oneness of the universe. And quite specifically, the feeling of connectedness and vastness.

Many people heard our previous conversations, Lisa, and wrote in to say that they want to develop a spiritual practice for themselves, Here is listener Karen.

I grew up a very religious person, and I agree that I was a much happier, a much less depressed person when I followed a faith practice.

However, somewhere along the line, I lost my faith, and I don't seem to be able to get it back again. I was wondering if Lisa had any ideas for how I could open my mind and become a spiritual person again.

Karen is a spiritual person already. Nobody is left out. The opportunity perhaps before Karen is to engage this natural form of perception. Now, it could be that dusting off a rusty prayer that was felt in a place of great love, perhaps by the side of her grandma, or perhaps in a moment where as a child she did feel the presence, could help her return to her natural— open up the passageway. It could also be that for Karen, she's on a spiritual path in which being in the presence of people who are spiritually engaged, of all different faiths and of all different practices, naturally awakens our capacity. I have a very dear colleague, Andy Newberg, who found that if 9 people are in a state of transcendent practice and the 10th person walks in the room, they more quickly move into a deep state of transcendent connection as measured by the rapidity with which their mirror neurons come on board, which means we hold presence, we hold consciousness for one another. Simply being in the presence of true torchbearers helps to awaken us. The invitation perhaps to Karen is, this is your sacred life. You have an invitation to a quest. Your natural curiosity, the hunger of your heart, and your inborn ability born inside of you to feel and know the presence of love and guidance is already there. How exciting! You're going to meet people, you're going to try practices. Some may be in nature, some may be in houses of worship, and some may be in the trenches of service, but they are all forms of lived spiritual awakening.

Many people who are trained in science and prize scientific methods of thinking struggle with the topic of spirituality, Lisa. Listener Dasha is one of them.

I am a PhD-trained immunologist and have been doing science for close to 15 years now.

And I find myself through the years having this need to come closer to my spirituality again, to my religious practices.

But now I feel like I have this issue, so to say, is that I cannot find enough data points to believe in it again.

And I know it, I know how it sounds and that I should take these scientific glasses off and Look at the world as is and try to believe.

But I find that I struggle very, very much in believing. So I guess my question is that, especially now after hearing Lisa's research, I find the drive to be religious or spiritual has increased, but also the frustration in the sense that that I feel like I have tried for years and failed because of my quite analytical brain.

So if you have any tips or reflections for that, I would be really, really grateful.

I'm wondering, Lisa, as a scientist yourself, have you ever felt a struggle like the one that Dasha is experiencing?

We are all born With multiple forms of knowing. We are born with a capacity for empiricism and logic, and equally we are born with capacities for intuition, mystical awareness, and of course a skeptic. When we align multiple forms of knowing, ask a drilling question, and then receive an inspired knowing of the heart, Perhaps have a mystical experience and then discern its meaning or empirically map a synchronicity. We are more creative, more aligned with the challenges and the road of life when we can bring into connection our inner mystic with our inner logician, our empiricist with our intuitive. And the skeptic gets a place at the table. The skeptic can propel inquiry. The skeptic is not the bouncer at the door. The skeptic does not get to shut down other forms of direct perception.

You know, it's interesting. I know many people who have a scientific bent of mind and maybe do not consider themselves religious or spiritual, but, you know, they're able to read a great novel and be transported, or listen to a beautiful piece of music and feel a sense of transcendence. And in some ways, what you're saying is that perhaps those things can also be considered spiritual experiences. We don't have to limit spiritual experiences to religion and to God.

I would say that science itself is a form of witness, and when we pay attention, it is jaw-droppingly awesome and awe-inspiring. Science, for much of the 20th century, didn't pick up the question of the impact of spiritual life onto the rest of our lives. Science ignored the origins and pathways of spiritual development. And when we do cultivate our natural spirituality, we're less addicted, less depressed, have deeper running character, stronger commitments. How could one thing have such broad and pervasive impact? It is foundational, if you will. It is the core. Science is a form of witness, and as such, I can say that I find it profoundly, jaw-droppingly inspirational. In fact, I would say science as a form of witness is profoundly spiritually inspiring.

Lisa Miller is a psychologist at Teachers College, Columbia University. She's the author of The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life. Lisa, thank you so much for joining me again today on Hidden Brain.

Oh, Shankar, it's been wonderful, a joy to share this science with your community.

We also heard today from Duke University historian Kate Bowler. Hidden Brain is produced by Hidden Brain Media. Our audio production team includes Annie Murphy-Paul, Kristen Wong, Laura Querelle, Ryan Katz, Andrew Chadwick, and Nick Woodbury. Tara Boyle is our executive producer. I'm Hidden Brain's executive editor. If there's someone in your life If you know someone in your life who would find today's episode to be comforting or thought-provoking, please share it with them. Take a walk together and talk about the ideas we discussed today. You never know where those conversations might take you. I'm Shankar Vedantam. See you soon.

Thank you.

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