I've got two final questions for you. So when I asked people, I was like, what do you want to know about spirituality and its intersection with mental health? And a lot of people said, how does having a spiritual core impact something like anxiety or depression, which we would typically say, or like the kind of general belief system right now is it's quite biological, it's quite genetic. Where does spirituality come into managing that lived experience?

For most of the 20th century, you're completely right. People said, oh, well, mental health is biologically based and spirituality is just some airy-fairy thing that has nothing to do with biology. But there's now a very rigorous, peer-reviewed science that shows that actually built into our biology is our seat of spiritual awareness. When we shared that beautiful counsel practice, there were very specific circuits that we've identified in the MRI that were running in your brain and my brain and in everyone's brain at the same time. The bonding network that lets us know we're loved and held. The parietal that puts in and out hard boundaries so we're distinct, but we're also part of one family of life, one universe. A shift in our attention network so we can receive and perceive surprising new guidance. So, you know, we actually are biologically built to have a spiritual life. That doesn't mean that spirituality is just, you know, a side effect of biology. It means that body, mind, and soul were one, and there's a neuro docking station for spiritual awareness. So to back up knowing that it's no longer, you know, it is now outdated to your point. And I'm so glad you put this front and center. It is outdated to say, oh, mental illness is biological. Spirituality isn't. No spirituality, like all other human experiences has biological underpinnings, a neuro seat in our brain. And when we strengthen our spiritual awareness, we are 80% less likely to become addicted. We are 60% more likely to recover from bumps in our lives without becoming downward, downward, downward, major depression. We are far more resilient. We are far more able to connect with people. But it's not as simple a story as, oh, there's happy people who are spiritual and never get depressed, and then there's unhappy people who just aren't as spiritual. That's not the story. It's actually a deeper story, which is in our 20s, as I started sharing with you today when John broke up with me, are times of unbelievable pain, but they are not necessarily medical depression. They're not necessarily psychopathology. Very often, these are developmental depression. It's the knock at the door to ask bigger questions, the existential questions that you opened with. What is my purpose? What is the meaning in my life? What am I supposed to do with my life? Can I trust human beings? And do I trust and love even if I'm not necessarily loved back? How do I want to be in this world? And process that is built into our genes is a process of existential search. When we hit our early twenties, our capacity for spirituality grows. We can love even more. We can probe even more deeply. We can see into the deep, sacred, transcendent nature of life in nature, in one another. We have these gifts that emerge in our 20s. But as this great gift of spiritual awareness boots up, it often can feel like a half empty glass of spirituality while it's coming online. It can feel empty. It can feel confusing. It can feel like, how do I put my finger on this? And many people in their twenties say, you know, when I don't let myself think about these questions, I get even more depressed. I have no choice. I've got to take this on. And so I'm not against medication, but medication alone is insufficient to address the most important work of your entire life, which is building your spiritual core in your 20s. Based on science, and it's 25 years of very good, you know, top American Journal of Psychiatry, Journal of the American Medical Association, top peer review science, depression is a gateway to spiritual awakening in our early 20s. It is. And often in our mid-20s, depression is a knock at the door, an existential struggle to awaken our deeper knowing, our seed of spiritual awareness. And once we build that, the next time something goes wrong, we have built and ready a spiritual response to disappointment, a spiritual response to not knowing where I'm going. And that literally shows up in the brain as neuroprotective against a recurrence of major depression. That's

incredible. I love that there is this combination of biology and then of, you know, neuroimaging, and then also of this like profoundly intangible thing you know you cannot reach you know you reach out and touch your spirituality or so we think but you're literally saying no if you want to look inside your brain if you wanted to poke around you would find these paths you would find these neurons these these synapses that are directly responsible for you you know having a sense of being and a sense of place like you said the neurostate which is just so cool. And you know, what's interesting as well is how outdated I'm thinking about like when I did my degree and when I did like all my training, how outdated the current, like the current system and education system is. Cause only like maybe seven years ago, I remember sitting in a class and being like, depression is biological and that is purely it. And there is nothing more to it. It's inherited, blah, blah, blah. And there was nothing about like experiences. There was nothing about deep questions. There was nothing about how strengthening everything else in your life and not just social connections, not just physical health, but actually thinking deeply and having a philosophy that might bind bad experience together might help. So it's really incredible that you're putting it out there for this next generation of a lot of psychology listen to this show. A lot of people who go on to be counselors and therapists are going to have a different perspective. So I'm going to ask you one final question. three rapid fire practices that someone could do daily to get to that point of having an awakened brain or building their spiritual core, what would you recommend? In

my book, The Awakened Brain, I list three practices that we use on the Columbia University campus. They're now used on about 30 campuses in the United States. One of them is hosting council, which we just shared, because that is your direct connection to transcendent relationship, right? Your higher power, your higher self, and those who truly have your best interest in mind. The other two practices are called the road of life, which cultivates what you shared, which is a stance, an operating manual of how to engage in a dialogue with the universe. And then the third practice has to do with finding someone with whom you can share your spiritual path, because it's wonderful if you can go through, whether you call it the sangha or the fellowship or the journey group, but that, your practice, your people, you're passing your purpose. Your people are important, and you're creating people here. So in the Awakened Brain, I share these practices, and I also share in the Awakened Brain the references to all of these scientific articles. So you can go online, pull up the article, and say, you know, listen, I'd like to share today in my counseling class or with my therapist. There's a scientific article that says, you know, spirituality is really important in making my way through despair and depression. That when I'm recovering from depression, I'm building the spiritual core if I put my heart and mind and focus there. So it's intended to be empowering of your own birthright, of who you already are. There's no one who isn't spiritual. You are spiritual. It's not if, it's how in your own journey, you personally want to realize you're a great gift. What a beautiful way to finish the episode.