The #1 illness of our time has nothing to do with your body.
Dr. Lisa Miller, Columbia University researcher and author of The Spiritual Child, has spent over a decade scanning human brains to understand how we’re built for God’s presence. What those MRIs reveal is both startling and deeply hopeful.
You were not built for scarcity or isolation. Three specific circuits in every human brain light up when you connect to something greater than yourself, a bonding network, an attention network, and a parietal network, each wired to receive love, guidance, and the awareness that you are never alone. The awakened brain is one-third innate, two-thirds cultivated. Which means you can build it.
The research on teens will stop you cold. A strong shared spiritual life is 82% protective against completed suicide, which has now surpassed auto accidents as the leading cause of teen death. 80% protective against the onset of addiction. This is not philosophy. These are numbers from global studies of 270,000 children.
The path to your best life might not require more effort. It might require a different kind of listening.
The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life
The Spiritual Child: The New Science on Parenting for Health and Lifelong Thriving
