How to find your faith

Faith and spirituality are on the decline—but what does that mean for our happiness and sense of meaning? In this episode of Office Hours, I approach that question not as a theologian, but as a social scientist. I explore a fundamental truth: human beings are wired to seek meaning beyond themselves. The problem today is that we're missing out on this essential part of human life. I’ll share a three-part plan to help you transcend yourself—one that helps you manage anxiety and loneliness—and invite you to reflect more deeply on what you believe, and why it matters. And to learn more on this, check out my new book, The Meaning of Your Life https://www.arthurbrooks.com/the-meaning-of-your-life(out March 31). — Where to find Arthur Brooks: • Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://arthurbrooks.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://arthurbrooks.com/ • Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.arthurbrooks.com/newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.arthurbrooks.com/newsletter • X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://x.com/arthurbrooks⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://x.com/arthurbrooks • Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/arthurcbrooks/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/arthurcbrooks/ • Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/ArthurBrooks/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.facebook.com/ArthurBrooks/ • YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGuyFRjJQFGCKzfHTBvWM6A⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGuyFRjJQFGCKzfHTBvWM6A • LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/arthur-c-brooks/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/arthur-c-brooks/ • Email: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ mailto:[email protected] — Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (01:40) Why faith and spirituality matter for meaning (03:00) Decline of traditional religiosity in the U. S. (05:20) The rise of the “nones” and generational shifts (07:45) Americans vs. other wealthy nations on religion (09:30) Is society inevitably becoming secular? (11:45) What brain science tells us about spirituality (14:20) Spiritual experiences and reduced stress responses (16:40) Mystical memory, theta waves, and altered states (18:55) How spirituality protects against depression and anxiety (21:10) Spirituality, loneliness, and social connection (23:40) Make yourself smaller: why self-focus makes us miserable (29:10) Why thinking less about yourself improves performance (31:20) Transcendence across religions and philosophies (34:00) Faith without conversion: meaning beyond belief (36:10) How to explore faith (and my new book, The Meaning of Your Life https://www.arthurbrooks.com/the-meaning-of-your-life) (37:50) Q&A: loving someone who is depressed (40:10) Q&A: missionaries vs. psychologists and happiness (42:15) Q&A: grief, loss, and where to turn — Referenced: • The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness: https://www.amazon.com/Meaning-Your-Life-Finding-Emptiness/dp/0593545427 • The Happiness Scale: https://learn.arthurbrooks.com/the-happiness-scale • U. S. church membership falls below majority for first time: https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx • “Nones” on the rise: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2012/10/09/nones-on-the-rise/ • More Americans say they’re spiritual, but not religious: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/09/06/more-americans-now-say-theyre-spiritual-but-not-religious/ • Awakened Brain: https://www.amazon.com/Awakened-Brain-Science-Spirituality-Inspired/dp/198485562X • EEG activity in Carmelite nuns during a mystical experience: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18721862/ • ... References continued at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.arthurbrooks.com/office-hours⁠⁠ https://www.arthurbrooks.com/office-hours

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:29Arthur Brooks?

  You shouldn't care about your feelings so much. Feelings are liars. They lie to you. You will never get anywhere with that. Feeling, belief, practice is the wrong order of operations. The way to actually bring this into your life, to get the benefits that I've talked about before, is to start with practice. Practice first, feel later. And I want to give you a three-part plan to actually explore parts of your life that may have been unexplored.

• 1:02Arthur Brooks?

  Welcome to Office Hours. I'm Arthur Brooks. This is a show about love and happiness, about faith and hope, about your life, how you can make it better using science and ideas, and how you can bring these ideas to other people. I want you to be a teacher of well-being. That's what I am. That's literally how I make my living. And I need people with me in this. Whether you're doing it for a living or not, the information that I give you in this show is based in science. I'm not trying to make you into a behavioral scientist like I am, but I want you to have enough information that you can share these ideas in the spirit of public education. But more importantly, in the spirit of bringing the best life to the most people. That's the world that we want, and we need to do that together. So, thank you for joining me in this. And as always, thank you for feeding back.

• 1:47Arthur Brooks?

  If you have a question, or a comment, or a criticism about anything that I say, you have a correction that you need me to know about, I want to hear it. That's at [email protected]. That's our email address. You can also contact me personally, or anybody on my team, by going to my website, arthurbrooks.com. You can also leave a comment at Spotify, or Apple, or YouTube, or wherever you're watching or listening to this. Please leave a review, and like and subscribe so that the algorithm gods smile on us, and so that these videos and this podcast reaches more people who might need it, even though they don't know about it yet. And as always, also, please do recommend it to your friends, because word of mouth is the best way to do that. Today...

• 2:30Arthur Brooks?

  I want to talk to you about faith and spirituality. This is a topic that people have been asking about and asking about since the inception of this podcast. And today I'm bringing it to you. Why? Because this is one of the most important ways for you to find more meaning in your life. And as you know, this is the topic that I'm all about these days. Because that's my new book, The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness. That's it back there. That's the meaning of your life. That's my new book. And faith and spirituality, or at least life philosophy, are one of the most important, powerful ways that you can invite more meaning into your life. And that is one of the most important ways that you can become happier. Do you know the meaning of your life? If you don't, or at least you don't enough, then this episode is really going to be for you.

• 3:15Arthur Brooks?

  Now, full disclosure, let me talk to you about faith in my own life. And the reason I do this is because I want you to know where I'm coming from. I am a traditional practicing Roman Catholic. I go to mass every day. Now, that hasn't been the case every year of my life. On the contrary, I was raised in a pretty traditional Christian home. Protestant, as a matter of fact. I had a mystical experience when I was 15 years old, the shrine of Guadalupe in Mexico, where I discovered I was Catholic. Some say it's adolescent rebellion. My parents said, "Well, I guess it beats drugs." One way or the other, I became Catholic, and I'm really glad that I did. It's really worked for me. I also married a Catholic girl, and we built a family that is practicing in our Catholic faith. It's really important to me.

• 3:59Arthur Brooks?

  It's a really important source of meaning. It's a source of consolation in times of trouble. It's the way that I can connect with a lot of other people. It's sense-making in so many different ways. But I'm not going to tell you that my path is your path. On the contrary, what I'm going to tell you is you need to find your path, whatever that happens to be. I invite you to try mine. It's great. But I want you to find yours. That's what I'm really all about in this episode. I'm not trying to convert you to my particular religion. I want to talk to you about the effects of religion per se and non-traditional experiences that are spiritual and even philosophical experiences that expand your understanding of coherence,

• 4:44Arthur Brooks?

  why things happen the way they do, purpose, why you're doing what you're doing, and significance, why your life matters. By using parts of your brain that you typically don't use when you're just going about your daily business and surfing and scrolling Instagram and doing all the kinds of stuff that you ordinarily do. I want you to actually explore parts of your life that may have been unexplored. Now, let's start with the data on faith and spirituality. It's in decline. It has been for a long time. Millennials and Gen Z have been more likely than any generation since we've been keeping data of declaring their religious affiliation as "none." And I don't mean "N-U-N," like wearing a habit.

• 5:28Arthur Brooks?

  No, not that kind of "none." N-O-N-E, "none," like no religious affiliation. That was really unusual back in the day. I was born in 1964. Do the math. I'm old. And in 1964, 1% of the American population listed "none" as their religious affiliation. Not much. 1% is a very low number.

• 5:50Arthur Brooks?

  Today, especially for people under 35, it's in the low 30s of people that are saying, "And it's going, it's been going up for quite a long time." One caveat on that coming up. Now, I'm not regretting that. I'm just reporting that. You decide whether that's a good or a bad thing or whether it's neutral.

• 6:09Arthur Brooks?

  In general, Americans are still far more likely than people in other developed nations to practice religious behavior. Okay? So if... Thirty something, thirty low thirties, thirty-two percent of millennials, for example, say none. That still means that most don't say none. And, you know, traditionally, we find that twenty-five to thirty percent of Americans attend some sort of weekly religious observance. That's way higher than most countries. I mean, there are countries where it's much higher, like the Philippines, for example, is a much more religious country than the United States. But the United States, compared to Europe, for example, is far and away more religious. You know, I lived in Barcelona, I have lived in Barcelona often on for thirty-five years, as a matter of fact, and in Barcelona, three percent of the population goes to religious

• 6:54Arthur Brooks?

  services every week. That, you know, that surprises a lot of people, they think Spain, such a Catholic country. No, no, no, it's a post-Christian country to a very large extent. Three percent is like Denmark, for example, and the United States is trending in that direction, is the way that I go. Some people really celebrate that, they think, because they think religion is a bad thing. I'm gonna try to make the case that whatever your religion and observance of that religion is, that religion on its face is a generally very good thing. For you, for your sense of life's meaning, or spirituality, or whatever it is that we're talking about in your case. In 2017, the Pew Research Center, the gold standard for research in the United States

• 7:36Arthur Brooks?

  on these topics, in 2017, eighteen percent of Americans claimed to be neither spiritual or religious, forty-eight percent said they were both, and twenty-seven percent said they were spiritual but not religious. I don't think there's very many people who say they're religious but not spiritual for some reason. So that's kind of what the, sort of what the lay of the land is, but once again, that's higher when it comes to non-spiritual, non-religious than we've seen in the past. Social scientists, people in my job, have always predicted that our society is gonna move toward secularization. They've been saying that since the onset of the Enlightenment, and it seems to be, at least recently, coming true. Well, until just very recently, more on that in a second.

• 8:17Arthur Brooks?

  The percentage of US adults saying religion is important in their daily life fell seventeen points. From 66% in 2015 to 49% in 2025. That's the largest 10-year drop that polling organizations have seen before. Now, here's the little caveat to that. Some of these Gallup and Pew and other places have started to see a little uptick. Just a little, kind of a little fish hook at the bottom of this downward trend, especially among men in their 20s. There's really interesting findings that we're starting to see. Men in their 20s are more likely than before to be practicing a traditional religion. So that's starting to uptick a little bit. So we don't know, is that the beginning of a trend? Is that a blip?

• 9:02Arthur Brooks?

  Is that a statistical anomaly? With women, it's still going down. But with men, it's started to tick back up again. So time will tell what actually that means. But the general story has been one of decline in religious activity. Now, why do we care about this? And this brings me, and we're going right to the science here, because this stuff is so cool, as you're going to see. This brings me to the work of a friend and colleague of mine who teaches at Columbia University. This is Lisa Miller. She's a psychologist and neuroscientist at Columbia, who studies the brain on faith. How faith affects neurological activity is what she studies. And it's really interesting, the stuff that she does. For example, she shows a lot of the benefits that having religious experiences of all types actually have.

• 9:48Arthur Brooks?

  So in experiments, she will have, once, I'm going to put this in the show notes, by the way, this is the book to read. It's called "The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and the Quest for an Inspired Life." It's a great book. I really, I really strongly recommend this book. She is practicing, she practices Judaism very, quite, quite seriously. Last year, I was giving a Sukkot meditation at Temple Beth El Hakeem in the outskirts of Boston, in Wellesley. It turns out she was watching me online, of all things. And she said, "Not bad for a Catholic." Anyway. She has found in her research that if you remember a spiritual experience versus remembering a stressful experience,

• 10:32Arthur Brooks?

  that that memory of a spiritual experience, which mimics the spiritual experience itself, it activates the medial thalamus, which is a region of the brain associated with emotional processing. In other words, you're having a unique emotional experience just from the experience or memory of an experience of something spiritual. So in other words, there are unique neurocognitive experiences that come from spirituality, that come from religion. This is what she finds in her work over and over again. Similar work shows that spirituality is linked with a part of the brain called the periciductal gray. That's a brainstem region. That's an ancient part of the brain that's associated with a moderation of fear and pain and feelings of love. How about that?

• 11:17Arthur Brooks?

  In other words, less fear, less pain, more love when you're having spiritual experiences is what happens. In this primordial part of the brain, in the reptilian brain itself. Now, this is in accord with a finding that a lot of anthropologists have suggested, which is that human beings are made to worship in some way, shape, or form. They're all made to worship the same way, and certainly that has changed over time. But the assertion is that there's never been an organized group of Homo sapiens that has not had religious experience. We're just born for it. And this work by Lisa Miller and different neuroscientists suggests why that is,

• 12:01Arthur Brooks?

  which is that these spiritual experiences, they come with ancient parts of the brain. We have onboard capacity. We have onboard processing that naturally occurs. Interesting stuff using electroencephalogram technology around memories of strong spiritual encounters. And this is among nuns and monks. We typically see this. There's a bunch of studies. Some are on Carmelite nuns, Catholic nuns, and some are on Buddhist monks. Okay? And they show a lot of the same results. One of those that are quite interesting is that when Carmelite Catholic nuns in one study are instructed to recall really, really mystical experiences. And these are people who are very adroit and deep. Prayer.

• 12:46Arthur Brooks?

  And what happens is very clearly that when people are just good at praying because they pray a lot, they have more mystical experiences because their brains are trained to get into a trance-like state when they do that. And when they do, or when they even recall their most mystical experiences, that they see a significant increase in theta wave activity in the brain, which is associated with dreaming. Which means that they kind of have experiences that are very different than their conscious experiences where they'd have. But they're still awake. All quite interesting, all quite beneficial, is what we see. In other words, when it comes to your brain, spiritual experiences and religious experiences are pretty good for you.

• 13:30Arthur Brooks?

  Now, over to the psychology side. Spirituality protects against depression. It protects against anxiety. I mean, these are almost blanket statements. And again, I know, I know, you're gonna write in the comments, and I welcome you to talk about your experiences in which really bad religious experiences, they provoke depressive episodes and generalized anxiety. I know, almost anything that we do as human beings, we can screw it up. We're very good at screwing stuff up, and that includes religion, to be sure. So, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about in general, that you have that religious activity, healthy religious activity and spiritual activity, and even philosophical depth,

• 14:11Arthur Brooks?

  has a neuroprotective effect against major depressive disorders and generalized anxiety. It's not perfect, it's not a silver bullet. I know lots of very, very religious people who also are being treated psychiatrically for major depression, people in my family, under those circumstances. But this is really, really good adjunct to therapy, for sure. Spirituality and religion are also really good for relationships. They strengthen social bonds. Good 2019 study, this is in the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality journal. 2019 study asked 319 people to evaluate statements like, "I have a personally meaningful relationship with God." That is a strongly negative correlation with loneliness.

• 14:56Arthur Brooks?

  The more that you say, "I have a good relationship with God," Notwithstanding all your other relationships with people, you're a lot less likely to be lonely. This is protective against loneliness. So protective against depression, protective against anxiety, protective against loneliness. And these are the... That's the kind of the three-part problem that we see with the psychogenic epidemic of unhappiness, especially for adults under 30. So there's one thing that I could recommend to a lot of young people who are suffering from those three maladies that are going together so strongly for people in their twenties today. It's not just my religion. It's religion and/or spirituality and/or a deep involvement in philosophy.

• 15:41Arthur Brooks?

  These things are neuroprotective. So how do you do it? What are your protocols for that? And again, I could go on for, you know, days talking about the neuroscience and the psychology of all this, but I think I've made the point. And if you're like me, you actually, at this point, you want to get to what to do. Because here's the question I get. I get this in office hours all the time, which is not just the name of my show. It's kind of what I do with my classes. That's why I call my show this. People say, "How do I get started?" Maybe, you know, I was raised in a completely secular household. My parents were really nonreligious. I want to do something, but I don't know what to do. I don't know how to get started. I don't know even how to think about it.

• 16:25Arthur Brooks?

  Or maybe they say I was raised religious, but I walked away from it. I didn't like it. It didn't seem right. It didn't make sense. I'm going to talk about that too here in a second. And I want to give you a three-part plan. And again, you can use this if you're talking about a traditional religion. You can do this if you're talking about trying to start some sort of a spiritual practice that's nonreligious. You can do this even if you're trying to get into a mainstream philosophy as an organizing principle in your life. My old buddy, Ryan Holiday, the world's leading expert on popular Stoicism. I should say Stoicism in popular culture. He's not religious, but he practices Stoicism and is tremendously beneficial in much the same way that religion is in my life. So either one of those three paths,

• 17:10Arthur Brooks?

  how do you get started? Here's the way to do it. Number one. Practice first, feel later. One of the biggest mistakes that people make about religion and spirituality, about faith, about philosophy is this.

• 17:27Speaker 02

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• 17:57Arthur Brooks?

  To be a person of integrity, I can't do something unless I feel it. That's wrong in almost everything in life. That's wrong in your relationships. You know, if, if I said, like, I'm gonna be a good husband only when I feel like being a good husband, I wouldn't be a very good husband very often, quite frankly. I, I know what it means to be a good husband. I don't, I fail a lot, but I also do that notwithstanding my feelings, because my feelings are very transient. You know, if you watch this show a lot, that, that, that feelings are a limbic phenomenon. They're a neurobiological phenomenon. They're about threats and opportunities that my reptilian brain is sensing out there. And if I'm relying on my feelings for the way that I'm gonna treat the people that I love the most of my life, I'm gonna be horrible as a partner, horrible as a family member, a terrible friend.

• 18:42Arthur Brooks?

  I don't wanna do that. I wanna decide how I'm going to behave, notwithstanding my feelings. That's what it means to be a self-governing individual. And the same thing is true with my religious practice. Like I mentioned before, I go to mass every day, every morning, at 6:30 when I'm home with my wife. And when I'm on the road, I find a church wherever I am, because, you know, the Catholic church is like Starbucks. It's, you know, a franchise system. They're easy to find. But I don't go because I feel like going. I go because I've decided to go. And then sometimes I feel it. So here's the wrong way to understand religion. You feel these religious things. And then you develop some actual beliefs. And after you have your beliefs, then you actually practice that religion. You will never get anywhere with that.

• 19:26Arthur Brooks?

  Feeling, belief, practice is the wrong order of operations. The way to actually bring this into your life, to get the benefits that I've talked about before, is to start with practice. You start with practice, and then you just practice something. And then you'll develop some belief, some of the time, and then occasionally you'll have feelings. That's the way to do it also with your marriage. That's the way to do it with almost anything that really matters. With your job, for example. You start by practicing your job. You start by showing up and doing a good job. And then you develop beliefs around it, and sometimes you actually have feelings for it. And that's the way to live. So that's how to think about it. So people say, okay, you know, I grew up, um, I grew up in, you know, in a practicing, observant Jewish household.

• 20:11Arthur Brooks?

  My students will say to me, for example. And I want to get back into it, but I don't feel it. What do I do? I say, I don't care. I don't care about your feelings. You shouldn't care about your feelings so much. Feelings are liars. They lie to you. What you do is you start going. And then, on the basis of that, and what you're seeing and hearing and reading, and reading on your own, and treating it as an interesting intellectual experience, you'll develop some beliefs around it. And then occasionally, you'll have deep feelings as well. And that's what it means to actually bring this into your life. Then the miracle really happens for you. That's when you start to experience the difference in your periaqueductal gray, and that stuff in the brainstem. It requires a conscious act.

• 20:54Arthur Brooks?

  And this is why it's so important to understand that the that the, the, the discipline, the moral aspiration, how it's linked to the animal impulses, how the miracle of what we have is minds, bodies, hearts, souls, and brains, how it all hangs together in this glorious miracle that is each one of us. This is a classic example of how that actually works. So run the algorithm in the right direction. Practice first, feel later. That's step one of the protocol for bringing more faith, spirituality, or philosophy into your life. Step two, get smaller. What do I mean by that? Mother Nature.

• 21:35Arthur Brooks?

  With whom I'm very impressed, obviously. I mean, I talk about all the things that Mother Nature does all the time. Nonetheless, lies to you in many ways. And a case in point is the lie that you're the center of everything. The psychodrama of your life is me, me, me, me, me. My job, my car, my money, my television shows, my lunch. It's so boring. I mean, think how many dreams you had last night. You were the star of all of them. I mean, if you're left to your devices, you're gonna be looking in a mirror all day long. Why is it that it's hard to pass a mirror? Because of the psychodrama where you're the star. Why is it that you check your notifications on social media? Because you want to hear what people are saying about you.

• 22:18Arthur Brooks?

  But that will drive you stark, raving mad. It will make you effective in some ways to understand your position in the hierarchy of Homo sapiens, I guess. That'll make you an expert in social comparison. But you already know that social comparison is the thief of joy. You need to actually fight that tendency. And the way that you do that is not by getting bigger. The world-famous star in your psychodrama, it's getting smaller. It's a funny thing. I've worked for the last 12 years, as many of you know, with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. And it's a treasured and beloved relationship for me. I've learned a huge amount from him. I've learned a lot about Tibetan Buddhism along the way,

• 23:02Arthur Brooks?

  which has been incredibly enriching to me as a person of faith. But just him as a person, extraordinary. And it's one time he told me that there's this one photo that he saw in 1969 that really affected him. I said, "Oh, really? What photo affects the Dalai Lama?" He says, "The photo that was called Earthrise." And for those of you who don't know it, go Google it. Earthrise was the first photograph of the Earth taken from the moon. And, you know, you'd see it now, you'd be like, "Oh." It was like mind blowing. My dad told me what he saw. He was like, it just rocked his world. That he saw the world. He saw the earth from space. And it was like this blue orb from the surface of the moon. And the Dalai Lama said it blew him away too.

• 23:45Arthur Brooks?

  I said, he didn't say that because he doesn't use that kind of American vernacular. He said it was amazing to him. I said, why? And he said, because it helped him remember how small he was and what a gift it was to remember that he was simply one of, at the time, four billion people, which is important in and of itself, but that the smallness puts into perspective what each one of us actually is. And he said it brought him peace and perspective. Now, that's the Dalai Lama. That's me too, and that's any of us. And you will see it for yourself. Why is it that at most universities, one of the most popular classes is astronomy? If you ask them, which I have, I've asked undergraduate students, they're like English majors and communications majors.

• 24:29Arthur Brooks?

  Why do you love your astronomy class? They're like, I don't know. On Thursday morning, I go in and I'm super stressed out because I had a big argument with my mom and because my boyfriend is probably going to break up with me. And an hour and a half later, I come out of my astronomy class and I'm like, I'm a speck. I'm a speck. I'm a speck. And I'm at peace. Transcendence is what we need to actually be at peace. And to do that, we need to get smaller, not larger. One of the best ways to do that is your observance of your religious faith or your spirituality is to stand in awe of something much, much, much greater than yourself. This is one of the reasons that when people go to church or their house of worship, that they feel so much better because they've been small. Now, again, that doesn't mean they're nothing.

• 25:14Arthur Brooks?

  I mean, if you're a Christian like me, or if you're Jewish, or you're Muslim, or for that matter, if you're a Hindu especially, there's this intense love that God has for you as you, as an individual. But you're small in an awe compared to the godhead, compared to Brahman, compared to the Creator, the divine. And that in and of itself, that smallness, creates a perspective on a life that's accurate. It can put you at peace. And in doing that, you'll actually experience in that moment many of the benefits. And it'll short-lived, but it'll give you a little bit of those benefits that I was talking about. This relief from the melancholia

• 25:57Arthur Brooks?

  that characterizes our day-to-day, the anxiety, the loneliness. That smallness per se will give you this intense kind of equanimity that you may not have felt in a long time. That step two is get small. And here's number three. Number three is about how to get over what I've found is the biggest barrier that a lot of people actually have toward religion, which is their own dogma. You know, we hear all the time about religious people being so unbelievably dogmatic. My way or hell, or whatever, right? I got no time for that, right? Obviously, I have no time for that. I love all of it, really.

• 26:41Arthur Brooks?

  I mean, I have my way that I really believe in. And I'm not making the case here who is metaphysically right. That's above my pay grade. I'm not clergy. I have my opinions, but that's not the opinions I'm talking about here. I know as a social scientist that these things are really, really good for you. Okay? And I hear all the time, people who are super dogmatic about their faith. People who are fanatical, people who are even violent with respect to their faith. And I have the same opinions that you do about that. It's horrible, right? But another kind of dogma that I often see are people who reject faith. It's unbelievably dogmatically, or spirituality, or even, you know, a philosophical life. There's a rejection about it. And when it comes back to the nuns that I talked about before, N-O-N-E-S,

• 27:25Arthur Brooks?

  increasing percentage of the population, now increasing especially quickly among women under 30, this nun is a dogma in and of itself. This "I'm nun, I've rejected it." Now, why? Now, this gets back to the why about why people actually do this. Gets to the work of a sociologist named James Fowler, who talked about different kinds of religious experiences that we go through at different phases of life. He's got all that like that, I think it's five stages of religious observation that typically happen at different points in our lives. And one of the things he talks about is why young adults often walk away from the faith. And what he talks about is generally that there's this cognitive dissonance.

• 28:09Arthur Brooks?

  Whereas a kid, you grow up thinking, for example, if you grow up in a traditional religion, God is good and loves you, and God is all merciful and loves all of us. And then you look around, you're like, yeah, but starving kids, and war, and pestilence, and suffering. So what gives? You know, what's the deal? Right? And that's an ancient, ancient thing, the Book of Job in the Old Testament, where Job is a righteous man, a man of God, and then God really tests him. All these horrible things happen to him. But at the end of the Book of Job, he like, kind of has God in the dock saying, you know, I was your boy, and I did everything right. And you said I was righteous, and then you did all these horrible things to me.

• 28:54Arthur Brooks?

  Why? And then, and then what God says is this, God says, and no small, I mean, again, I'm paraphrasing. So those of you who are theologians, please forgive me. God says, well, I mean, yeah, I'll tell you. And they're having a direct conversation at this point, which is awesome. He said, I'll tell you, but first, you tell me, why did I create the heavens and the earth? You must know, because you're so smart. I mean, you're so smart, you're asking me for an explanation about your own little suffering? So since you're so smart, before I tell you why you suffer, tell me why I created the heavens and the earth. Huh? Huh, smart guy? Huh? Huh? It's awesome. Right? Here's my point. Yeah, hard to understand. And a lot of young adults walk away from their traditional faith, because it's, you can't sort that out. Right? But here's the thing.

• 29:39Arthur Brooks?

  That's why people often come back after 40. They come back after 40, because they have that Job moment, where they say, you know what? There's a lot I don't know. There's a lot I can't figure out. It's super messy. Life is super messy. And since I can't figure out a lot of things that I know exist, I don't know why I would rule this one out in my life. That ability, that maturity, to be able to live with a cognitive dissonance of a great deal of suffering, including your own, and a theology that, as imperfectly translated into human terms as it is, talks about God in a particular way,

• 30:20Arthur Brooks?

  that ambiguity is something that people tend to be able to live with a little bit better after forty. And one of the things that makes it harder is if you've defined yourself as saying, "Nope, nope." So, step three in the protocol is just don't be none. At least question that. I recommend that if you're a traditionally religious person, you question it your whole life. I do. I interrogate my faith all the time. But I would recommend that you also interrogate your non-faith. That's kind of what it means to be fully alive, is to be questioning everything, including all the things that you believe so that you can learn and grow. And people who don't get tied down to something that they believed when they were twenty-one

• 31:03Arthur Brooks?

  are able to change what they think and live in a way that they find more satisfying and deeper in all the ways that we're talking here when they're in their thirties. So, step three of the protocol is don't stay tied down to anything, because it just might change. And as it does, you might just get happier. Now, if you want to know more about the science of this, and all the things that we're talking about here, about the psychology, about the neuroscience, about the philosophy, about the protocols, go to my book, "The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness." There's a whole chapter on transcendence. It doesn't just include faith, also spirituality, also philosophy, also charity and love for other people, because that's another way to transcend, is by transcending yourself by serving other people.

• 31:49Arthur Brooks?

  Okay, so lots I'm leaving out of this episode here. Go read the book if you want to actually know more about it. And I promise you, it's not going to be threatening, it's not going to be weird, I'm not going to be doing something that actually suggests that is my way or the highway. Because that's not the only way. It depends. I want you to find yours. All right, some audience questions, folks. Here's one from my old friend anonymous by email. In spite of my exercising, spending time with friends, eating a healthy diet, talking with a therapist, getting good sleep, good for you. My spouse's anxiety and depression makes me unhappy. Is this my wife writing in anonymously at this point?

• 32:32Arthur Brooks?

  Do you have any suggestions on how I can feel happiness again? You can't give somebody else happiness. You can't. You can't do it. And I wish you could. You can help people by teaching them, by making suggestions, to be sure. But you can't make somebody else happier because that's something outside of yourself, to be sure. Two things to do. Number one, go on a learning journey together. And this is one of the things that I recommend to a lot of people who say, not just about their spouse. They say, "How do I give these ideas to my teenage kid?" Now, teenage kids are horrible about this because when you say, "You need to do..." is that in one ear and out the other? Or complete rejection because you said it? I know. I've had teenagers.

• 33:15Arthur Brooks?

  In those scenarios, I suggest saying, "I just read this book by this nerd who has a podcast called Office Hours. And I don't know what I think about it. Would you read it and tell me what you think about it? Or I just saw this podcast. Maybe this is not the one to show them because it'll be in on the trick. But I just saw this podcast and it's kind of making me think, but I would love to know your point of view." That's the appeal to an outside authority and that's when you're studying something together. That really works with teenage kids, but that can also work with your spouse. Second, modeled behavior. Modeled behavior. The greatest gift that you can give to somebody who's depressed is to not be depressed. That's a really great gift and you got it.

• 33:58Arthur Brooks?

  That's why they say on the airplane, "Put your own oxygen mask on first." You've got to take care of yourself first, along these lines. The greatest gift you can give to somebody who's sad is not being sad. That's what it comes down to. And I realize it actually brings you down, but you've got to do more work on yourself, understanding that your happiness is under your control and not under the control of another person and that your happiness is not a betrayal of an unhappy person. Your happiness is a gift to the other person. Next, this is from Jack V.

• 34:31Arthur Brooks?

  By email, what explains why missionaries are happier and psychologists more depressed than the general population? I know the first is true, that clergy and missionaries are happier than the general population for all the reasons I talked about in this episode. I don't know that psychologists are more depressed than the general population. I'll take you at your word for that, that you're looking at data on that. It's not opposites of the same phenomenon. What we find is that missionaries and clergy, they're doing all the things right that we're talking about here. This is probably one of the reasons that, you know, highly spiritual people who are not missionaries or clergy are much happier than the general population. So this episode is the reason for the first one.

• 35:12Arthur Brooks?

  For psychologists, and for that matter, for behavioral scientists to study happiness, who are below average in happiness. Right? We've talked about this on the show. I'm getting better, way better. I'm up 60% of my happiness since I've gone full-time in the happiness trade, my friends. Why? Because I studied happiness because I wanted it. A lot of therapists that I meet, they go into therapy because they have problems that they want to solve in their own lives. It's not research, it's me-search for a lot of people. And behavioral science, this is what people are really into, is issues that they're dealing with themselves. There's a reason that my wife Esther, she wouldn't actually become a happiness specialist because she's super happy as a person. That would be like me studying oxygen, I got plenty of it, right?

• 35:55Arthur Brooks?

  But if it got scarce, I'd want to learn a lot more about it, is the whole idea. And that's probably one of the reasons that we actually see. Finally, last email today, from Patty Peterson. Will you suggest resources for grief? I lost my husband unexpectedly and I'm officially lost. I'm really sorry for your loss, Patty, I am. And, you know, grief, which is a form of very intense and elongated suffering, it's not going to help you for me to talk about the neurobiology of what actually is happening in your brain. But suffice it to say that your brain is working the way it's supposed to. If you're grieving the loss of your husband, it means you're healthy and you're normal. And it will lessen over time, which actually is paradoxically really painful for people when

• 36:39Arthur Brooks?

  they're seeing their grief lessen and they're able to do something for the first time, like go someplace alone, or go out on a date, and they have a good time and they feel really guilty and horrible about that. So grief is a funny phenomenon in the way that it actually makes us feel. But it's evidence that you're alive. It's evidence that you can love as a person, which is a beautiful thing in and of itself. Let me just say this. There's one way that people who are experiencing grief, grief from the loss of a spouse, which is very intense, that's generally speaking, not as intense as losing a child, because that feels wholly unnatural to very many people. And so there are some studies on losing a child and how to provide some relief. And there's one thing that actually works.

• 37:24Arthur Brooks?

  And here it is. It's helping somebody else who's also experienced that loss, somebody who's newer in that loss. You find that if you've lost a child, which is this unremitting sadness, and it's permanent, because, I mean, not the same intensity of sadness, the sadness does lessen, it does, because you're moving on with your life and you're supposed to be able to move on with your life, but you'll never forget. But the people who actually make more from their grief, more productive, something more productive with their grief, and who actually have more relief from it, who are able to actually have more moments of joy, are those who actually find a way to serve other people who are fresher in their loss. And so that's what I recommend. There's a lot of people out there who are

• 38:06Arthur Brooks?

  suffering the same thing that you are. And as the months go by, you're going to meet people for whom the wound is fresh. And serving those people, you're going to find is probably the most efficacious way that you can actually turn your grief into a source of benefit, into a source of love. And that's what you deserve. Let me know your thoughts, folks, on this episode or any other episode of Office Hours at arthurbrooks.com. That's our email address. Like and subscribe on Spotify, YouTube, Apple. Leave a comment. I'll read it, even if it's negative. That's all good. And if I've gotten anything wrong, as far as you can tell, I want to hear about it. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, other platforms for content that's original on those platforms.

• 38:49Arthur Brooks?

  Order The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness. And while you're waiting for it, go back and listen to some of the episodes that you haven't heard before, and make sure you share them with your friends. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next week.

• 39:13Speaker 03

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