Michelle: Here’s a wild thought for your Monday morning: What if the very drive that makes you successful—the ambition, the focus, the relentless goal-setting—is also hardwiring your brain for depression? Mark: Wait, what? My to-do list is making me sad? That sounds completely backwards. My entire career is built on that drive. That feels like saying water makes you thirsty. Michelle: It feels counterintuitive, but that's the explosive idea we're tackling today. It's the central argument in The Awakened Brain: The Psychology of Spirituality and Our Search for Meaning by Lisa Miller. And what makes this so compelling is that Miller isn't a guru; she's a tenured professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University. Mark: Okay, an Ivy League professor. That gets my attention. Michelle: Exactly. She founded the first Ivy League institute dedicated to spirituality and psychology, and this book, which became a New York Times Bestseller, is the culmination of decades of rigorous, grant-funded research published in top psychiatric journals. She's trying to solve a very real paradox. Mark: Which is what? The one about my to-do list? Michelle: Pretty much. Why, in an age of unprecedented material wealth and achievement, are we seeing epidemic levels of depression, anxiety, and suicide? Especially among the young and the successful. Where does a top-tier scientist even begin to connect that kind of success with that kind of suffering?

Michelle: Miller starts by giving a name to the mindset most of us operate in: the "achieving brain." It's that laser-focused, goal-oriented, problem-solving part of us. It’s incredibly useful for building a career or planning a project. But when it becomes our only mode of operating, it can lead to a profound sense of isolation and emptiness. Mark: I can see that. You're so focused on the next rung of the ladder you forget to look around. But is it really a crisis? Michelle: The numbers she presents are staggering. A 2019 study of over 67,000 college students found that one in five reported self-harm. One in four had suicidal thoughts. And this isn't just a problem for the young. It cuts across all ages. Miller’s early career as a clinical intern on a psychiatric ward in the 90s showed her firsthand that the existing tools were failing. Mark: What do you mean, failing? Michelle: She saw what she called a "revolving door." Patients would come in, get medicated, talk through their past traumas in psychodynamic therapy, and then be discharged, only to return months later. There was management, but not deep, lasting healing. She tells this one story that is just devastating. It’s about a patient named Esther Klein. Mark: What happened to her? Michelle: Esther was a woman in her seventies, a Holocaust survivor. Her doctor was pushing her, with good intentions, to repeatedly revisit her traumatic memories in therapy. The idea was that talking it through would lead to catharsis. Mark: Right, that’s the classic model. Confront the pain to heal it. Michelle: But Miller watched as Esther became more and more withdrawn. Her face grew flatter, more distant. The therapy wasn't healing her; it was retraumatizing her. It was reinforcing a narrative that her life was defined solely by its worst moments. One day, the staff was called to an emergency meeting. Esther had taken her own life. Mark: Oh, that's just heartbreaking. Michelle: And the official response from the hospital administration was, "It’s a sad story, but nothing could have been done." That line haunted Miller. It crystallized her frustration with a system that pathologized pain but offered no real path to renewal. She started to wonder if there was another dimension to healing that the medical model was completely missing. Mark: And that’s where spirituality comes in? I have to be honest, for a scientist, that word can be a bit of a red flag. It sounds fuzzy, unmeasurable. Michelle: She felt that same institutional skepticism. She once organized an impromptu Yom Kippur service for the Jewish patients on the ward. It was held in a sterile, windowless kitchen. But something remarkable happened. Patients who were usually withdrawn or manic became calm, connected, and articulate. A man who rarely spoke suddenly expressed profound gratitude for the universe. A woman consumed by self-loathing had a breakthrough about forgiveness. Mark: Wow. So it clearly had an effect. Michelle: A profound one. But when she excitedly told her clinical supervisor, the response was basically, "That's very nice, Lisa. But this is a hospital. These patients have a lifetime of medical illness." It was dismissed as a comforting cultural ritual, not a legitimate therapeutic event. Mark: So her bosses basically said, 'That's nice, but it's not science.' How do you even begin to measure something as fuzzy as a 'spiritual experience' in a lab?

Michelle: That is the billion-dollar question, and it’s what makes this book so groundbreaking. Years later, Miller and her colleagues at Columbia got the funding to do just that. They designed a major study using MRI scans to look at the brains of people who were at high genetic risk for depression. Mark: Okay, so they're looking for the biological markers of depression. That sounds standard. Michelle: It was. But Miller, to the skepticism of some colleagues, insisted on adding one controversial question to the intake survey: "How important is religion or spirituality to you personally?" They didn't expect much to come of it. It was almost an afterthought. Mark: I can imagine the eye-rolls from the other researchers. Michelle: For sure. So they run the study. Months go by. The data comes in. The statistical analyst, a guy named Ravi, is processing the MRI scans. He calls Miller into his office and says, "You have to see this. It’s not at all what we expected." Mark: I love a good 'eureka' moment in a lab. What did he find? Michelle: He pulled up two composite images of the human brain. One was for the participants who said spirituality was not important. It showed what they expected: significant thinning in the cerebral cortex, the area responsible for reasoning and perception. This is a known biological signature of depression risk. Mark: So, a thinner cortex, a higher risk for depression. Got it. Michelle: Then, he pulled up the image for the group that said spirituality was highly important. Mark, the brain was lit up with huge swaths of red. The red indicated greater cortical thickness. The high-spiritual brain was structurally healthier, more robust, and thicker precisely in the areas that weaken and thin in depressed brains. Mark: Whoa. Hold on. So you can literally see spirituality in a brain scan? What does 'thicker cortex' actually mean in plain English? Is the brain literally getting fatter? Michelle: That's a great way to put it. It’s not fatter, but it's more robust. Think of it like a muscle. A thicker cortex means more neural connections, more density, more resilience. It's a healthier, stronger brain. And this wasn't just a small effect; it was a huge, statistically significant finding. They had found a neuro-protective benefit to a personal spiritual life. Mark: That's incredible. But is this just for religious people? Does it mean you have to go to church every Sunday? Michelle: This is the crucial distinction Miller makes throughout the book. It’s not about religious observance, though for many that's a pathway. It’s about a personal, felt relationship with a higher power, or nature, or the universe—a sense of connection to something larger than yourself. In fact, her later research found that this innate spirituality is about one-third heritable, like eye color. It's a natural human capacity. Mark: So depression thins the brain, and spirituality thickens it. It's almost like they're two sides of the same coin, biologically speaking. Michelle: That’s exactly the conclusion she came to. She started to wonder: What if depression, at least in some cases, isn't an illness to be stamped out, but a form of spiritual hunger? A signal from our own biology that a crucial part of us is being starved?

Mark: Okay, my brain is officially blown. If we have this innate capacity, this 'awakened brain' potential, how do we actually use it? How do we switch from the stressed-out 'achieving brain' to this 'awakened brain'? Michelle: Miller says it's not about eliminating the achieving brain, but about integrating it with another, equally important mode of perception: "awakened awareness." Achieving awareness is about control: "How can I get what I want?" Awakened awareness is about receptivity: "What is life showing me now?" Mark: That sounds great, but it's a bit abstract. Can you give me a real-world example of what that looks like? Michelle: There's a beautiful and powerful metaphor she uses from one of her patients, a woman named Kathleen. Kathleen had built what she thought was the perfect life—successful husband, beautiful kids, secure home. She spent all her energy protecting it, controlling every detail. She called it her "perfect sandcastle." Mark: I think we all know someone like that. Or maybe we are someone like that. Michelle: Exactly. Then, one day, it all fell apart. Her husband had an affair and left her. The sandcastle was washed away by a huge wave. She was devastated. But in the aftermath, standing on the rubble of her old life, she looked up and for the first time, she saw the beach, the ocean, the vastness of the sky. She said, "My whole life I thought my job was to build this perfect sandcastle and keep it safe. But when the castle finally fell apart, I could suddenly see everything beyond it." Mark: Wow, that's a powerful way to put it. We're all building these sandcastles, so focused on the walls that we don't see the ocean. Michelle: That's the shift from achieving awareness to awakened awareness. It’s letting go of the desperate need to control the outcome and opening up to the bigger picture. It's about seeing that even devastating events can be portals to a wider, more meaningful reality. Mark: That’s a huge perspective shift. But what does it look like on a smaller, day-to-day level? Not everyone has a life-altering 'sandcastle' moment. Michelle: She gives a simple, lovely example from her own life. One afternoon, she was kayaking on a river, in full-on achieving mode, paddling hard, focused on her destination. Suddenly, a flock of geese on the riverbank started honking and craning their necks, all looking in the same direction. Her first instinct was to ignore them and keep paddling. Mark: Because the geese are not on the to-do list. Michelle: Right. But something made her pause. She let her awakened attention take over. She followed their gaze and paddled over to where they were looking. And just under the surface of the water was a huge, submerged cement block that would have certainly capsized her. The geese were a signal, a guide. Awakened attention is simply the practice of noticing those signals.

Mark: So it's not about abandoning our goals and just waiting for geese to tell us what to do. It’s about integrating these two ways of seeing—the focused, achieving mind and the open, receptive, awakened awareness. Michelle: Exactly. Miller's research shows that the people with the most integrated brains—those who score high on what she calls a "quest orientation," an openness to life's journey—are the most resilient and mentally healthy. The book's ultimate message is that depression, for many, isn't just an illness. It's a 'call of the soul.' Mark: A call of the soul. What does she mean by that? Michelle: It's a knock at the door. It's our own biology, our own spirit, telling us that the narrow, purely achievement-focused life is no longer sustainable. It's an invitation to awaken a fuller, more connected, more meaningful part of ourselves that has been dormant. It reframes suffering not as a defect, but as a doorway. Mark: That’s a much more hopeful way of looking at it than 'your brain is broken, here's a pill.' It puts the power back in our hands. Michelle: It does. And it suggests that this awakened capacity is not a rare gift for a lucky few, but a universal birthright. The science shows we are all wired for this. The only question is whether we choose to answer the call. Mark: That’s a powerful question to end on. It makes you wonder, what 'knocks at the door' have we been ignoring in our own lives? Michelle: A question worth sitting with. We'd love to hear your thoughts. What was your biggest takeaway from this? Find us on our socials and share your story. We read every comment. Mark: And we're genuinely curious to see how this resonates. It’s a big idea. Michelle: This is Aibrary, signing off.