The Spiritual Journey Isn’t Just About the Spiritual

It’s important to know the physical/scientific side, too.

Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash

The impetus for writing this came the other day in a two-hour conversation with my great friend and spiritual confidant Nick Winger, a close approximation of his name (and no, it wasn’t Mickey Singer).

We went deep, covering everything from what consciousness is, what the Universe wants to achieve through we mortal beings, what role will plays in all of this, and several other topics I can’t remember because two hours in my head exploded!

The biggest revelation for me came in the way we start this story of the spiritual journey. To a person, every teacher I’ve come across focuses exclusively on the spiritual and, to some extent, the psychological in outlining the path. Makes sense, right?

Well, I’m a pragmatist who feels compelled to examine everything from every side. And one side I rarely see addressed, if ever, by the spiritual luminaries is the physical realm.

What do I mean by physical realm? The nuts and bolts of what we’re born with. And by nuts and bolts, I mostly mean genes.

Evolution and the spiritual journey

All of our genes have been affected by literally millions of years of evolution. And the key thing to remember about evolution is its central point: All living creatures evolve in furtherance of one objective – propagation of their genes. Which means ensuring that some part of us lives on after we die. That’s what it’s all about.

So if a brown lizard species in the Amazon keeps getting gobbled up because it’s easily seen by its prey, that lizard will evolve over thousands of years into a green color that makes it safer because it blends in with the surrounding greenery. Again, to propagate its genes.

For our purposes, we’re interested in how humans evolved, specifically our brains. First in the animal world and then in humans, we developed these things called amygdalae – I use the plural because we have two amygdala, one in each brain hemisphere. In animals and humans, their purpose was to keep us on high alert when danger arose.

Our amygdalae rule us

So, 80,000 years ago, when one of our homo sapiens ancestors came upon a saber-toothed tiger, his amygdalae rushed chemicals throughout his body telling him to run like hell. Again, for the foundational, evolutionary purpose of propagating his genes.

Unfortunately for us, evolution acts at a snail’s pace, to the point that the brain of that 80,000-year-old ancestor of ours is virtually the same as yours and mine. And because the world has changed so much, (there was no iPhone, TikTok or Instagram 80,000 years ago!) our brains are completely discombobulated.

Here’s but one example to illustrate. Let’s say you get a call telling you you’ve been fired, as happened to me many years ago when the TV show The West Wing let me go.

For most people, the response is similar to that ancestor who just encountered the hungry tiger. It’s the amygdalae shooting chemicals galore making us feel like we’re about to die. Which, of course, isn’t true. But our brains think it is…because our brains’ evolution hasn’t caught up to our relatively new reality.

The prefrontal cortex to the rescue

The good news is that evolution did something starting many thousands of years ago to counteract some of the irrational nuttiness of the amygdalae. It created the prefrontal cortex (PFC).

The PFC, located just behind the forehead, is the most recent and advanced anatomical brain structure. It is considered the “personality center” and “executive hub,” responsible for complex behaviors including decision-making, planning, personality expression, and moderating social behavior.

I call the PFC the “cool cucumber.” Why? Because it moderates our “worry wart” amygdalae.

The snake that’s a garden hose

How does that work? Here’s an example Michael Singer uses.

Let’s say you see a coiled up garden hose in someone’s garden. At first, you freak out, thinking it’s a coiled up snake. Your amygdalae shoot adrenaline to every corner of your body and put you on high alert.

But after a moment or two, your PFC enters the picture, takes a closer look at the hose and determines that it’s…a hose. You then calm down and move on.

So the ideal situation for us would be to have a large, thick PFC and smaller, less active amygdalae.

I would bet my bottom dollar that the self-realized gurus from India had massive PFCs and tiny amygdalae.

Now many of you might be thinking,

“This is cool how the brain works and all, but I was born with a certain size and strength PFC and amygdalae, so why should this even matter to me?”

That leads us to what this all means for you and your spiritual journey. The bottom line: We humans have the ability to physically alter our PFC and amygdalae.

And that is a hugely important part of our spiritual journey.

How do we do that? Spiritual practices.

Huh?

Scientific studies on meditation and mindfulness

Several studies, including these two from Harvard and the University of Messina in Italy, show that practicing regular meditation and mindfulness physically enlarges the PFC and decreases both the size and activity of the amygdalae.

It’s all possible because of something called neuroplasticity, the brain’s lifelong ability to reorganize its structure, functions, or connections in response to internal or external stimuli, such as learning, experience, or injury.

For an example of how this works, look no further than my firing from the writing staff of The West Wing, which happened a decade before I started practicing regular meditation and mindfulness.

When I got that phone call from my agent, my head immediately started pumping all kinds of chemicals through my body. They made my whole being feel heavier. Depressed.

Somewhere deep in my psyche, I felt like I was dying. Not in the forefront of my consciousness, but deep down somewhere.

Cut to, as we used to say in Hollywood, twelve years later after several years of regular meditation and mindfulness practice. How did I face brutal Hollywood smackdowns then?

Paris Letdown with no Meltdown

Let’s start with Expats, a pilot script I wrote that Amazon Studios bought from me. It was about four single Americans, two men and two women, all around thirty years old, living and working in Paris, who bond over their shared experience of navigating life as Americans in the City of Lights. It was my version of Sex and the City, set in Paris.

If it got the final green light, the show was going to be filmed in Paris, my favorite city on the planet. This was wildest-dream-come-true territory for me as my wife and I lived in Paris for two months after we got married.

So I work my tail off for months. Turn in the final draft and…I wait. And I wait…

Months later I get the word: No go.

So, how did I handle being told that my dream of producing MY OWN show in Paris was dead? I wasn’t happy about it. There was a deep sense of loss.

But I didn’t get those depression chemicals pumping into my head as I did with The West Wing firing. My head didn’t become heavy and foggy. In other words, I didn’t have that awful, physical reaction inside my head.

Rough Ride with Teddy Roosevelt

A similar scenario occurred a few years later when I wrote a screenplay about Teddy Roosevelt, my favorite president. I sold the script to a production company funded by the billionaire founder of Ameritrade. We went out to Kevin Costner, Michael Keaton and some big-time directors and all seemed groovy.

But alas, another passion project bit the dust. Again, I wasn’t happy about it. But again, no depression chemicals saturating my brain. No horrible thoughts racing around my head. Just some normal sadness that my Teddy Roosevelt project wouldn’t be coming to a theater near you.

Bottom line: I think it’s safe to say that for most of my life I had an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex and fierce and active amygdalae. So when I got fired from The West Wing, my prefrontal cortex wasn’t strong enough to override the total freak out that my amygdala was perpetrating on my entire being.

The takeaway

The main takeaway is for you to become aware of the physical aspect of your spiritual journey.

And to know that doing practices like meditation, mindfulness and others results in physical changes to your brain that make you less anxious and fearful. In other words, these practices make us calmer, clearer and more present.

My hope is that knowing the practical, scientific aspect of the spiritual journey will provide extra incentive for you to get rolling on a meditation and mindfulness practice.

When I finally get off my lazy keester, I’m going to write a book that will help you do just that.

Any comments, the harsher the better, to guilt me into getting the book going would be welcomed and appreciated…