Welcome to "Tell Me More."

I'm Kelly Corrigan.

I'm a writer, a podcaster, and a mom.

This season, number 7, is unlike anything you've seen from us before because everyone who works on this show is reading the same headlines.

There is so much unsettling news about how people are actually feeling, so we have recruited the best scientists and researchers to separate fact from fiction and surface a set of practices we can all live by.

Join us for a 10-part conversation on wellness-- how do you get it, and how do you keep it?

People that generally use religion to cope had less depression.

Corrigan: This is Dr. Alexis Abernathy.

She is the chief academic officer and a professor of psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary.

She studies the intersection of spirituality and health.

She's also the author of a book called "Worship That Changes Lives."

I don't have to know everything.

I don't get to know everything.

It helps me rightsize myself.

Corrigan: This is Dr. B.J.

Miller, a palliative care doc, the co-founder of Mettle Health, and the author of "A Beginner's Guide to the End."

As I've joked before, I don't know how, as a Black man in America, I would be able to get out of bed in the morning without, like, "Help me, Jesus."

You know what I mean?

Like, I just need, like, a little bit of a, like, balloon to get me out of the bed because otherwise, it would be like, "If I logically think this through..." Corrigan: "I should stay here."

"I should just stay right here."

Yeah.

Corrigan: This is W. Kamau Bell.

He's a stand-up comedian and a director and a producer and a dad.

You might know him from his 7 seasons as the host and executive producer of CNN's "The United Shades of America."

Before we get to you, I wonder if you two would describe how, if at all, spirituality informs your mental well-being.

Miller: How are we going to define "spirituality"?

Oh, this is an academic.

Here we go.

Corrigan: Yeah.

We're getting serious right off the bat.

Can't tell the definition of "is."

Corrigan: How do you define "spirituality" when you study it?

Well, first, let's be clear, contested space, so what I'd say, some ways that people talk about it is, it's more the personal experience, not necessarily connected to institutional connections, and it's related to how people experience the sacred.

Do you think you're spiritual?

Yes.

Yes.

And what do you mean by it?

It means that if I'm having a bad day, I might say out loud, "Help me, Black Jesus," and I do believe that somewhere out there is a force that it might reach for me to help pull me through.

There is a greater thing other than the blood and bones and the oxygen.

I have a relationship with the bigger, more metaphysical world that is not specific to any religion, but I know it's based in Christianity because that's how I was raised, so I'm not going to say, "Help me, Black Buddha," because that's not where I came from.

How do you define "spirituality"?

Um, I guess I would say it's some felt connection to the world beyond ourselves that includes ourselves that we can feel but we can't prove, so it's some relationship to mystery and some relationship to connection.

Corrigan: How does it inform your mental well-being day to day?

Well, like, a little bit like Kamau was saying, when there's something, up against something that I just, "Agh," it's driving me bonkers, I can't figure it out, It's nice to just yield to, "I don't have to know everything.

I don't get to know everything."

There's things going on that are beyond me.

It helps me rightsize myself, so to not take on too much responsibility, somehow make all this work, it's a way for me to relax a little bit and take some pressure off myself.

Yielding and rightsizing are two huge ideas for me.

At a minimum level, I can get there just thinking, "There are 8 billion people here"... Mm-hmm.

Mm.

and that's just the people.

There's also a whole lot of other living beings here, and that's just the people and the beings that are here right now... Mm-hmm.

and so the smaller I get, the more I can release, so you're trying to take things like this that we just described as laypeople and study them... Yeah, yeah.

and study how they relate to mental health.

What are you finding?

Well, one of the things we're finding, you can begin to define some dimensions of this, so where I want to start is, first, I was told, "You can't study spirituality.

"You can't study religion.

You can't-- Are you trying to measure God?"

so from day one, I said, "We're not trying to measure God, OK?"

Or even, like, measure transcendent experiences.

Right, although we have a measure of spiritual transcendence because we're trying to get at aspects of the experience.

One of the most well-studied things is religious coping, and we found associations with depression, anxiety, that people that generally use religion to cope had less depression, but then it depends on how you measure it, how you're conceiving it, but another thing which has been more of our focus was church attendance, and even with physical outcomes, church attendance over time has been one of the most strongest findings that it's associated with positive physical health outcomes, more in the cardiovascular domain, and then mental health outcomes, so what is that about?

So I'll never forget, I was actually at a cancer conference, and a researcher was talking about spirituality and cancer, and she said, "You know what?

"We have this finding related to church attendance, "but no one--or many scientists aren't willing to go into church and find out what's going on."

"I will go."

You said that?

You're like, "I'm in."

I was like, "OK.

I will go."

You're a pastor's daughter.

I'm a pastor's daughter, so I've been in the church.

So you're already there.

You're already in the church.

Exactly.

"I've been researching this since before I knew the word "research."

It's interesting to me that you chose to become a scientist and not a pastor because you must also believe in the science of psychology.

It's very interesting.

I considered at different times about being a pastor maybe, of my brothers and I-- Bell: I just imagine your dad being like, "Oh, no.

I raised a scientist.

"God, why hast Thou forsaken me?

I raised a scientist."

Totally.

Yes.

When I mentioned this to my father, guess what he said.

"We need psychologists in the church," so there was never a conflict.

That, to me-- He always encouraged my mind, encouraged my mind, so that was powerful.

Tell me about your beliefs in God but also in science and data.

OK. Beliefs.

My father being a pastor, my mother and father actually met in a United Methodist Church, so there's church, like, all around me in so many different ways, but I saw my grandmother's faith, who was with us 9 months out of the year, and when I saw her, you know, she prayed for the family.

I'd see her have her devotion.

That was a more tangible faith.

So often when I was starting to study spirituality, I was really clear.

I was trying to understand the faith of my grandmother.

Mm-hmm.

It was beyond the religious institution.

It meant how you lived your daily life.

It spoke to this deeper connection, but I think now the way I would describe it, it's an organizing principle for my life.

Every day, it's like there's a renewal and refreshing of me that happens out of my daily medica-- Meditation is a medication for me.

Corrigan: Yeah.

That was, like, a slip.

Yeah.

That's a Freudian slip.

Your meditation is like medication for you.

Yeah, yeah, scripture reading and prayer.

Well-being gets totally interrupted as you gaze at whether-- "If you gaze at your problems, they're center stage."

This was Bishop Van Moody.

I want to give him-- acknowledge his contribution, but if you gaze at your problems and difficulties all the time, that's just your center, and glancing at those things that give you strength, give you meaning, for me, that is my faith.

And could it just as easily be awe at the natural world?

Abernathy: Absolutely.

The effect of spirituality, it doesn't have to be located to a particular faith, number one.

Other kinds of commitments that give people meaning absolutely matter in their orientation toward life and in their bodies, yes.

Corrigan: I'm sort of aware of the component pieces of a worship service.

I grew up going to Catholic Mass, and so I sometimes wonder, could you be an atheist, but go through all those motions, like call and response and singing with a group and being in a high-ceiling, low-lit place?

Is there something about the actual behaviors that you're doing that is enough to deliver the benefits, or do you also have to have the actual belief that there is a God who cares about you and your outcomes?

Yeah.

That's an excellent question, excellent question.

Now, beliefs, of course, matter.

They do.

They do matter, but, like you're saying, if an atheist is in a church service, you know what the next question I'd ask?

What is that atheist's story?

Because some atheists have been previously believing in what's being talked about, and now they're just in a different place, either angry or just saying, "Hey, this isn't relevant for me," but the fact that the atheist is in the church does matter.

Uh-huh.

There's something there that may be drawing, sometimes just a friend's invitation that I'm tired of hearing, you know?

"I'll just go to church this time," right... Yeah.

but then when the person is there, they are seeing people worshiping God, so maybe a God they are not clearly, you know, believing in, but they're witnessing that, so what we found for Christians was, what was very important was the sermon.

Oh.

They heard something that gave them insight about their lives and changed their behavior.

Now, that was our question.

We weren't asking them, "What made you feel good in church?"

Right.

We wanted to know what happened in church that changed how you lived, so what might I think?

An atheist might come to church and hear a sermon, like one of the participants talked about, on forgiveness.

You know, forgiveness is important, no matter what you believe... Yeah.

and that could actually impact that person if it was a moment in time, a spiritual moment where there's a sense of, "You know, I've got some issues in my family," you know, unforgiveness.

Somebody could be convicted.

I would use that language, but just say impressed, have new insight that they might actually incorporate in their lives.

It's easy for me to imagine that people who are holding on to grudges regularly have poor mental health, and that it would be a great improvement.

Bell: Why are you gesturing towards me?

I don't know, you know?

I don't know.

I just feel very-- I feel attacked.

Yeah.

Anything that you want to talk about here?

I have about 3 or 4 grudges that I'm not letting go of.

See?

And how's your mental health?

Not that great.

I mean, it's not great.

It's not great, but, yeah, those grudges are important.

They get me out of bed in the morning.

Corrigan: Yeah.

You know, they're very ener-- Nothing energizes quite like vitriol.

Exactly.

Isn't part of the church-- I'm curious about this because I used to go to church as a kid a lot.

I do not go to church as an adult a lot.

I have 3 kids who the times I've taken them to churches, they've been like, "What?

What?"

and I'm like, "Oh, I messed up.

"I didn't introduce this to you early enough.

You have no context for this," but isn't it also, like, community, just coming together with your community?

Like, I feel like for Black folks, if we didn't go to church, we wouldn't know what was going on in our community back in the day.

You know what I mean?

Church was like-- So whether or not I believe in God, I need to go here to get--to find out what's going on in my community.

It is powerful in that way, very powerful, and even singing together, you know, being physically in the same space and that casual conversation that can happen over coffee or whatever after service, for some people, that's a moment of connection like the connection you mentioned earlier that is very powerful, very powerful... Corrigan: Especially if they have a life that's low in connection, like for isolated people, who we all were there for a minute.

That's right.

How does spirituality come up in your work?

Miller: Hmm, a lot.

I mean, we know this, that patients want to be asked about their faith, about their beliefs.

The witnessing that a doctor, a nurse, or a social worker does is a huge part of the therapy, just seeing you for what you are, so on that level, it's hugely important, comes up a lot.

Chaplaincy is more and more part of health care to some degree.

It's certainly elemental to palliative care and hospice.

You know, the palliative care team is a doc, nurse, social worker, chaplain, so right out of the chutes, the subject is sort of in the mix a little bit, so it comes up in myriad ways in terms of the structure of care but also what our patients are telling us really matters to them.

One little thing I want to get to question you, Alexis, is, does folks who have a strong faith use health care differently?

Do you notice when folks go to the doctor versus when they go to see their pastor and-- Oh, yeah, yeah, so what I'd say, there is still a way in which people might go to religious leaders for help.

Now, what's really helpful is, there's more partnerships.

More religious leaders are working with mental health.

I was just at the American Psychological Association.

People were talking about these kind of partnerships.

Well, partly, the mental health practitioners need to be more partnering with churches now and other organizations because of so many people that are looking and reaching out for help now post-COVID, so I would say there's a definite increased need which is allowing people to pursue therapy in ways that they might never before.

Corrigan: OK, quick round the horn, in what way does spirituality show up in your daily life?

Miller: It shows up in my daily life in all sorts of ways-- how I relate to the other people, how I relate to the natural world, how I relate to myself.

I don't know.

It's all over the place in my daily life, depending, again, how we define it, but as this thing about connection and wonder and not knowing and mystery, that's all over my daily life, happily so.

Do you ever talk to anyone?

Like, do you ever send a prayer up or a thought up?

I haven't in a while.

I used to, and I've kind of been revisiting the idea of prayer, and I first had to figure out why would I be doing that.

Is it--am I just ask-- Is it a wish list, or is there something else?

But I've been kind of feeling the call to pray again, and I don't really know why, so I haven't done it yet, and maybe it has something to do with feeling a little bit more desperate, feel a little bit more out of control.

The stakes feel higher or something that's making me look elsewhere for something-- I don't know--but that's me adding some rational overlay, which is not necessarily a rational thing.

I just feel like I need to start speaking to this vague, mysterious thing that I reference, but I need to relate with it.

How does spirituality show up in your daily life?

I would say it's there throughout the day.

It's never that far away.

Corrigan: Doesn't come and go?

It's-- No, because I think especially-- I think more if I'm going through difficult times.

I've learned enough to understand that logic's not going to get me through every situation, like, that I'm not going to be all, "I can think my way through this," or, "Logically, this bad thing must be happening because I didn't--" No.

It's like there's a little bit of, like, "Oh, it's weird.

"I did this and this, but that didn't happen, but I thought it was going to happen," so spirituality is there to fill in those gaps, absolutely.

Like, otherwise, as I've joked before, I don't know how, as a Black man in America, I would be able to get out of bed in the morning without like, "Help me, Jesus."

You know what I mean?

Like, I just need, like, a little bit of a, like, balloon to get me out of the bed because otherwise, it would be like, "If I logically think this through..." "I should stay here."

"I should just stay right here."

Yeah.

Yeah.

If I put my kids to sleep, I will ask them before they go to sleep, "Tell me 3 things you're grateful for from today," as a way to sort of build in this idea of, like, there are things that happen in your life that are good that you can't take credit for or you didn't deserve, so let's think about those things before we go to sleep, so those are 3 way spirituality shows up.

Corrigan: When I got married, the pastor said during the service, "And remember, life is a mystery to be lived," and so now my husband and I say it to each other all the time.

Abernathy: Mm-hmm.

How about you?

For me, it starts in the morning.

I read scripture, and the thing is, what I'm reading is what our church is reading, so for, like, about now maybe 10 years, we've been going through the bible, and it matters in that I know other people are reading that scripture in my church, and then I pray.

Another way it shows up is, it's like a corrective.

I do more administrative work now, and so when you're administrator, you kind of see sides of yourself.

Especially when you've been primarily a researcher, professor, doing other things, you get in the midst of power struggles and all that stuff and your own, not just other people, so I'm seeing sides of myself that, "Oh, didn't know that was, you know..." You didn't know you could be that.

"going on for me."

Right.

That's right, so I can get caught up in the situation, and so, for me, it is spirituality that keeps me centered, that it's not all about you and just what you're experiencing in the moment.

Understand it, but what will be a grace-filled response here?

Don't react.

Respond.

Did your family use religion or spirituality when you had your accident?

Mm...kind of sort of.

Like, they always use religion kind of sort of.

I mean, you could look at this experience as a very, you know, spiritual lens and see it as this-- You could witness spirituality in my family and friend group at the time.

They weren't calling it that.

Indirectly, it was a huge piece of the puzzle for me.

And when your sister died?

When Lisa died, that was 10 years after, 11 years after.

My sister ended her own life.

By then, my whole family, we were pretty much areligious.

I was thoroughly agnostic as my own sort of description.

It didn't rock our belief system one way or another, this event, her death.

Did it affect how we dealt with it?

Gosh, if anything, it probably made my parents even less religious, also made them less interested in psychology, kind of closed them down on some level.

For me, it just went in the bucket of mysteries, the things I didn't understand, and in some ways helped me even be more interested at some level, so-- To the bucket of mysteries.

Miller: To the bucket, the big, old bucket of mystery.

It's a big bucket.

Has your family ever turned to religion?

Yes.

I mean, I don't, like-- Yeah.

I mean, my dad's Mobile, Alabama.

That's the Deep South, so, again, that's one of those communities where, even if you don't go to church your whole life, you have a minister, like, because there's someplace where your grandmother went to church there, so there's just not the same type of, like-- Their relationship to church is more direct.

It's more about your community connection.

It's just in the air, God talk, Jesus talk.

Like, I feel like in the South, if people say, "Jesus," they might mean He's outside.

Like, you know, they talk about Jesus like He's on His way, like literally, like, Jesus, so I think there's just a way in which it imbues in a way that-- Like, my wife is Catholic.

Her family's relationship to Catholicism--even though, I think, they went to Mass every Sunday-- doesn't feel the same as my family's relationship to Christianity.

What is the way that psychology shows up in your life every day?

Like, what is something that you've understood from the science of psychology that aids you?

I'm a group therapist, so I would say group dynamics.

They're relevant, no matter what-- family groups or friend group.

Miller: I catch myself all the time projecting, and from sort of the psychobabble world, even that word "projection" and understanding how you get on the receiving end of it all the time with this stuff, I guess we all do in one way or another, and so I catch myself around projection all the time, too.

I'm hyper aware of all the cognitive biases.

Like, I'm hyper aware that I all the time am just operating from a very flawed machinery.

I must be getting 40% of everything wrong all the time, and that's very relaxing for me, and so are you, and so are you, and then it's like, "Oh, great.

We're all a mess together.

Yay."

I think--so I'm going to quote one of the greatest Black women psychologists of all time-- Maya Angelou.

That phrase, "When somebody shows you who they are, believe them the first time," is a super powerful way to go.

"Oh, this is who you are.

"I got to stop expecting different things from you," and that has literally saved my whole-- especially my showbiz career, like, "Oh, oh, you're that guy.

OK. All right, all right, then I don't need to--" so I think knowing that, like, when people reveal themselves to you, that that is literally who they are, then you should change your expectations of that person, doesn't mean you can't associate with them, but, like, "Oh, I can't demand things from you "or ask things of you that "you're not prepared to give, so I just need to put you over here."

I shouldn't try to teach a pig to sing.

It can't be done, and it makes the pig angry.

That is-- Who said that?

I don't know, but I live by it.

That's--yeah, like, so understanding that people are who they are and just because you want something differently from them, it doesn't mean that they're capable of doing that, and if you keep expecting that, then it's on you.

Right.

It's not on them.

It's on you.

It's a recipe for madness.

It's a recipe for madness.

Miller: Where does doubt come into this?

Is there research around this, Alexis?

Is this set up for what... Yeah.

You know what I'd say about that, several different things.

Our early work, you know, people were either against spirituality and said it's problematic, all associated with psychopathology-- Where religion was considered psychopathological.

All of that--religion, spirituality, all of it.

Like you were possessed, kind of.

Yeah, and think about it.

It often came up in psychiatric settings as delusions, et cetera, but why?

Because, like you just said, clinicians weren't listening to the breadth of what patients have always been talking about, right?

What our models, though, then, even from that time, don't really give room for the complexity of spiritual experience, so our churches and our religious institutions often don't.

You need to just believe whatever, you know, the doctrine is, and almost to question is, "Well, you won't really believe."

Then in psychology and mental health, we didn't have more differentiated models, so one of the models I really appreciate, Sandage and Shults, they have a spiritual transformation model, and they talk about, really, the spiritual journey goes between dwelling and seeking, 7and if you stay too long in dwelling-- and I'm a dwelling type of person, OK-- if you stay too long in dwelling, stability, you actually get stagnant.

Mm-hmm.

The seeking, that's what you're talking about, the seeking where there's doubt and questioning, and they're really saying the rhythm of the spiritual life should be ebb and flow, so that makes sense to me.

Spirituality is an enormous friggin' subject.

Oh, yes, yes.

Thank God we're getting to some nuance about it.

Hear that?

"Thank God."

[Laughter] Corrigan: You have been revealed.

[Laughter] I don't care how you describe it.

We just found out.

I'm thinking about if fewer people are going to religious services week in and week out, and so they're not availing themselves of these mental health benefits-- they don't see people face to face; they don't sing together; they don't have a place to hand their problems; they don't get that yield moment; they don't get the small moment-- is there any way that society might grow some other component piece that delivers the same benefits, such that we might see the mental health numbers change?

Abernathy: Yeah.

When you were just saying that, you know what came to me?

Hmm?

Caring about the world we live in, you know, the environment we live in, the air.

A lot of the things that we do, we think about our well-being in terms of our own bodies, you know, or "My own, my own, my own, my family."

What about us all together?

We're all together, so I just-- What would I hope?

I'd hope that there may be a way that we see our connection despite these things that could divide us, which I know right now seems, like, impossible, but I still believe that that can happen.

Why?

Because there's something about the way the world is.

It kind of requires it.

Corrigan: Thank you so much!

It was so wonderful to be with you.

Thank you.

That was so great.

Thank you, Alexis.

Thanks, Boss.

Thanks.

Corrigan: Here are my takeaways from my conversation with Alexis, Kamau, and B.J.

Number one, it's worth taking a moment to define spirituality for yourself.

Number two, yielding and rightsizing can help us release, creating an invaluable distance from self.

Number 3, science is just beginning to understand how belief affects well-being.

Number 4, forgiveness is good for our mental health.

Number 5, people want to be seen fully by their caregivers.

Number 6, seeking beats dwelling.

Number 7, meditation is medication, and, number 8, psychology and ministry can be a powerful combination for wellness.

If you'd like us to send you this list, we're happy to do it.

Just send an email to PBS@kellycorrigan.com.

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