THE SOUL
SPIRITUAL THRIVING & THE UPSIDE OF WOO
I believe that cultivating a connection to the Divine—the source of love, consciousness, and creative intelligence—is the ultimate biohack. Until now, we’ve focused on linear growth through things like a healthy body and a calm, focused mind. But this next phase offers something more profound: the possibility of vertical ascension—a massive leap in awareness, presence, and joy. Some might call it an awakening. Welcome to the spiritual dimension of GratiJoy, where we explore what I call The Upside of Woo—or perhaps more precisely, The Upside of the Right Amount of Woo.
The term “woo” is often used playfully or dismissively to refer to practices considered mystical, unscientific, or outside the realm of rational thinking. But what if some of these ideas—far from being baseless—actually hold deep truths about the nature of reality and our own human potential? What if they have nothing but upside?
Take, for example, the scientific work being done at the University of Virginia Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS), where researchers explore consciousness beyond the brain, including near-death experiences, children's past-life memories, and verified cases of non-local awareness. Or the powerful research by Dr. Lisa Miller, whose work on transcendent awareness shows that a spiritual orientation to life enhances mental health, cognitive flexibility, and resilience. These aren't fringe ideas anymore. They're gaining ground in peer-reviewed science, and they point to one thing: we are more than just our brains. We are eternal, conscious beings. We are souls. In other words, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.
So is it really so “woo” to believe we have a soul?
I believe we each carry within us an eternal essence that transcends our physical form. When we align our personality with our soul—our higher self—we experience more peace, more love, and more meaning. It’s not about dogma. It’s about direct experience. When I live with this transcendent awareness, I feel more grateful. My relationships deepen, my fears diminish, and I move through the world with more trust and less anxiety. All upside. No downside.
This section of GratiJoy is dedicated to spiritual practices and perspectives that open the heart, quiet the mind, and connect us to something greater. Here’s a taste of what you’ll find:
Evidence of the Soul: University of Virginia Division of Perceptual Studies Deep Dives – exploring scientific studies that point to the survival of consciousness and the reality of the soul.
The Science of Spirituality – insights from Dr. Lisa Miller on how spiritual practices literally rewire the brain and protect our mental health.
Heart Coherence – techniques and tools from the HeartMath Institute to align your emotional and physiological states with love, clarity, and inner stillness.
The GratiJoy Meditation Practice – a daily practice I developed that fuses gratitude, joy, and spiritual alignment.
Manifestation and Alignment – exploring how our thoughts, emotions, and energy create our reality, and how to align with the highest version of ourselves.
A Series on Love – the most powerful spiritual force we know, and how love (not fear) can become the organizing principle of your life.
Spiritual Masters Series – journey into timeless wisdom from sages, mystics, and spiritual teachers across traditions and eras.
A Series on Freedom – discover how life’s obstacles can become the path, and how acceptance and non-resistance open the door to deeper liberation.
Whether you’re spiritually curious, quietly devoted, or just “woo-adjacent,” there’s no need to believe anything. I only ask that you come with an open heart and an open mind. This space is for exploration, not dogma.
If you're certain your way is the only way, this might not be the right place for you. But if you're willing to embrace mystery and paradox—you’re warmly welcome here.
To live with more love, more awareness, and more joy. This is the Upside of Woo. → Listen here if you are ready to get started!
Evidence of the Soul
“If you desire to know your soul, the first step is to recognize that you have a soul.” – Gary Zukav
For many years I’ve been deeply curious about the question of the soul. Do we really have one? Where do we go when we die? And if we do return, why? These aren’t just abstract ideas to me—they feel like some of the most important questions a human being can ask. My curiosity eventually turned into a quest: if the soul is real, I wanted to find the most legitimate evidence for it. That search led me to the top researchers in near-death experiences, past lives, and past-life regression.
When I first began this journey, I expected to find little more than speculation. Instead, I was stunned to discover data—carefully collected by serious scientists at respected institutions. The work of the University of Virginia’s Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS) is especially remarkable. Over the past 60 years, Dr. Ian Stevenson and Dr. Jim Tucker have investigated thousands of children who recall past lives. In parallel, Dr. Bruce Greyson, also at UVA, has spent more than 40 years studying near-death experiences, publishing over 100 peer-reviewed papers. And beyond UVA, Dr. Michael Newton, a counseling psychologist, spent decades exploring “life between lives” through deep hypnosis.
Although I have read many books on these subjects, my main sources for this writing are below. I highly recommend checking these out.
Life Before Life and Return to Life (Jim Tucker, M.D., UVA psychiatrist).
After (Bruce Greyson, M.D., UVA psychiatrist).
Journey of Souls (Michael Newton, Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology).
Tim Ferriss’ 2024 podcast with Bruce Greyson.
Taken together, these works make an astonishing case: we are spiritual beings, consciousness survives death, and our souls evolve across lifetimes.
Reincarnation Evidence: UVA’s Solved Cases
DOPS maintains over 2,500 “solved cases” of children who insist they are someone else. These are typically 2- to 6-year-olds who suddenly begin speaking about another life. They give names, describe family members, identify where they lived, and how they died. Investigators (Stevenson and Tucker) then verify the data from the family and friends of the “previous personality.” A case is only marked “solved” when the details are verified—and thousands have been.
Key statistics:
2,500+ solved cases to date.
Average age when speaking about a past life begins: 2–3 years old.
75% of children describe their death, most often traumatic (suggesting that sudden or violent deaths may make past-life memories more accessible).
Median time between death and rebirth: 15–16 months.
A third of Indian cases involve birthmarks or defects corresponding to fatal wounds; nearly 1 in 5 confirmed by medical records.
One of the most striking contributions of Dr. Ian Stevenson was his monumental two-volume, 2,200-page book Reincarnation and Biology, which documents 225 cases with photographs of birthmarks and birth defects that match the fatal wounds of previous personalities. In many cases, autopsy or medical records confirmed the exact wound locations. This remains the most comprehensive published body of physical evidence for reincarnation in history.
Some Examples that defy coincidence:
Boy with gunshot wounds. Born with two birthmarks, one small and round on his chest, the other large and irregular on his back. The “previous personality” had been shot in the chest, with the bullet exiting through his back—exactly where the marks were.
Boy with throat scar. Born with a long mark across his neck, he insisted he was murdered by having his throat slit. Records confirmed the prior personality died that way.
James Leininger (U.S.). At age 2, he screamed of crashing in a plane. He gave the name “Natoma” (an aircraft carrier), “Jack Larsen” (a fellow pilot), and described being shot down. Navy records verified every detail matched pilot James Huston Jr., killed in WWII.
The girl who named 25 relatives. One child correctly named 25 family members from a prior life with only one error—the odds of guessing are essentially zero.
Patrick and Kevin (U.S.). Patrick was born blind in one eye and with a limp, identical to his deceased half-brother Kevin. At age 4, Patrick began talking about Kevin’s life.
One or two anecdotes can be brushed aside. But when 2,500 children across cultures and decades give verifiable details, anecdotes become evidence.
Near-Death Experiences: What the Dying Tell Us
If reincarnation cases suggest that souls return, near-death experiences (NDEs) suggest where we go when we die. For over 40 years, Dr. Bruce Greyson at UVA has been the leading scientific investigator of NDEs, publishing more than 100 peer-reviewed papers and creating the Greyson NDE Scale, the world’s most widely used tool to study them.
NDEs are no longer rare. With advances in modern medicine and resuscitation technology, millions of people worldwide have now reported them. Studies estimate that 10–20% of patients who suffer cardiac arrest will describe an NDE. Given how many people each year experience clinical death and are revived, this translates into tens of millions of cases globally.
And what’s striking is how consistent these reports are. Across cultures, ages, genders, and religions, experiencers tell the same kinds of stories: leaving their body, encountering overwhelming love, seeing deceased loved ones, undergoing a life review, and being told it was “not their time.”
Patients with NDEs gave detailed, correct accounts of medical procedures that unconscious patients without NDEs consistently got wrong.
This was shown most clearly in a review of 93 out-of-body cases conducted by professor Jan Holden. She found that:
92% of the perceptions were completely accurate.
6% contained some error.
Only 1% were completely wrong.
These patients were not only unconscious—they were in many cases clinically dead, with no heartbeat or measurable brain activity. Yet they described medical procedures, instruments, and even conversations in the operating room with uncanny accuracy.
Key statistics from decades of research:
80% leave their bodies, often observing their own resuscitation from above.
75% report encounters with deceased loved ones or beings of light.
25% undergo a life review, reliving events from both their own and others’ perspectives. Experiencers often say they felt how their actions impacted others.
96% say their NDEs were “definitely real.” Most describe them as “more real than real.”
Long-term effects: Nearly all report loss of fear of death, increased compassion, and a decreased focus on materialism.
Stories that stand out:
The surgeon’s flapping arms. A patient described watching her doctor flap his arms like a bird during surgery. When Greyson asked, the surgeon admitted this was how he dried his hands before surgery.
The shoe on the ledge. A patient insisted she saw a tennis shoe on a third-floor hospital ledge during her NDE. A social worker checked and found the shoe exactly where she described—visible only from above.
Loved ones waiting. Thousands of experiencers report seeing deceased relatives, but some cases are especially striking because the experiencer had no way of knowing the person had died. Stories like these are particularly compelling because they remove the possibility of the experiencer simply projecting their expectations. These encounters involved people whose deaths had not yet been communicated to the patient — making coincidence an unlikely explanation.
For example, one man described meeting his sister during his NDE. She told him it wasn’t his time yet. When he later recovered, he learned that his sister had passed away unexpectedly just hours before his cardiac arrest. He could not have known this at the time.
Another experiencer, a young mother, reported being greeted by her grandmother in her NDE. She was shocked to discover later that her grandmother had died that very day, while she was still in the hospital.
What NDEs Mean
Dr. Greyson is cautious. He does not declare NDEs “proof” of life after death. Instead, he presents the evidence and leaves it up to the reader. But the consistency, prevalence, and accuracy of these accounts are impossible to ignore.
As Greyson has said, “Whatever NDEs are, they change people’s lives faster, more profoundly, and more permanently than psychotherapy or drugs.”
Taken together, NDEs suggest that consciousness does not simply end at death. Instead, our consciousness expands, encounters love, reviews its life, and often comes back transformed.
If you are curious to learn more, and especially to hear directly from people who have experienced profound near-death experiences, I recommend exploring the Coming Home Channel on YouTube. It features hundreds of first-person NDE accounts, many of which echo the same themes described in the scientific research: overwhelming love, encounters with loved ones, and the conviction that life continues beyond death.
Journey of Souls: Life Between Lives
While UVA’s work focuses on verifiable external evidence, Dr. Michael Newton, Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology, contributed another perspective. Newton was a practicing therapist for 30 years, trained in hypnotherapy, and eventually became the founder of the Newton Institute for Life Between Lives.
Initially skeptical, Newton stumbled into cases where clients under hypnosis described not past lives but the spiritual world between lives. Over decades, he collected reports from more than 7,000 clients.
What his clients consistently reported:
Guides and loved ones greeting them after death.
Healing stations of light to restore energy after difficult lives.
Life reviews with wise beings or councils.
We are a part of Soul groups—clusters of like-minded souls who reincarnate together as family or friends.
The soul plans new lifetimes in order to revisit unresolved lessons or to accelerate its spiritual growth.
The Hierarchy of Souls.
Newton’s research also uncovered a fascinating structure of spiritual development. Based on thousands of client sessions, he observed remarkable consistency in how people described their soul’s progress. From these reports, he developed a framework of levels—ranging from I to VI—that map the soul’s growth over many lifetimes:
Level I–II: Beginner souls, often still struggling with fear, selfishness, and immaturity.
Level III–IV: Intermediate souls, learning compassion, balance, and responsibility.
Level V–VI: Advanced and master souls, often serving as guides for others.
Each level reflects greater wisdom, vibrational energy, and capacity to love. Souls advance not through perfection, but through persistent growth across many lifetimes.
Newton’s conclusion echoes the others: the purpose of reincarnation is evolution of the soul. Life is a school, and we return until we have mastered love.
Addressing Skepticism.
Could Michael Newton have made this up? In theory, yes — or perhaps 7,000 clients all unconsciously created similar stories under hypnosis. Critics of hypnosis sometimes raise this possibility. But Newton himself began as a skeptic, and he was surprised when clients started describing the same kinds of “between lives” experiences without prompting. Across decades of work, people from different cultures, religions, and backgrounds consistently reported remarkably similar themes: guides, soul groups, life reviews, and planning future incarnations.
Importantly, there are no credible claims of fraud against Newton. His credentials as a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology, 30 years as a therapist, and his membership in professional associations lend further weight. While his findings cannot be “proven” in the same way UVA’s reincarnation cases can, the consistency of his clients’ reports makes them very compelling: clients from different cultures, backgrounds, and belief systems independently described remarkably similar experiences. Once again, anecdotes converged into patterns.
This is really good news…
When we put these three streams of research together—Stevenson and Tucker’s 2,500 reincarnation cases, Greyson’s decades of NDE studies, and Newton’s 7,000 life-between-lives sessions—the conclusion is profound:
We are spiritual beings.
Consciousness survives death.
Our lives are part of a larger curriculum of growth and love.
This is not just philosophy — it is profoundly good news. Life is not random. Death is not the end. And unconditional, Divine love—the overwhelming force described by near-death experiencers and by souls in Newton’s sessions—is the very fabric of reality.
Pause for a moment and imagine the weight of that truth. For me, the awareness that I am an eternal being, unconditionally loved by the Creator of All, has completely reshaped my outlook on life. I now see myself as a participant in the “earth school,” here to grow, to face fears, and to evolve in love.
I know this may sound a little far-fetched at first, but when I reflect on the vastness and mystery of our universe, it actually feels quite reasonable. Think about it: the universe has existed for nearly 14 billion years, with potentially 2 trillion total galaxies, and even today physicists admit that dark energy—which makes up about 75% of the cosmos—is something we don’t really understand. If reality itself is filled with such scale and mystery, is it really such a leap to imagine a spiritual dimension? Whatever force or intelligence created this universe surely has the creativity to craft a beautiful spiritual realm as well. And just as the biological world evolves, it makes sense that our souls would evolve too.
But what if none of this is true? What if the lights simply go out, and there is no soul, no continuity, no greater meaning? Even then, I will have spent my life striving to be more loving, compassionate, and grateful. My relationships with family and friends will have been deeper, my days richer in joy. And that is the true upside of woo—more love, more gratitude, more joy, with nothing to lose.
Contrast this with the alternative: living as if everything is random, meaningless, and rooted in fear. Which path creates a more beautiful life?
It is in this spirit that I return to Gary Zukav’s timeless reminder from Seat of the Soul:
“If you desire to know your soul, the first step is to recognize that you have a soul. The next step is to allow yourself to consider, ‘If I have a soul, what is my soul? What does my soul want? What is the relationship between my soul and me? How does my soul affect my life?’ When the energy of the soul is recognized, acknowledged, and valued, it begins to infuse with the personality.”
And here is a beautiful tribute to the soul’s enduring light—Tedeschi Trucks Band’s Soul Sweet Song reminds us how love and spirit live on through music.”
Lisa Miller, PhD: The New Science of Spirituality and the Awakened Brain
Dr. Lisa Miller is a leading psychologist, researcher, and professor in the fields of spirituality and mental health. She earned her BA from Yale University and her PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. Currently, she serves as a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she founded and directs the Spirituality Mind Body Institute—the first Ivy League graduate program integrating spirituality and psychology.
She is a total badass.I first discovered Lisa’s work through her powerful conversation on the Rich Roll Podcast, and I was immediately hooked. Her message resonated so deeply with me that I dove straight into her book The Awakened Brain, which weaves together neuroscience, epidemiology, and clinical psychology to show that spirituality is not only central to human thriving—it’s biologically innate.
I highly recommend that you start with the podcast, and then read the book if you like what you hear. However, I took my kindle notes and the podcast transcript and had ChatGPT help me make this great synopsis of her work.
Core Thesis
Miller’s essential claim is both revolutionary and ancient: we are all born with a spiritual faculty—a neurological capacity to experience connection, love, meaning, and guidance from a transcendent source. She calls this capacity “the awakened brain,” and her research shows that when we actively engage it, we become more resilient, less depressed, and more fulfilled.
“The awakened brain is the inner lens through which we access the truest and most expansive reality: that all of life is sacred, that we never walk alone.” — Lisa Miller
The Neuroscience of Spirituality
The Awakened Brain in the Scanner
Miller’s lab conducted groundbreaking fMRI and EEG research to study brain activity during spiritual experience. In one study, participants were asked to recount personal spiritual moments (e.g., feeling connected to God, the universe, or life). Across all spiritual traditions—or even no tradition at all—she found consistent neural signatures:
Default Mode Network Deactivation
The area responsible for self-focused rumination—often overactive in depression—became quiet.
Ventral Attention Network Activation
Open awareness and receptivity increased.
Frontotemporal Activation
This network is associated with experiences of love, presence, and connection.
Parietal Lobe Modulation
Helped dissolve the illusion of separateness and fostered a felt sense of unity with others and with life.
Cortical Thickness and Long-Term Health
Studies showed that the brains of highly spiritual individuals had greater cortical thickness in regions associated with perception and reflection—the same areas that shrink in depressed brains. This “high-spiritual brain” is structurally healthier and more resilient over time.
“When we awaken, we feel more fulfilled and at home in the world, and we build relationships and make decisions from a wider view.”
— Lisa Miller
Spirituality Is Heritable—and Teachable
Working with epidemiologist Dr. Kenneth Kendler, Miller cites a landmark twin study that found 29% of one’s capacity for spirituality is heritable, while 71% is shaped by life experience, community, and practice.
This means that spiritual sensitivity is encoded in our biology, much like musical ability or intelligence.
But it also means we can strengthen it with the right practices, relationships, and environments
“Our spirituality is our birthright.” — Lisa Miller
Spirituality and Mental Health: A Scientific Shield
Miller’s epidemiological work has revealed staggering correlations between personal spirituality and reduced mental illness:
80% less likely to experience clinical depression among adolescents with a strong personal spirituality, even when factoring in genetics and family environment
75–90% protection from recurrence of depression in adults at high risk.
62–82% lower rates of completed suicide, particularly when spirituality is practiced in a communal context
40–80% reduction in substance abuse and addiction in teens with strong spiritual grounding
“Nothing else in clinical or pharmacological mental health—no drug, no talk therapy—comes close to these levels of protection.” — Lisa Miller
Beyond the Brain: The Soul of Her Message
Miller does not shy away from including what some might call “woo woo”—but she grounds these messages in both personal experience and transpersonal science.
“We Are Loved, Held, Guided, and Never Alone”
This phrase, repeated throughout her book and talks, captures the felt experience of awakened awareness. Spiritual perception allows us to tap into a loving consciousness, whether one calls it God, Source, the Universe, or simply Life.
“There is a rhythm and intelligence to the universe, and when we awaken, we can see it. We can trust it. We are never alone.”
Synchronicity and Quantum Entanglement
In The Awakened Brain, Miller draws upon Jungian psychology and quantum physics to explore synchronicity:
She references quantum entanglement as a metaphor for how lives can become interlinked in mysterious ways across space and time.
Spiritual awareness enhances our perception of synchronicities—those improbable yet meaningful coincidences that seem to guide us.
“When we see life as alive and guiding, we are in dialogue with it. That’s the awakened path.” — Lisa Miller
Trail Angels
Miller’s message comes alive when we look at how synchronicity shows up in everyday life. Long-distance hikers often speak of “trail angels”—strangers who appear at just the right moment with food, water, or encouragement. These encounters feel more like grace than coincidence, as if the path itself were guiding and providing.
Miller reminds us that life works this way too: we can encounter trail angels, and just as importantly, we can become them—choosing to offer kindness and support that may arrive for someone else as a moment of grace at just the right time. This echoes what Dr. Bruce Grayson has found in his research on near-death experiences. During life reviews, people often relive moments when they were a source of help or comfort for another, and they don’t just recall the event—they actually feel what the other person felt. In this sense, being a “trail angel” is far more than a kind gesture; it is part of the lasting fabric of meaning in our lives, woven into the shared experience of love and connection.
Practices for Cultivating the Awakened Brain
Miller offers both ancient and innovative tools:
Spiritual Storytelling: Recalling and sharing transformative moments.
The Council Exercise: Visualizing guides (loved ones, ancestors, Higher Self) offering support and wisdom.
Synchronicity Tracking: Paying attention to and recording meaningful coincidences.
Nature Immersion: Feeling the life force in natural systems.
Altruism and Love of Neighbor: Empirically the most powerful neural activator of the awakened brain.
Final Message: The Spiritual Brain Is Who We Are
Lisa Miller’s work is a bridge between two worlds—the lab and the soul. She invites us to reclaim a lost inheritance:
“The awakened brain is not the privileged insight of a lucky few, but the birthright of all.”
When we live from our awakened brain, we can move from despair to hope, from isolation to connection, and from striving to surrender. And we begin to trust, perhaps for the first time, that we are loved, we are guided, and we are never alone.
Heart Coherence
The journey I’m on is about cultivating both a quiet mind and an open heart. While it’s relatively easy to grasp the concept of practicing how to quiet the mind—through meditation, breathwork, and mindfulness—what does it actually mean to open the heart? And how do we practice that?
In 2024, I took a course called The Science of Love taught by Rollin McCraty, Ph.D., a psychophysiologist and Director of Research at the HeartMath® Institute (HMI). That experience helped answer these questions in a way that deeply resonated with me.
According to Rollin, there are scientifically studied techniques we can use to elevate our level of consciousness and expand our capacity for love. He teaches that “The vibrational spectrum of love enables you to heighten your capacity for compassion, kindness, latitude, love, and more—for yourself and others—on an energetic level.”
The course was fascinating. Even better, the practices were easy to incorporate into daily life. Since applying them, I’ve felt an increase in love, gratitude, compassion, and intuitive clarity. In what follows, I’ll distill 20+ hours of course material into a few pages, covering what heart coherence is, the science behind it, and how you can start practicing it.
What Is Heart Coherence?
Scientific Definition:
Coherence is a state of optimal alignment and harmony within and between your physiological, emotional, mental, and energetic systems. It’s most easily observed in the synchronized rhythms of your heart, brain, and nervous system.
In measurable terms, heart coherence refers to a smooth, sine-wave-like heart rate variability (HRV) pattern. This state:
Reflects balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems
Enhances cognitive clarity, emotional stability, and physical efficiency
Is most easily achieved through intentional breathing and positive emotional states (like gratitude or compassion)
Spiritual Dimension:
On a spiritual level, coherence feels like alignment with your higher self (soul), inner wisdom, or a universal intelligence. It brings peace, presence, and connection—both internally and with the world around you. Practices like heart-focused meditation help us access this deeper coherence, which in turn cultivates intuition, resilience, and emotional elevation.
Simple Heart Coherence Practice
This can be done anytime—in meditation, during a walk, or even silently in a meeting. I personally add it as the second half of my meditation and take several short coherence breaks throughout the day (I set reminders on my phone).
Step-by-Step:
Heart Focus:
Gently shift your attention to the area around your heart. Imagine your breath flowing in and out of this space.Heart Breathing:
Breathe a little slower and deeper than usual. Find a comfortable rhythm.Activate a Renewing Emotion:
Call up a feeling of care, compassion, appreciation, or gratitude. Radiate that emotion inward toward your body or outward to someone you love—follow your intuition.Sustain the Feeling:
Stay with it for a few minutes or just 5–10 breaths. The more consistently you do this, the more natural it becomes.
This practice integrates mindfulness, but with the added dimension of emotional resonance. It shifts your physiological baseline over time, making it easier to stay calm and connected even in challenging moments. I sometimes do this silently in groups, intending to “broadcast” love to everyone around me. I love how much benefit I receive from such a short, simple practice.
The Science Behind Heart Coherence
Ilya Prigogine, Nobel laureate in chemistry, described how “small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos can shift the entire system to a higher order.” This principle applies not just to physics, but to human biology and consciousness.
Just as Prigogine's "islands of coherence" can influence and reorganize chaotic systems, practices that promote heart coherence—such as focused breathing and cultivating positive emotions—can harmonize physiological processes, leading to improved emotional and physical well-being, which includes the ability to self regulate our emotional state. The ability to self-regulate emotions, thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors is central to most of the stress, health challenges, and relationship issues that people experience. So one of the most important strengths we can build is the capacity to self-regulate.
Here’s why it matters:
The heart has its own complex nervous system and sends more signals to the brain than vice versa.
These heart signals influence brain regions involved in emotion, decision-making, and perception—especially the amygdala, which synchronizes with the heart’s rhythm.
By practicing heart coherence, we “reset” this system and create a new emotional baseline, improving our ability to self-regulate in real time.
Energetic Field of the Heart:
Each heartbeat produces an electromagnetic field that radiates 3 to 6 feet from the body in a toroidal (doughnut-shaped) form.
This field reflects your emotional state in real time. Love, gratitude, and compassion create a smooth, coherent field. Stress and fear create a jagged, incoherent one.
Studies show that your heart’s field affects others. In emotionally bonded relationships, heart rhythms can become synchronized—even from a distance.
This means we’re all contributing our emotional energy into a shared vibrational environment. Love, coherence, and intention are not just personal—they're collective forces.
Global Impact
HeartMath research has shown that shared states of coherence can influence others, even across great distances. In one global study, participants practicing a technique called Heart Lock-In experienced synchronized heart rhythms despite being located in different parts of the world.
This suggests we’re all part of a global field—a living web of energy shaped by our emotions and intentions.
The more we consciously cultivate positive emotional states, the more we elevate not just our own lives, but the collective atmosphere. That’s what makes heart coherence such a powerful—and beautiful—practice.
Advanced Heart Coherence Meditation
For those who want to go deeper, here’s a more immersive version of the practice. By the way, I like to use this song during this part of my meditation
Posture: Seated, spine straight, feet grounded, hands resting on heart or lap
Optional Enhancements: Calm music, HRV monitor, essential oils, or crystals
Step 1: Heart-Focused Breathing
Focus on your heart.
Inhale for 5–6 seconds, exhale for 5–6 seconds.
Imagine light flowing in and out of your heart with your breath.
Let your nervous system begin to entrain to this rhythm.
Step 2: Activate a Regenerative Emotion
Call up a deep emotion such as love, compassion, or gratitude.
Let it saturate your chest. Expand it with your breath.
Step 3: Expand the Field
Visualize this emotion forming a glowing field around your heart.
Imagine the circular flow of energy looping around your body
Feel it strengthen and connect to the Earth’s field.
Optionally send this coherence to loved ones or the planet.
Step 4: Intuitive Listening
Ask a heartfelt question:
“What do I need to know?”
“How can I serve today?”
“What is most true in this moment?”Listen with your body, not your mind.
Step 5: Integration and Closing
Return gently to your body and surroundings.
Give thanks to your heart.
Carry the coherence into your day.
Optional Tools
I highly recommend the HeartMath Inner Balance device. It measures your coherence in real time and helps reinforce the practice with biofeedback. You can find it here:
https://store.heartmath.org/inner-balance-coherence-plus.html
It’s not cheap, but if you're serious about opening your heart, deepening your intuition, and embodying love, it’s a worthy investment. I’ve used one for years.
To learn more about the science and tools behind this practice, I also recommend visiting the HeartMath Institute website.
Final Thought
I’ve spent many hours studying and practicing heart coherence, and I’m convinced that the energetic heart is real. It’s not just a metaphor—it’s the access point to the soul. Many spiritual traditions emphasize choosing love over fear, and heart coherence is a practical, repeatable way to do exactly that.
During the course, it was inspiring to hear others share their experiences—more synchronicity, clearer intuition, deeper peace.
We can practice being open-hearted.
We can broadcast love.
And we can change the field around us—one coherent breath at a time.
What a blessing.
GratiJoy Practice
GratiJoy is not just a concept—it’s a practice. Neurologically, it shows up as gamma waves; spiritually, it feels like a prayer of thanks to the Creator. It also carries reverence and awe, because at its heart it is appreciation for the sheer gift of being alive.
GratiJoy is also about frequency. Frequency comes before thought and action—when we shift our frequency, our entire outlook changes. This practice is a deliberate way of raising that frequency into love, joy, and connection.
My son once asked me if I had a super power, a gift that comes naturally. At first, I said I didn’t have one. But later, it struck me: I’m naturally good at being grateful, and this practice is what I have learned to help me master the art of gratitude.
I first stumbled into this state on a bike ride, but later discovered it could be cultivated intentionally. Here’s how I learned that—and why it matters.
The Gamma Wave Discovery
One evening over dinner with close friends, I described how these waves of deep gratitude and joy had been coming over me—often on hikes or bike rides—leaving me with a sense of being connected to something vast and loving. A close friend of mine, a neuroscientist who runs a company specializing in EEG brain scans, listened carefully. She suggested I come in the next morning to see what was happening in my brain when I entered that state.
Curious, I agreed.
The following morning I went on a ride through the Colorado mountains. It was one of those golden days when the sky feels endless and every breath is fresh and alive. I had several bursts of GratiJoy along the way, which left me primed and open as I arrived for the scan.
She fitted me with a cap of electrodes, each one carefully placed, and I sat quietly as the machine recorded. About ten minutes in, she asked me to see if I could bring up the state I had been describing. I had never tried to summon it deliberately before, but almost instantly I dropped into it. My chest expanded, light seemed to pour in, and the familiar warmth of gratitude filled me.
When the session ended, she looked at me with misty eyes and explained what she had seen: I had sustained unusually high gamma wave activity for several minutes—something rare even among people trained in advanced meditation. Then she paused and said, “You have to teach this. People need to know how to do what you just did.”
Why Gamma Matters
Gamma waves are the fastest brain rhythms (30–100 Hz, sometimes higher). They link different parts of the brain together, allowing insights and memories to converge into what we know as “a-ha!” moments. Normally, these bursts last only seconds.
But research by Richard Davidson and Antoine Lutz at the University of Wisconsin showed that advanced Tibetan monks could generate massive, synchronized gamma activity across their whole brains while meditating on compassion—and hold it for minutes at a time. Gamma has since been called a neurological signature of mystical experience: a measurable imprint of states people describe as transcendent, blissful, or sacred.
Gamma also shows up in flow states—moments when athletes, artists, and musicians lose themselves in effortless performance. Creativity, insight, unity, and presence all seem to ride on gamma’s waves.
Even more compelling, Davidson and Lutz found that in seasoned meditators, this gamma coherence persisted even at rest. In other words, their practice had changed their baseline neurology.
So when my friend showed me my data and insisted I share it, I realized I had stumbled onto something that bridged science and spirit. Neurologically it’s gamma. Spiritually it’s grace. Two languages describing the same thing.
Before we move into the next section, here’s a short video to prepare you to be GratiJoyous. Think of it as a primer for the heart, a way to soften and open before you step into the practice. It’s only a few minutes.
→ Watch here
My Daily Practice
Over months of experimentation, I found a way to access the GratiJoy state in the comfort of my own home. It doesn’t require a long hike or bike ride—although I still experience spontaneous GratiJoy bursts in the Colorado summer. Here’s what works for me:
1. Priming the System
Before I begin the actual GratiJoy practice, I spend about 10–15 minutes priming my nervous system. This includes a session of Wim Hof breathing, followed by a HeartMath-style heart coherence meditation. These help me move into a coherent brain–heart state and likely prime my neurochemistry for what’s to come.
The Wim Hof method gets my system energized and clear, while the HeartMath practice helps me shift into a calm, open-hearted state. By the time I start the GratiJoy visualization, I’m fully present and physiologically aligned.
2. Choose a Powerful Image
Find a photo that elicits strong feelings of love, gratitude, or joy. Below is my photo. I'm two years old, sitting with my grandmother—one of the most important people in my life. She taught me to love the natural world and, more importantly, made me feel deeply unconditionally loved and accepted. Just looking at this image gets me very grateful, very quickly. It’s also likely captures one of my first moments of being amazed by the natural world.
Credit to Mr. Rogers for this idea. He often invited people to reflect on someone who “loved them into being.”
→ Here’s a beautiful 1-minute video of him doing just that.
3. Add Music That Opens You
Choose a song that evokes similar emotions. My go-to song is I Can Feel You Smiling by Tedeschi Trucks.
→ Listen here on Spotify
My body is grounded after the breathing and my mind is calm after the meditation. I then gaze at the photo, close my eyes, and let the music take me into memory and emotion. I visualize my grandmother with outstretched arms, smiling down on me. I picture golden light filling my body. I feel her love, and sometimes invite others—family and friends—into my field of love. I become overwhelmed with gratitude, and yes, joy. Divine joy. This is GratiJoy.
I’ve learned not to chase the feeling. When it comes, it’s a gift; when it doesn’t, that’s okay too. What matters is the practice, because each time we touch GratiJoy we reveal more of our true essence — and with time, the doorway opens with greater ease.
I’ve done this most mornings for almost two years, and I am convinced this has strengthened my immune system.
Why This Works (Science + Spirit)
As Dr. Andrew Huberman explains in his podcast on the science of gratitude, the most effective gratitude practices aren’t just lists. They’re stories—emotionally rich experiences in which you feel love, appreciation, or the receipt of thanks. That’s what makes them biologically potent.
Here are a few of the key takeaways:
Real emotional stories (not lists) are what shift our biology.
Gratitude increases dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin—neurotransmitters linked to joy, focus, love, and creativity.
Reduces amygdala activity, which decreases fear and anxiety.
Decreases inflammatory cytokines, sometimes on par with exercise.
Improves empathy and social connection even beyond the specific gratitude target.
Huberman also notes that cyclic breathing can help regulate the nervous system to support a gratitude practice. I use Wim Hof breathing, but he says even simpler techniques like box breathing or physiological sighs work. A physiological sigh is a double inhale through the nostril followed by a slow exhale out of the mouth—it quickly restores balance and calm.
Science shows us that gratitude reshapes the brain. Spirit teaches us that gratitude realigns us with the truth of who we are: beings of love and joy. When we feel sincere appreciation, it is as if the personality comes into harmony with the soul.
Final Thoughts
This practice is simple, short, and powerful, and you don’t need to go to a 5-day seminar to learn it. Your version will most likely look different than mine, but the heart of the practice is the same: find a story, a person, a moment that cracked your heart open, and start there. Let that memory become your medicine.
GratiJoy is both frequency and prayer: a way to align your biology with joy and to whisper thanks to the Creator for the gift of life itself.
I wish you luck on your journey to GratiJoy. If this resonates with you, try it tomorrow morning—and see how your day begins.
