Is Meditation Basically Just a Secular Form of Prayer?

Welcome to Migraine Relief Code. I have a very special guest this evening, Dr. Tanya Painter. She is a naturopath who has recently gone back and done master's level studies in what Christianity has to tell us about healing. So I, as many of you know, have a huge interest in nervous system regulation. And I do see prayer as one of the tools that we can use alongside other modalities, including meditation, including yoga, including breath work, journaling, time in nature. I mean, I think there are so many ways we can access our body's innate capacity to heal. But tonight, we're really going to focus on prayer and meditation because there's overlap, but there are also differences. And I just want to really untangle it for everybody, go deep into the science of it so that you can choose what feels like the best fit for you in your own healing journey. Is meditation basically just a secular form of prayer? So that's actually a really good way to start. Let's define what's prayer, what's meditation, and they're very crossed over. There's a lot of meditation, there's a lot of similarities between meditation and prayer. The big difference, though, is that in prayer, and just so everybody's aware, you mentioned Christianity, I am going to be approaching this from a Christian worldview. My master's was in Christian apologetics, and so I really dove into the Christian worldview and how that applies to how our bodies respond. So in the Christian worldview, when we're talking about prayer, if you want to think about prayer as a type of meditation, that's not incorrect. However, there is a huge difference between the secular and the prayer part when it comes to the fact that when we're praying, we're praying to somebody. It's more of a relational dialogue as opposed to just within ourselves or focusing in on our own breath or on our own thoughts. We're actually shifting our thoughts away from ourselves to another being, that being God. Yeah. And I feel like, I think that might be a really key factor about what's going on in the brain there. So I was looking up some studies as I was preparing for this interview about, Hey, what is the difference between what is going on in the brain with meditation versus prayer? And so essentially meditation activates the front parts of the brain, which is where your thinking is. It's where your focus is, your self-control, right? And so it activates that part of the brain, whereas prayer has been shown to activate the parietal lobes of the brain, the side parts of the brain, which are the parts of your brain that light up when you are in conversation with somebody, when you are trying to understand how somebody else feels about something. So I thought that was fascinating to me, right? Like it's all still internal, if you will, but it's just like the same parts that when, when I'm talking to you, the same parts light up when I'm talking to God, which I think is just awesome. I know. I know. Totally crazy. Yeah. So there's some really fascinating, um, neuro anatomical ties. I mean, there are absolutely some similarities in terms of how all this stuff affects your biology. So let's pivot a bit and talk about that. Like how do, how do these things affect our bodies? I mean, just outside the brain, even like what's going on in the body as a whole. Yeah. And, and this is why it's so important for us to make sure that especially in chronic migraine, but in other chronic illnesses. So, so chronic stress and inflammation are the two biggest triggers for chronic issues, right. For chronic pain, for, for chronic symptoms. And so we really want to get to the bottom. Inflammation can be driven by chronic stress. But chronic stress is really such a huge problem because we live in such a go, go, go, go world, right? And so we're often activating that sympathetic, that fight or flight response. And the thing about, I forgot to actually look up, so maybe you can answer this, Amelia. But specifically, prayer works on the amygdala. It helps to suppress that fight or flight reaction as we engage in certain types of prayer, not every prayer, which we can talk about. Does meditation do the same thing? Does it work on the amygdala? I'm much more aware of the frontal circuitry connections with the insula, the prefrontal cortex, the dorsal ACC, things like that. But it's got to. So your amygdala is kind of your seat of intense emotion, anger, fear. I mean, it's got to silence that thing, right? Well, and so they've done studies on certain types of prayer will actually like shut that down, just calm it down. And so the amygdala is being the seat of our fight or flight response, right? So when we're exposed to something that causes us stress, then the amygdala activates that sympathetic fight or flight response, which then in turn causes, you know, adrenaline rush and the cortisol release and all of the other things. And so when we're constantly in that, I'm stressed, I'm anxious, there's something wrong, like that feeling that we have when we're struggling with anxiety, we tend to be over activating that amygdala. There's that guttural instinct to just like always try to protect yourself because everything's a danger, right? That's where we can run into a lot of problems with this chronic stress. And so one of the ways that certain types of prayer can help calm that is as we're speaking to God, that actually helps to shut down. And this also, to some degree, fellowship, worship, some of those other types of biblical practices also work on the amygdala. So this has been an area of study for me for the last year or so is really looking at biblical practices such as prayer, scripture study, worship, fellowship, gratitude, forgiveness, all of those things have some connection to our amygdala and calming that response down. So as we're more engaged in those biblical practices, we start seeing our physiology shifting away from that fight or flight and into our rest and digest, our parasympathetics, which is where we were meant, we were designed to live in that realm. And so then we start seeing healing happening because that is the brain state, the nervous system state that allows us to heal. And so we can actually see long-term benefits from, I want to say chronic prayer, I guess that would work, but from consistent regular prayer, we actually see better long-term outcomes and we can see it for a longer period of time. So there's really some pretty profound side effects, if you will, of prayer in a good way. And, you know, one of the things you said I want to circle back on is this idea of the words that are coming to mind are locus of control, right? So in meditation, you are your own locus of control. You're trying to access your own calm self. You're trying to quiet down your own default mode network, which is our kind of rumination or, you know, our thoughts about, you know, regrets about the past, the worst possible vision of the future. you know, that all that sort of mind churn lives in the default mode network. So the locus of control is internal. Whereas I feel like with prayer, even though the effects are internal, still the locus of control is external. Yeah. Yeah. You're exactly right. That's a big difference. It is. And so, and there's actually been, um, some study, uh, one or two studies that I found that point to the healing effects, like when we're talking about these kinds of healing effects, when our locus of control is internal, it's of ourselves, like you mentioned, with secular meditation. When things continue to... So essentially that locus of control expects ourselves to be able to control outcomes, which we all know is not a realistic worldview, right? We can't control the car accidents or the health issues or what's going on in the world and the wars and all the other things that can cause stress, right? So there's that false sense of I can control how I'm feeling, how I can control what's happening. When that breaks down and we can no longer feel that control, then we stop seeing the benefits from meditation. And that's what this study found. Versus when our locus of control is outside of ourselves, when we place and I call it, or I don't call it, it's called relational trust, right? When we have this relational trust in God, and we're placing that trust knowing that he has it under control, even when things go bad, the Christian worldview says that it's okay, because ultimately God is in control. He knows what's going on, and there may be a temporary suffering that I'm going through, but in the end, he's going to make it all work out for his good. And we have scripture that supports that. So that locus of control being external, there's a lot of long-term benefits that we see from that when we're able to let go of our own idea, like I'm in control, I can control how I'm feeling to I'm stressed right now. I'm going to give this to you, Lord. I know that you've got this and, you know, help me figure out how to get through it. But with you, I know I can do it. Right. And so then suddenly it's no longer about us and our ability to control our lives. And it's about leaning on something bigger than us and having that, that trust in him. Yeah. And so then that goes back to, you know, some of the, that goes back to some of the ideas of that long-term, you know, of, of, of the long-term benefits that we see from prayer, because the, then if we start to train our brains in that way, and we start to more, you know, trust him more and more, some people would call that an increase in faith, the greater faith that we have that God's going to come through for us, like we rest in that. And there's a peace that you just can't explain until you experience it. And I think that's where it comes from, where just even though everything might be going to pot around you, you know that ultimately it's all going to be okay, And you can just rest in that. And there's just something so peaceful about that. And then that in turn shuts down that amygdala. We don't necessarily have that fight or flight response to all the bad things that necessarily life throws at us because we know that ultimately we've placed that to the Lord. And so we don't have that same reactivity. And I can personally testify to that. Like I used to constantly be like, oh, no, I got a letter from the mail in the IRS. Like I'd feel my heart in my throat or something would happen. And now it's like, oh, darn it. What did I forget with the IRS now? Or whatever the case may be. Like there's no longer that stress response. It's just an observation of a piece of paper. And it's like, OK, well, I guess I'll figure out what I did and correct it and move forward. And, you know, so it was the same situation, but a completely different personal response to that IRS letter. And so that's just kind of one example of how kind of working on this and this relational trust idea through prayer, because that's how we are able to communicate with God. That's where we can start seeing over time our nervous system is just settling down. And, of course, that's not to say, like, my kid falls out of the tree and, again, I don't have that fight or flight response. However, my body now can settle down versus being elevated for days on end because I can't get that back under control. And, you know, I think you're leading into this concept, but I want to ask you outright, what do you mean by surrender? Yeah So when we talk about surrender from the Christian worldview we ultimately acknowledging that we have no control over our lives And I can I can share a short a short story on that A few years ago so every year my family and I go to the coast, we get a little house on the beach. And we've been doing that since my, since my youngest was three months old, so about 10 years. And one, one day, one year, I, I had this terrible feeling of anxiety out of nowhere. And I'm not, I don't tend to be an anxious person. So this was very out of the blue. And I just knew that something bad was going to happen. Like I knew it, like I, you know, know my phone number. And, and so I was praying about it for, you know, a couple weeks beforehand. I'm like, I don't know where this is coming from. And all I kept hearing was I have a lesson for you. I have a lesson for you. So this is what I hear God telling me during my prayers. I'm like, I don't understand. And right before we left, he said, everything will be okay. However, you can't let go of control of your life. And you need to realize that you aren't in control. I am. So I was like, okay, I don't like how this sounds, but he said it was going to be okay. So fast forward, we get there safely. I didn't know if it was gonna be a car accident. We got there safely. My kids and I were out on the rocks. I was a swift water trained rescue technician for Spokane County. I'm very familiar with water, water safety. So we were well back from the ocean, you know, the water line on these rocks. But out of nowhere, this huge wave just came up and started to suck us away from, you know, from the shore. And there was this whirlpool, essentially, in the rock itself, that if somebody had gotten trapped in there, it was like a probably a 15 foot drop, Like there was no coming out of it. And my son, when we came out of the wave, my son's feet were dangling over the edge. Like it was terrifying. So we gathered everybody. We went and tended the wounds that happened from being drug across these rocks. And afterwards, you know, I broke down. And all I heard back was I could have taken all of you, but I didn't need to. But I did need to get your attention, right? You are not in control of your life. And I realized we're not. It could have been a car accident. It could have been an illness. There's so many ways that we don't have control over our own lives. And so it was from that point forward that I started learning how to let go of my own expectations of what I desired for my life and understand that God has a purpose for me. He has a purpose for my kids. He has a purpose for all of us. and if I can learn what that is and start walking in that then I I you know and it's a process right like I still I still want to hold on to control like it's not an easy thing to do but understanding that you know my kids could be taken from me at any time my husband my my parents we don't know how long we have on this earth and so there is a certain level of surrender that we have to give in understanding the Lord has a plan for all of it. And once you start to kind of surrender that peace and live in that trust that he's asking of us, live in our faith, then we can start to see that peace that comes when we're no longer trying to hold on so tightly. And, you know, from a business standpoint, from a personal relationship standpoint, the less I hold on, the more I start letting go and just trusting that God's going to take things and take them the way he wants them not the way I want them I'm not fighting anymore and now instead of trying to swim upstream I'm just kind of floating along and I'm asking for guidance as we go and so my prayer life is always about you know there's different types of prayer which again I mentioned and one of the things that I'm always asking is Lord how do you want me moving forward in my life and as I continue to seek his will in in those things that I'm doing and the lessons that he's teaching me I'm growing as a person I'm feeling more comfortable with who I am I'm not fighting I'm not fighting my personality anymore right I'm I'm not fighting the the gifts that he's given me I'm also not trying to hold on to things that I'm not gifted at because he's being clear like no this is not a good fit for you like you're not great at YouTube or whatever it is And so there's a lot of self-discovery that comes when we start to surrender that and we let go of our own expectations of who we think we are and allow him to show us who he made us to be, if that makes sense. And there's just something so freeing in that, in being able to live up to the best version of ourselves because that's the version that God meant for us to be. mm-hmm that that is just such a beautiful description of of surrender thank you good i i hope it makes sense because it's it's sometimes it's hard to describe these processes especially when you're still in the middle of it like i don't know what it's gonna look like on the other end but right right so another question for you so when you're i mean you're trained in science, you're a naturopathic doctor. When you are talking to people who have a very strongly scientific mind, how do you talk to them about faith to people who feel like I want proof? I don't want to mindly believe in something. That was totally me. Yeah. And how do you have that conversation within yourself? I guess much less with other people. Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, speaking of surrendering and following through what God has for you, like, that was absolutely what I went through. I have always been very science-minded. I need evidence. I'm not a person who has been gifted with a faith that can deal without evidence. Like, I have to show me the proof that you're true, that Jesus actually lived outside of the Bible telling me that. Like, how do I know I can trust the Bible? I had all of these things, right? All of these questions. And I grew up Christian. So, you know, my mom taught me, you know, everything that I knew about Christianity was mostly from my mom, we sometimes went to church, but we moved around a lot. So we never really had a home church. And, and then, you know, I went to school at the University of Washington and got my my bachelor's in cellular molecular biology and inorganic chemistry. And so, you know, that doesn't really mesh with religion very well, right? Anytime I had questions, they'd be like, well, that's a bunch of made up stuff anyway. So if you're going to be focusing in on science, you need to actually focus in on science and leave all the stories alone. And it's like, oh, and then when I went to church, like nobody could really give me the evidence that I was looking for. And so I was like, all right, well, I'm going to believe what I can see. And so anyway, fast forward to 2023, and I kind of hit a crisis of faith where I'm like, none of this is real. This doesn't even make any sense. Why am I believing some fairy stories about some invisible God, like I've never seen any evidence for him. So even though I talked to him all the time, it was very weird. It was a very, our brains sometimes go in strange places. But long so opposing truths can be true at the same time. Yeah, that's right. That's right. There is a piece of faith and the Christian worldview will tell us that faith is from God. So faith is a blessing that God gives us. And we, I don't want to say earn because it's not right, but we have to seek him, right? The Bible is very clear, like, seek him with your whole heart, and he will reveal himself to us. He will bless us with the faith. And that's what I found was that I think he was tired of me just pussyfooting around. He's like, come find the answers. And it, you know, again, biblically, he invites us to wrestle with him. He invites us to ask these hard questions. He says, come sit and reason with me. These are all biblical verses. And so I'm like, all right, well, then how do I know that the Bible is true? And so I started doing some research and finding there is so much evidence for the truth of Christianity. And that's, again, what drew me into getting my master's was, all right, great, I want to know what this is. Like, how do we even know Jesus was a real person? Well, there's a ton of documents from, you know, first, second century. And by ton, I mean, like eight. But when we have eight, I mean, from that time, that is significant, because even Alexander the Great, who nobody questions as being a real person, he has one from 500 years later documenting his life, right? And nobody questions whether Alexander the Great was a real person. So, you know, I started looking at some of these things and it's like, okay, we're holding evidence around Jesus to a much higher standard than we do in other types of historical documentation. And so when we have eight individual, and these aren't even Christians, These are also Roman historians and Greek and Jewish who, you know, was not Christian. So all of these different types of historians documented Jesus as a real person. Great. So now at least I know he's a real person, right? And so then from there, I just kind of rebuilt all the things that I had been taught and to understand there's evidence for the truth of the Bible. There's evidence for the truth of that the Bible that we have today is 99.9% accurate to the original documents that we have from the first and second century. There is evidence of, you know, archaeological evidence, all kinds of archaeological evidence that's proving that things that happened in the Bible that we used to say was not true, actually shows that it was true. Because we found, you know, some site that showed a missing piece in this rain that we didn't know existed that was documented in the Bible. So there's all of these things that we have that supports biblical accuracy. Now, whether or not somebody wants to take the Bible as a historical document, or I'm sorry, as a religious document, that's actually separate because, you know, again, there comes in that faith piece. But if we're looking at it from a historical, just lost my train of thought. If we look at it from a historical point of view, looking at it as a historical document, even the Smithsonian acknowledges that the Bible is a reliable historical document of the period that it talks about. And so we can say without any doubt that the Bible is historically accurate as far as we're able to prove it with our archaeological finds. And so far, nothing has disproved anything in the Bible, and tons of stuff has proved it. So there's better reason to believe that it continues to be accurate. So then, all right, great, that was a good foundation for me. And then we go into the evidence for the proof of the resurrection, and there's a ton of stuff there. And so I just kept building that until I got to the point where it's like, wow, there's a lot more than just, this is the Bible, you should read it and pray, and then there you go. And for some people, that's awesome, and that's great, and that's all they need. And God has blessed them with a gift to be able to believe with just being able to read that. But for those of us that he wants us to put in the effort, like we have to do the study. And as I started to study that from more of a secular scientific standpoint, I took the religion out of it because I just wanted to know what evidence we had. As I did that, my faith started growing, right? Because I was seeking him with my whole heart and he responded by granting me stronger and stronger faith to the point now where it's like, there's no doubt in my mind that this is the most rational explanation that we have for all of the things, the science, you know, the creation of the universe, the fine tuning argument where, you know, if things were just even a smidge different than we couldn't live, you know, just all the different types of arguments that we have for that. and then and that just put my mind at ease and so I had to build that back up but then there's a lot of doubts around you know the emotions involved with with God and okay great like so you can prove this is factual why should I believe in a God that allows war and death and you know all the pain and suffering you know so those are more emotional arguments that is kind of separate so we really need to break down if there's someone who's struggling with faith understand where's that struggle is it because you need more science and evidence great it's out there let's go look if it's more i've had some really bad things i've had christians do bad things to me they're hypocritical they're you know anti-lgbtq they're anti or they're slavery pro-slavery you know whatever it is then those are more emotional responses to the things that are taught within scripture and so we have to look at what is meant by that and and then kind of start to address some of those more emotional doubts that we have. And then there are some times where people are just like, you know what, I can understand all of that and I don want to follow a God who going to ask me to you know take up my cross and bear it and then I have to give up all of like my fun and my parties And so like I just not interested in which case that more of a motivational issue right So we have to kind of pull apart where that person is having issues of faith and whether or not they want it. And if they do want it, great, like what might be holding you back and just kind of asking questions. And you know, it's almost like a motivational interviewing, where we're trying to figure out, you know, what's what's driving things? And how do we reframe this? And And how do we change our understanding or our misunderstanding? And this is where, you know, since we're talking about prayer, this is where prayer can actually sometimes be harmful. Because if we have a misunderstanding of who God is, or if we have a misunderstanding, like there's a lot of people who think that if you're a good Christian, and you do the things that God is asking us to do, that I shouldn't be sick, I should be healed, I should, you know, bad things shouldn't happen to me. If something bad happens to me, he's punishing me for something. That's bad theology. That's not understanding who God is and what suffering actually is. And so we have to kind of go back to the drawing board. But when we're taught that, then prayer can actually be detrimental to our health because we're like, I'm praying to God. I'm doing everything I can. Either he doesn't care about me or I've done something wrong and he's punishing me. And then we have that guilt that we're putting on ourselves. And so then we can start seeing an increase in anxiety. And there are studies that prove that too. So the types of prayer, our understanding of who God is are huge when it comes to whether or not prayer is going to be helpful or harmful in a particular situation. Okay. And I want to dive a little deeper into this idea of healing. So what I'm hearing you say is that for you, with a scientific background, understanding the historical accuracy of the Bible as a document was an important part of allowing yourself to come to a place, to evolve to a place where you were able to receive this gift of faith, which is, it's not a scientific type of thing. It's a different human experience. And I think that in many ways, healing is also a different human experience. It's not purely biological. It's not purely, you know, what we do in mainstream medicine. There is a mind, body, heart, and soul level component of it. And so one of the things I find most fascinating is that, you know, there are actually EEG recordings. So you put electrodes all over somebody's head, you record the brain activity, and you put them in these situations where they have healing experiences. And what happens is absolutely phenomenal because now I read EEGs for 25 years. I was a doctor in private practice. I have seen a lot of brain squiggles. But what happens is, you know, these brains go from generating this very rhythmic, orderly, you know, 10 to 15 Hertz frequency, and they will shoot up in frequency to 60, 70, 80, sometimes 200 Hertz. Why? Why will they do that? Exactly. They are having a healing experience. They are having something happen to them that we can't explain. We can see it on the EEG tracing. So were they doing something that was triggering the spike? Like what was the thing being monitored? Meditation variants, which I think are including a lot of these elements that we typically think of as Christian. They just take the word God out of it so that, I don't know, some people will react negatively to that or whatever. It may exclude them, whatever they want to be inclusive. I don't know. But it's very clearly a spiritual exercise. It is a religious type of event experience. Yeah. Yes. It is just happens to be happening with all sorts of biological monitoring happening at the same time. So I find it extraordinary that we can now capture a pace of what, of what you may be talking about with regards to faith, with regards to healing, that intangible part of healing that is simply received. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. That's, that's a great way and a great example. Yeah, because one of the things that I always try to be very careful about is that it's not prayer. And it's not physical. It's not just spiritual. It's not physical, like we are spiritual beings with a physical body. So we have to have physical healing. If there's something chemically imbalanced in our brain chemistry in our cellular activity, in our detoxification pathways, whatever it is, we have to address that physical peace. and just trying to pray it away. Like, yeah, God can, but he also needs us to learn how to care for our bodies properly, right? So just because he can doesn't mean he's going to magically, I say that kind of tongue in cheek, but it doesn't mean he's just going to take it away from us, but he might be trying to teach us how to better care for our bodies based off of, you know, whatever the situation, or maybe he needs to use our story in a certain way. So we have to go through this in order to come out the other side and we have to put in the work so that we can experience the whole process. Therefore, then we can be better equipped to be able to help somebody else walking through that, right? And you hear this story all the time, people who have gone through drugs or addiction or alcoholism or abuse or whatever it is. And now they have helped thousands of people go through process and kind of come out the other side as well. And so he's allowed for guides for people, right? And, and, but that comes back to say, like, we have to, we have to address the physical piece as well as the spiritual piece. And I find that in medicine, we're only taught about the physical, but there is that piece, like now, at least we've recognized that there's absolutely an emotional component and that, you know, we can have diseases caused by emotional issues and vice versa. And so now there's that piece and, and the research now over the last 20 or so years has just exploded in how our spirituality is absolutely a component as well of our healing and that people who are engaged in regular religious practices, and again, I say regular, because the sporadic religious practices don't seem to have any benefit or not, like it's just whatever. But if you're engaged regularly in spiritual practices, and again, those spiritual practices are defined as going to church or some sort of service regularly, fellowshipping with other people, constant prayer or regular prayer and or regular time in in scripture. Those things are shown to have improved outcomes from people who don't do that. So even though everybody's still doing, you know, you can have the same diet, you can have the same, you know, I'm not smoking, I'm not drinking, I'm exercising regularly, getting eight hours of sleep, like all the things, those who are regularly engaged in religious activities have better health outcomes and less chronic long-term problems. So we definitely see there's a component, but it's not either or it's, it's both of them together, like physical and spiritual. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that's absolutely where people see the best improvement. And I mean, as you know, one of the main things I teach people is nervous system regulation. So I've done a ton of testing of DNA to untangle the biology of the brain, what exactly is going on there? How do we support that from the physical side? And yet I still, every single week, teach a class on nervous system rewiring. I do it from a secular perspective. It's yoga and meditation based and, you know, incorporating some elements of breath work. But I think that's just as important as the DNA, as the genes, as the supplements, as what you eat, as what medications you're on. I think they're all pieces of a bigger puzzle of who we are. And you have to allow healing in from all of these different directions to get to where you're trying to go. So yeah, we can't do it on our own. Yeah, I think it can. I think we can do a lot. And that's where I was, you know, for for 20 ish years, you know, I had hormone issue. My my things started going downhill for me when I was in medical school, right? Like just the constant studying the stress of medical school, the hours that were demanded, and my health never really recovered. And so I did all of the naturopathic things, right? I was on a very restrictive anti inflammatory diet. So I couldn't eat dairy or corn, soy, wheat, you know, like sugar, you name it. I was very strict. And I was on probably 20 different supplements supporting all these different things. I tried to get enough sleep, drank enough water. And I got to a place where I'm like, okay, I'm not having my chronic migraines anymore. You know, I don't feel like I'm 80 rolling out of bed in the morning. But you know, that was like the plateau. And I'm like, I exhausted my understanding of naturopathic medicine and the physical modalities that I had. And I wasn't even seeking additional healing. But as I went down this, the spiritual road, and really started developing my relationship with the Lord, like, I eat whatever I want now. And I still try to keep it clean, right? Like, I still need to take care of this body, but I eat whatever I want. Within a certain reason, like I am still limited on some gluten and dairy, but I still at least can eat it, whereas before would send me into instant migraine. And, you know, I sleep better than I ever have, except for maybe when I was a kid. My hormones have all regulated, like my mood is completely stable. It's just the changes that have happened have come off of all of my supplements, except for a couple that I take at night to help support inflammation processing, but that's it. And so just the change that has happened without even looking for it. And the only thing I did was dive into that relationship with the Lord. And that's it. And, and that was a piece that I just, I understood, like, wow, this has been missing in my life, and in all of my patients lives, right? All of the people that, you know, and I did every now and then, I'd have people come to me, and they'd be like, well, I've really, you know, started going to church again. And I just feel so much better, not that they linked it to church, nor did I at the time. But I think that there's a there's been that thread through my career of seeing people who were engaging in these spiritual practices, having a better long-term outcome. And I just never put the pieces together. All right. I have one final question for you. And that is you use the phrase, which I have actually never heard before, spiritual orientation. Tell me about that. What do you mean by that? Yeah, so in my training and also in my experience, I've seen kind of three different approaches to how we're spiritually oriented. One is religion, spirituality is just a bunch of nonsense, right? This is the atheist or potentially the agnostic standpoint where everything is internal. Everything is physical. There is nothing outside of what we can observe. And so that would be a very self-focused, like our locus of control is completely within ourselves. Then there is the kind of source universe. There's something else out there, but it's not necessarily a personal being. It's just there's some spiritual underlying something that we can all attain to, right? So we'd be looking more at Hinduism or Buddhism, things like that, where if we can kind of transcend and we can aim for that deeper something else, right? Transcend these physical forms into that greater whatever you want to call it, source. And so that's kind of almost a blend because it still completely relies on us, on our actions and how we're able to transcend or not. And then there is a God-centered. And so this is more going to be like the Abrahamic type religion. So you've got Christianity, you've got Judaism, you've got Muslim or Islam. And so that is looking at there is a being he is a person He is somebody you can speak to But you know obviously the different religions that focus on a specific personal God are they very different in who they believe God to be and what his attributes are So that's kind of a separate question. But that would be a spiritual orientation towards a personal deity who is looking down. He's somewhat involved in the life of the peon humans that we are. And so then, again, a lot of those religions also train us to release that control, and that is an other focus, right? So that's the locus of control is going to be external to ourselves. So that's what I mean by spiritual orientation is what do you believe about God? Who is he to you? is he a he or is he just a, you know, a source or some sort of a spiritual nebulous thing that is there, but not that we can directly communicate with? Okay, super interesting. So kind of a way of encompassing sort of the main divisions in how people view spirituality. That you talk a lot, Amelia, about our kind of our cellular function, our DNA, how we're able to detoxify, you know, we have fairly different approaches, but the same underlying thing that we're looking at, right? And so when we're talking about headaches, there is a component of that hyperactive nervous system, hyperactive brain activity, right? And so when we're talking about about headaches and chronic migraines, we need to, we need to, we always need to be doing some sort of nervous system work, right? We tend to, in my experience with my clients, I basically everybody is hyperactive, high stress, stuck in fight or flight in most cases for one reason or another. And generally they don't know that when they. Correct. Yeah. Generally you don't because you're just living your life and you know, it is what it is. And this is how you've probably always been. And it's just caught up to you. Right. I always like to say like, you never lived in another brain. It's been the one, you know. Yep. I had no idea that I was a highly stressed person. I'm like, you're crazy. I'm totally not stressed. No, I'm fine. Not true. This is how my life has always been. That's right. That's right. Why are my headaches worse now? Yep. So we've learned to cope. And I think that it's not just chronic migraine errors. I think that we can say this for a high percentage of the population, to be honest with you. However, specifically talking about migraines, since that's who we're talking to. So we really need to work on how we can retrain our nervous system to get back into that 80%, 90% parasympathetic, our rest and digest, with the 10% to 20%, depending on how stressful your life really is, where we're in that sympathetic fight or flight, right? So we should very much predominantly be living in that calm state. And so from this perspective of prayer slash meditation, when we're looking at prayer, and we're specifically looking at engaging God as an external person that we are dialoguing with, that we are able to include into our life, that is where we're looking at, right? So that we're, as we're engaged in prayer and we're engaged in those prayers of gratitude is one of the ones that are really high up on the list of calming the amygdala, okay? So not only do we have prayer, but then we have gratitude combined with that. And so those prayers of gratitude are very powerful. And so prayers of praise, prayers of thanksgiving, all of those are going to be very strong in helping us to just give glory to the Lord and the blessings that he's given us, right? It helps to train our brain from seeing the negative everywhere. And again, I experienced this like always hyper alert, you know, what's going to trigger me now? Or, you know, where's the danger to now? It's like, I see the bird that's perched on that bush in front of me, and it is beautiful. And I love that. And so it's so much nicer to focus on that than it is on the negative. And so again, that was a side effect of me, like I didn't go out to try that. That wasn't my intention, but that's what ended up happening. And so then and that's the thing, right? That is a technique where we start focusing our mind, changing our attention from the negatives into the positive. So that gratitude prayer really helps with that. So those are ways to try to work on calming our amygdala, our fight or flight activation. And so one thing that's, I think, important to note is when we're having this conversation is that it has to be regular. So for me, like I would pray whenever I thought of something I needed. That's how I used prayer. And it was always a prayer of petition. Prayers of petition can help to calm that when we're placing our trust in the Lord. But they also, there are studies that show that it doesn't have any effect, right? Because if we're only coming to him and asking him for things, that's not engaged in any kind of relational activity. That's just being me like, hey, mom, can you get me that? Hey, mom, can you do that? Hey, mom, can you make me this? Hey, mom, hey, mom, right? Yeah. Okay. Hey, dad. Hey, dad. Hey, father. So that's not really in the relational form. When we're looking at the types of prayers, maybe this is a good time to kind of go into that type of prayer that I was mentioning. We want to take a look at the relational types of prayer. And these aren't always good, right? It's not always, oh, God, you're so amazing and wonderful. Yes, we need to have those types of prayers. Those are prayers of thanksgiving and gratitude that I just mentioned. But sometimes we have to do prayers of lamentation. God, this sucks. Why is this happening? I don't understand. Help me to understand. I feel like you've abandoned me, God. Some people, some Christians, when I, when I mentioned this, they're like, I would never say that to the Lord. It's like, well, he already knows it. You're just being honest. And he wants us to step into that honesty. He wants us to step into those emotions, the negative and the positive. He's not going to be scared by them. And so, you know, I wouldn't recommend going and cussing God out. However, you can bring those strong emotions to him and lay them at his feet. And there have been times where I've prayed and I've been so angry and I've been angry at him. I've been angry at other people. And I kind of spend five minutes just ranting at God. Like, I don't understand why you would let this happen. I am so mad at you right now. And I just bring that. And then it's just like a kid throwing a temper tantrum, right? Like eventually you run out and you're just like, and you just like take that deep breath and you're like, all right, God, I'm here at your feet, right? It allows you to pour out all that anger and God knows what to do with it. He just tosses it aside, whatever. And now it's like, okay, good. You're at a place now where we can have a real conversation and we can really meet together. And so those types of prayers of lamentation and anger prayers, I think are also very, very healing. Now, some of them you have to be careful because and I say this because there have been incidents where people are praying about a trauma that has not been fully processed and they're crying out to the Lord about it and they can have flashbacks or they can have, you know, some of these other things that can happen. And so we do want to be careful when there's trauma involved that hasn't been fully processed. Sometimes these prayers can be done in, you know, in counseling or with a therapist or somebody else who can help kind of mediate the physical response that we can have to some of the emotional things. But by and large, when it's just kind of day-to-day stuff that we're living in fight or flight about, it's those types of things that we can find are really, really healing. And again, those prayers of lamentation have been shown to shut down the fight or flight, right? We see the anger and we see the parts of our brain responsible for the strong emotions light up, but then at the end, we start seeing things calming down and we see that amygdala activity starting to decrease as well. And so as I mentioned a couple of times in earlier in the podcast, there are different types of prayers, not all of them are helpful. And so we want to make sure that we're engaged in prayers of that are really when we're looking at a healing standpoint of using these intentionally for healing. And again, I would counsel that or caution with that as well, right? Because prayers are not a tool to be used, they are a relational, they're relational with our Lord. And so the side effect of that will be that healing piece, right? So we want to make sure that we're going in with a clear conscience and with a heart that is for the Lord and not for selfish gain. So I would be careful about that. However, I do think that he understands when we're trying to do things, but as long as we're open to relationally engaging, as opposed to, I'm going to do this because I know this is good for my brain and, you know, whatever. So that motivation, I think, makes a difference too. It's where our heart is. And so practically speaking, I think that establishing a routine of, you know, I try to bring awareness to the fact that I'm ignoring God when I'm not engaged with him several times a day, right? I try to be in constant prayer with him if I can, and I hit that mark maybe 20% of the time. So it's an ongoing process. Start with, you know, I always did it in the shower. That's where there's something about the water. There's also that physical piece you probably know, Amelia, about, you know, the physical aspect of water and the sound of it. All of that can kind of help to settle and calm our minds so that we can more fully engage in that relational conversation that prayer can be. And so then, and then also like if we take a shower every day, then we can pray every day, right? You just pray as you're in the shower and then, you know, pray in the shower and then pray when you're in bed and then pray when you're driving. And then suddenly it's like all these different activities are, we're engaging in prayer. But the, the, um, the strongest type of prayer, as far as the healing goes is when we're sitting down concentrating, right? The same thing with like meditation, it's more effective when the only thing we're doing is focusing on our breath as opposed to breathing and driving. But you start where you got to start And so just getting into that routine, because we have to establish that regular habit. And then the more that you're engaged with him, and you're doing various different kinds of prayer, not just a citation, a recitation of a prayer that you memorize, but prayers from the heart, prayers with emotion behind it, all of those things are going to be the ones that are most beneficial. And then if there is, you know, if you're concerned that, you know, well, I have all these doubts or I think that, you know, God's punishing me or if you have some sort of thoughts about, you know, God is, how do I say this? If you don't feel that it's helpful, there may be some misunderstanding of who God is. And that comes down to looking at scripture, making sure you're in a theologically sound church. So sometimes the churches that we go to can be teaching us incorrectly. So if it's all doom and gloom and you're going to hell and you're a sinner and that's the main focus instead of Christ being the main focus, like I'd take a look at what that church is trying to teach us. So we need to make sure that we're not just engaging in the I need to make God happy or, you know, I don't want him to punish me. And I know, unfortunately, the reality is like there are a lot of churches that teach that. So we just need to make sure. And I see in the chat somebody said, like, God is my best friend or Jesus is my best friend. I don't remember where it was. But anyway, I was just like, that's right. Like, it should literally feel like you're talking to a best friend. The embarrassing things, the anger that you share with them, the rants that you do, like, God can take it all. So it doesn't have to be this stuffy, you know, like, that's how I was taught. You know, very proper, like, you say the things and then that's it. And I don't talk to him like that anymore. Like, it's like I'm talking with my best friend. So hopefully those are helpful, just kind of practical tips to kind of engage in that. Yeah. Yeah, that is. It's very interesting. I don't think I've encountered this idea of, you know, different types of prayer and how they affect you before. So thank you very much for sharing that. Yeah. Yeah. The research is interesting. All types of prayer. There's a lot of variables. Yeah. Interesting. All right. Well, thank you so much for being here today, sharing your time, your wisdom, and your love, your expertise with us. We are just so deeply grateful to you for doing that. Absolutely. There's nothing I love talking about more than Jesus right now. So hopefully, hopefully always, but at least in this season, like I can't get enough of it. So thanks for having me on and being open to this type of conversation.