Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Becca Powers: Welcome to another episode of the Empowered Half Hour. And I am just absolutely thrilled to bring you today's guest and conversation. Dr. Dawson Church is joining us. He is, as I would like to say, a scientist, a spiritual seeker and teacher, author, and. He has really discovered a way to present science and spirit, spirituality in a way that lands very practically and I And just so obsessed with all of these topics.
I can't wait to get into this interview. So welcome to the show.
Dr. Dawson Church: Oh, Becca. Delightful to be here. We'll have fun together.
Becca Powers: I have no doubt. So I know that you have published a book that you're a teacher and that you, actually have more than one book. But why are you, I want to, I do want to ask what's your backstory, but I really feel that there's a question before that.
Like, why are you obsessed with this topic and bringing this attention to people?
Dr. Dawson Church: We're at a really interesting stage in our development as a species right now. And for, Thousands of years, people have sought the answers to like big questions like how do we get happier? How do we shut off suffering? And so 2500 years ago, the Buddha was talking about that 2000 years ago.
Jesus was talking about that longer ago. Lao Tzu was talking about it in China. And so you have this, the Greeks were debating these questions thousands of years before all of those philosophers and spiritual teachers. And so we've had this, ongoing. understanding that we are suffering and then we need to break out of it.
And so we've developed all these techniques and tools in those spiritual traditions like prayer and meditation, spiritual studies, spiritual practice, and they've been really valuable. What's happened though, just in the last 50 years, is that science has Come into the picture and help refine those spiritual practices and help us identify which of those really work the best.
So we have the development of the electrocardiogram in the early 1900s, then the EEG, which could read brainwaves in the 1920s, then the MRI, CAT scans, SPECT scans. And what we can do now is we can stick these spiritual people, these Tibetan monks, these Catholic nuns, these Christians, Pentecostal faith healers, put them in an MRI or, hook them up to an EEG, measure their brainwaves and really figure out what's going on in these states.
So what I'm really passionate about is measuring those states and then finding the practical ways we can apply those ancient traditional lessons, but which ones really work neurobiologically. And that's my current area of fascination.
Becca Powers: Oh my gosh. I am already, I'm like obsessed. I want to ask you so many questions, but I really do want to focus on the backstory.
what? Got you to this point of explore, being an explorer and wanting it and wanting to bring it forward to people.
Dr. Dawson Church: Oh, what got me here was, abject misery. Becca. I was
Becca Powers: for us here. yes. I, yeah, I was
Dr. Dawson Church: as a coach and a therapist, they literally say, I began, with a series of life disasters or whatever it was, and I was really pretty miserable as a kid.
And, Suicidal and disconnected. Very, depressed. And then, I had a vision when I was like 14 years old and I was, alone in my room one day, just feeling completely despairing, existential despair, and I suddenly had this sensation of floating in space, looking out at the universe. And it was just an extraordinary experience.
I'd never had anything like that before. And I floated in the universe and this, just beautiful, panorama of stars and, light and sound. And I had this feeling of such love, like I'd never experienced on the material plane before, because most of the people in my life were not that loving.
And most people I saw around me, In the church and spiritual communities weren't that loving. So I had that one big experience. And even though I went back to misery after that, I always knew it was there. And I studied psychology, studied spirituality, joined a spiritual community when I was 15 years old, and really focused on understanding these techniques and applying them myself and then discovering energy, medicine, energy, psychology, energy, healing, these ways of producing shifts in immaterial circumstances, just by energy, just, research shows, for example, in my book, Mind to Matter, I described the research showing that when people have an intention that, for example, plants grow, The plants grow better when faith healers put their hands around water.
The molecular structure of the water literally changes the bond between the hydrogen and oxygen atom changes when we have that intention or pray or have that healing effect. So there are all these ways in which we're using our consciousness to affect the outside world. And so as I apply these in my life over the last almost 70 years.
I've just gotten happier and happier and one of the cool things about, these states is that there's no end point to them. Like, when in research, in my book, This Brain, I describe research into Tibetan monks who've done 60, 000 hours of meditation in their lives, comparing their brains to Tibetan monks who've done a mere 40, 000 Hours.
Becca Powers: Only 40,000. Only
Dr. Dawson Church: 40,000 hours. And the average westerner, if, they get 4,000 hours and they're a pretty good meditator in their lifetime, these are Tibetan monks have done 40 plus thousand, and even between 40,000 and 60,000, we see changes in the brain life. For example, the amygdala, the stress.
structure, the fire alarm of the brain shrinks even more. So we see atrophy of the stress structures of the brain, we see atrophy of the craving structures, the nucleus accumbens of the brain, we see expansion, we see development, and parts of the brain getting bigger parts like the dentate gyrus, which controls and regulates emotion brain wide.
In one study I share in Mind2Matter, a particular person who was practicing meditation, they measured his brain before and after they measured all the different structures in his brain, and they found that dentate gyrus that regulates emotion, it grew by over 20 percent in eight weeks. So our brains are at just Changing and shifting as we use our minds differently.
And so my whole story has been one of applying these things myself and then getting so excited by the science showing that we can get dramatically happier than we ever thought we could be and have extraordinary lives of well being.
Becca Powers: I, I love that so much. And you've said something, you said quite a few things that I want to ask additional questions to, but I'm going to narrow my focus to one right now.
one is disconnection. And so I'm an author as well. I have, my next book coming out with new world library, a return to radiance, releasing in October. And the concept of the book really is rooted in disconnection. So I grew up in an environment where. My parents were full-time musicians where I was born.
And I got to see people fully in their radiance and their gifts and their talents and their joy and the laughter and the dancing and the celebrating. And I,
Speaker 3: I'm
Becca Powers: like, I just thought that was normal .
Speaker 3: And
Becca Powers: then, and then as I got older and my parents, got more committed to work responsibilities kids, I, I.
It was very sad. I saw their spark start to dim. I saw them go into depression. I saw them become disconnected from themselves, other people, the universe, and eventually both my parents passed away at different times. So I have this like unique perspective. That, I grew up in what I'm calling radiance.
And then I clearly saw the disconnection. And then within myself, I experienced extreme burnout several years ago. And, when I look back at Root, I'm like, I was disconnected. So I'd really like to, I haven't really had anyone on the show that I can geek out and talk about this connection with, but since you use that word specifically, can we talk about it?
Dr. Dawson Church: Yeah. my dear friend, Don Siegel. talks about interpersonal neurobiology, and we are beings of connection. We're meant to be connected internally to ourselves. We're meant to be connected externally to other people. We're meant to be connected to the universe. And so there are scales that assessments be used in science to measure.
that degree of connection and the people who are connected to all three are the mystics. They are usually connected to themselves, their own experience, to others around them. What they're doing, which is remarkable though, is they're plugging into the all that is. They're plugging into this source of divine inspiration and infinite power and creativity that is extraordinary.
And what happens in their brains as we see things happen, for example, like a In some mystics, a seven fold increase in this very special brainwave called Gamma. The wave of integration, the wave of joy, the wave of gratitude, the wave of awe. If we're having a sense of awe and altruism and love and happiness, we make lots of Gamma.
In these mystics, they're at baseline before they begin meditation. When they meditate, their Gamma rises 7x. Massive increase in all of those brainwaves. Positive emotions. And so we are, we have brains that are meant to just swim in these positive brainwaves and positive neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine.
And we have the hardware of ecstasy inside our skulls. Most of us just aren't using it. And so these mystics are able to plug in and have connection up there. And also, It affects our lateral relationships, I know when I'm not, when I'm feeling a sense of, maybe I'm, just going through a really stressful patch of work or something, and I don't really want to impose that on my wife.
I'll take a walk in the woods, and I'll go, to the ocean and walk in the sand and just, be with the infinite, be with the all that is. Plug in up there. It's a source of incredible renewal. Then when I come back to my wife or back to my team member or back to the person, maybe someone's doing something and my business world, that's giving me a heartburn.
Then I am bringing all the compassion, all the love, all the creativity. We find that the creativity these people have rises dramatically when they're in these elevated States. They're not just in these elevated States and feeling good up there when they get backed out everyday reality. They're incredibly creative.
So it gives you a sense of connection. But that first sense of connection is with you. All it is, if you've got that in place, if you are one with the universe, and the term for this from spirituality is non duality. If you're letting the if you're surrendering your sense of a separate self and becoming one with you all it is, then you have the ultimate sense of connection with all of life, all of love, all of compassion from that full heart.
You go out and you can like, I, for example, I manage a really large veteran PTSD program called veterans stress project. And we've, helped over 20, 000 veterans with PTSD. You go and do things like that. When you are in that hooked up state, you can't do when you're all stressed and overwhelmed and, having burnout yourself.
So hooking up that way is the first thing you do in meditation, in spiritual practice. Then you move from that again, overflowing love in your heart and do what you are able to do for people around you and your family and the world.
Becca Powers: That's really beautiful. And if I would love to, you mentioned something in the response.
again, there was many things and multiple ways I can take the next question, but I am really, you said that we were hardwire for ecstasy, hardwired for joy, and I believe that too. That's why I'm, I, have named the next book of return to radiance because what I found is through my own spiritual journey and I'm a Kundalini yoga teacher too, and stuff like that, but I say that because.
As I have deepened my own practice and observed others and witnessed others deepening theirs, what I have found is as they tap into the all knowing and they come back to themselves, their radiance begins to express. It's not like they Had to go out and get it already existed and now it's expressing itself And so I would like to talk a little bit more about that hard wiring that we actually are hardwired for joy And ecstasy and stuff because I hear so much more about suffering and even though What I'm trying to say is that I hear so much about why we have trauma responses and why we respond the way we do, but I don't get to have enough conversations about why we're hardwired for.
Dr. Dawson Church: Yeah, so radiance is very interesting in the great mystical traditions and whether it's Judaism, especially the Kabbalah, Islam, especially Sufism, Christianity, especially mystical Christianity. Judaism, that all of these traditions have these elements of this experience there. And it begins usually with inner radiance.
And so Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras talks about the yogi, the person seeking oneness, has a sense of inner light in their being. One of the cool things though is that Patanjali then starts to talk about outer light and how the light radiates out from us. And what we find in more recent studies, and there are two giant data sets that I draw on a lot in my work, and I won't go to detail about where they are, how these people have been studied.
But what we find is that people who are living with that sense of radiance after a while, it begins to extend outside of their bodies. And so it's not just an inner radiance. It's an inner radiance expressed outwardly. And when you walk into the room with one of those people, you can feel it. Like I'll be doing a meditation retreat, they'll be leading next, next weekend.
And those people will begin radiant in their inwardly, they'll end up the weekend. radiant externally. And there are accounts in the scriptures, for example, Ramakrishna, the great Hindu saint of the 1900s, people would describe radiance, just light pouring out of his body. In the Christian depictions of saints, you see these halos around their heads, golden light or white light.
emanating from them. And you'll feel this. There are people you'll, in fact, you might be feeling it right now, even as we're just talking here, you might be sensing the light
Speaker 4: generating
Dr. Dawson Church: here in the conversation. So you'll, sense that light. It's in you. And this is also mediated by hardware. in our brains.
And there are two parts of the brain that I trace. One is called the enlightenment network. And there are several circuits that are part of the enlightenment network. And again, I described them in my books. I won't go into them now. But there's a physical hardware Set of regions in our brains and in mystics in people having this elevated experience It's all lit up.
You see this those circuits that are processing all these wonderful emotions and all these elevated states They're highly active in their brains. What's inactive in their brain is the part of the brain that processes suffering and that processes And that part of the brain is it's called the default mode network, and it has one pole here right behind the forehead called the mid prefrontal cortex in people who are suffering in people who are self absorbed.
The default mode network is highly, active, but in people who are having that experience of the all it is that default mode network is shut down. A lot of these two networks operate in a. In opposition to each other as you meditate, as you pray, as you fill your life with that radiance, then you raise the activity in the enlightenment network, which suppresses the default mode network.
But when you tune into suffering, when you get all self absorbed, and you raise the activity of the default mode network, it suppresses the enlightenment network. And that's where most people live. In my research into cortisol, I've done several clinical trials of people. People's levels of cortisol, they're walking around high levels of neurotransmitters like norepinephrine, hormones like cortisol.
they're living in relative luxury, in a luxury that, I lead a lifestyle that the kings of Europe couldn't have imagined 200 years ago. And yet I can stress myself out by my thoughts alone and raise my cortisol level to the level of, person scrambling for survival. In the Paleolithic era.
So we're living at these levels of stress. They're totally inappropriate to our levels of material challenge. And by activating the default mode network, we're suppressing the enlightenment network. And so we're living with these stress filled brains that are completely unnecessary. So the trick, all of these ancient practices that have been brought to us by these great traditions, show us how to reduce the activity, lower the activity.
In that mid prefrontal cortex and the default mode network, which then raises the activity and enlightenment network and we find ourselves becoming dramatically happier. So that's our, challenge as people not to buy into the narrative we have of suffering and distraction and overwhelm and all the bad things going on in the world.
Are there bad things going on in the world? Absolutely. climate change is real. human rights, there are terrible wars raging in the world right now. Civil rights, social rights, sexual free, reproductive rights. There are all kinds of real issues we can worry about, but In the middle of that, we can meditate.
We can love ourselves. We can live in that radiant state and then be really effective. Like I didn't just get upset about people with PTSD. I started a nonprofit and we treated over 20, 000 people with PTSD. So you translated it. You
Becca Powers: know, I've seen and I like what you're saying about the inner and outer.
I see that as people return to the radiance and that inner light is shining. On the outside, their life becomes more meaningful. There's more fulfillment and what I'm calling impact. like you're saying comes as an expression of it, You don't, you no longer have to chase for the thing. The thing manifests through you.
Like you, said, you, you created a nonprofit and now you've served 20,000 people. That's an extension of who you are now. Like it just kept building. And I see beautiful things, unfold like that for people when they allow their light to shine.
Dr. Dawson Church: Yeah, and so there's inner, experiences you have, and then those translate themselves into outer experiences.
And we're used to thinking about the material world as being an objective reality out there. That thing happened to me. That's real. yeah, that thing did happen to you. That is real. But where, perhaps, was the root of that in your Consciousness just like I'm just thinking about it. I had a little fender bender a while back a little car accident and The other guy was really clearly to blame.
I could see how I was just doing just Peters Left the driveway was blinded by the sun shining glaring in his eyes and he hit my car But then you know, it's like I can say that happened out there and that was object of reality. But then I think back and was I paying attention that day? Was I going a little bit too fast?
Was I mindful?
And almost always when I look back at accidents I've had and losses I've had, there was some part of me that was implicit in that external event. And so our minds play far more of a role in creating our outside reality than we might believe. I mentioned water earlier and how water is affected by just by thought alone.
So we're literally able to change molecules like produce cortisol in our bodies just by stressful thoughts. We can produce molecular changes in the outside world in plants, animals, people around us by thought alone. So that's why it's so important to get control of what you think, what you feel, and then regulate that tune into those powerful feels out there and then live that kind of inner directed inspired and radiant life.
Becca Powers: I love and I want to for the listeners to break meditation and prayer down to be practical and easy. And what I mean by that even like being a Kundalini teacher, I have all sorts of meditations that have mantra and mudra and all, 60 minutes, meditate for a thousand days. there's so many different ways you can go about it.
But I tell people all the time, I'm like. Hey, if you can just find three minutes in the bathroom, take it. but I think it would be really helpful for the audience. Cause there's a lot of people that are, I would say in high production mode. They're in that hamster wheel. They're working professionals.
They've got the kids or they're taking care of their parents and they're working and doing all the things. Like how can they. Bring this into their life easily.
Dr. Dawson Church: I'll fast forward to a study I did and I've done i've been involved in over 100 clinical trials and Some of them a lot of them are ptsd depression anxiety, but the more recent ones are human potential And we're showing that people can reach these transcendent states without 10 000 hours without being a monk It's possible to reach them really quickly You If you do certain evidence based techniques, now a lot of meditation and what people think of as meditation is not evidence based.
There is no good science behind it. A lot of it doesn't work very effectively. So if you pick really clear evidence based things, you can shift extremely quickly. And so we've had a lot of practice in the last 10 years bringing people into these elevated states and showing that in just a few hours of practice.
In one of my, clinical trials, we show that people using an evidence based meditation in 30 days, we measured anatomical changes in their brain in an MRI. Now think about that for a moment, the anatomy of your brain changing in under a month. In an MRI scan, we found that mid prefrontal cortex that generates suffering, stress, worry about the past concern about the future, that part of the brain shut down, we found the compassion network, part of the enlightenment network, compassion circuit of the brain lit up so you can do it really, quickly.
But in this later study, we then looked at what happens to them when they go back to work.
Speaker 3: We did a study on
Dr. Dawson Church: productivity, and we found that in the first month, their productivity goes up so much, they get an extra day in their week. In the first month, in six months, their productivity is even higher. So the bottom line is in terms of time management, you get an extra day in your life.
If you meditate, every week, if you meditate effectively, and you have to use an effective meditation to do this, and they're Tons of downloadable free tracks on my website. They're all over the web and Highly accessible so if you're a busy professional I urge you to devote that time in the morning to meditate now There are studies showing that 8 minutes is effective 12 minutes is effective.
We personally Advocating at least 20 minutes for that one day a week of extra time productivity payoff. That was the track in that study. It was a 22 minute track of eco meditation. this evidence based meditation. we, know now, we've measured that if you spend your first 20 minutes of the day During the meditation, your productivity within a month is going to dramatically in increase.
So do a little bit if you can. when I decided when I made that commitment to meditating every day, I was like 45 years old, I had two young children, I was a single dad. And I thought I had no extra time when I began to actually do it. My whole life began to transform really quickly.
So it is worth doing, even though you may have a story in your mind. Oh, I don't have time for me. I don't have time for this. I had to set my alarm half an hour earlier in the morning. And, Yeah, and doing it every day and not accepting any excuses. there's always these voices that will say, Oh, I'm too busy.
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Ignore those voices and just do it.
Becca Powers: Oh, man. I love that. And I love that you share that you have. that you have some on your website because we do have a very, there's a spiritual listenership on this podcast, but there's also a very practical. And I think that a lot of my practical folks would like to know, Hey, this is evidence based meditations.
Cool. So listeners, you could, he'll share his website here in a few minutes, but feel free to use everything that he's shared. To better your life. that's what this podcast is all about So i'm so happy you have resources for the listeners. That's fab.
Dr. Dawson Church: Yeah, and again It's just really powerful to know that when we are doing the most important thing when we're plugging in upstairs when we're at Plugging into all the, wisdom, all of the creativity.
Oh, your creativity, by the way, soars when you do this and your resilience goes, way up as well. And so it might look like you're disengaging from everyday reality and you are. So you are taking the 30 minutes and you're going into a quiet place, even if it is just the closet or the bathroom, and you're doing some breathing, you're regulating your emotions.
But you're shifting your brain and shifting your mental focus to focus on what's really important in life. When you emerge from that state, your whole brain works better. A Harvard study found that the effects of that meditation period extend in terms of better, more efficient brain function extend for 24 hours into the future, just from one meditation.
So that time you're giving yourself may seem like it's apart from everything that's really pressing and materially important in your life. It turns out to be the most important thing you can do for your material life. So I really urge you to make that your top priority. Believe me, your kids will appreciate you.
I know my wife really appreciates the fact that I meditate.
Speaker 4: I know my husband does too.
Becca Powers: we're at 30 minutes already. I knew this conversation was going to go by way too fast. but I would like you to share before we get into sharing how they can, the listeners can follow you is how can. The information that you shared today, not just meditation, but the overall conversation and tone, how can applying this empower someone's life?
Dr. Dawson Church: what we find is that there are dimensions of your life, there's family and connection, there's work and career, there's spirituality, there is well being, and meditation and spiritual practice is the leverage point that affects it all. So when you get that one thing right then everything else improves.
If you don't get that one thing right then everything else is gonna suffer. And there's a great Hindu sage called Shankara who lived around 700 AD, and he said that if you Don't spend at least part of your day paying attention to the real, the eternal. And again, you say there's the eternal, which is real, and there's everything else that's not eternal, that's changing, the world of change, that's unreal.
If you don't devote any part of your day to the real, You've completely missed the boat as a human being. So this is your leverage point, your family is going to appreciate it. One of the cool things about family dynamics is that for a family to improve and run better, every member does not have to change or improve.
One member changes. It's like a system and you change one person and everything in relationship to that person shifts. So people say, like one woman emailed me last week and said, my two adult children are suffering so much. How do I, help them have better lives. They said, number one, meditate yourself, shift yourself.
You're part of this family system, and that's going to have an impact on the rest of the family. So you'll find your money life improves, become a better investor, a better caretaker, a better steward of your financial resources, your work life, your interpersonal relationships change, you have ways of accessing creativity.
In one study, they found that creativity improves about 400 percent when you're in the load states that meditation brings. So this really is your leverage point over all these other life domains. Get this one thing as Shankara said, 1000 years ago, Everything else tends to shift in the positive direction.
Becca Powers: Oh my gosh, I feel like I could talk to you for 3 hours instead of 30 minutes. there's so much more to do here. But we are at the 30 minute point. So if you wouldn't mind sharing how the listeners can stay in contact with you and also get to your website so they can grab those meditations.
Dr. Dawson Church: Yeah, so grab the meditation at the website. Dawson, that's my name. D A W S O N Dawson gift G I F T Dawson gift. com. And you've got the meditation. They also get a free stress reduction mini manual with some super simple energy exercises that will shift. These are the ones we use with people with PTSD, but also for depression and anxiety.
And you can shift yourself very quickly using those exercises. That also gives you access to our whole ecosystem with our online courses. I do a lot of live courses. We have certified practitioners who can work with you one on one if you'd like to work with one on one certified practitioner. There are a whole bunch of resources at Dawson gift.
com. But the two that are most important is download the meditation. Use that every day. And download that stress reduction manual because you'll find that as you apply these simple energy hacks, you can very quickly lower your level of anxiety. And again, we've shown in clinical trials, your cortisol drops dramatically after just a week of applying this.
jawsomegift. com has all of those resources through that one link.
Becca Powers: that is awesome. I'm so listeners go get that stuff. I'm all for spreading empowerment, being, elevated levels of consciousness and this conversation. I'm buzzing. You
Speaker 4: can see my cheeks are even a little right. It was so good.
It's awesome. Thank you so much for being a guest on the show. It was great to have you.
Dr. Dawson Church: What a, joy. Thank you back. I knew he'd have fun and he did. Thank you and thanks for your. Wonderful work sharing this with other people and inspiring them to be who they truly are.
Becca Powers: Thank you so much
