Are you spiritually curious but hesitant when it comes to traditional religion?
Or maybe you’re very grounded in your traditional religious practices, but wondering about the stuff that never gets covered…
I can totally relate.
It’s a strange situation to navigate.
So many rules.
Such high stakes.
Overwhelming. Scary.
It’s the perfect reminder of how our physical, human minds prefer the familiar, to the unknown.
It’s also the most important reason why we must gather information anyway.
There comes a point in our lives that we are drawn to a greater understanding of our own existence.
Have you felt it?
For most it happens once we’ve achieved those initial goals we’ve set… usually early adulthood when we’ve settled into a job and are a few years into our lives “in the real world”.
It starts as discontent (is this all there is?).
It continues as curiosity.
And that’s the point that, for many of us, it turns to fear.
(We are conditioned to be afraid of what we don’t understand.)
When we give into the fear, and stagnate in our lives, the discontent doesn’t fade away… it compounds.
For many of us, we turn this awareness of unhappiness on ourselves.
(I must be broken… why can’t I just be happy with what I have?)
The reason… you aren’t meant to sit still!
You’ll never reach the “end” of your development as a human or satisfy your curiosity about life…
There is always more to learn.
The tricky part, in my experience, is finding a safe place to do it.
Well, my friend, I have you covered there! Check out this episode to learn all about my new mini-course: Spiritual Seeker 101. https://cariwise.com/ss101
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
This transcript is auto-generated and may contain typos. Are you spiritually curious but also a little resistant to traditional religion? Well, that's what we're talking about in episode 107. Hey there, I'm Cari Wise, after graduating from veterinary school over 20 years ago, struggling to create balance and failing to protect my mental health and emotional wellbeing, I finally ditched all the rules and forged my own path forward. I used my professional education in ways I didn't even know were possible. And through that journey, I developed a deep sense of who I am, a brand new set of skills, and a clear understanding of what I'm meant to contribute to the world. Each week here in the Intentional Joy Podcast, I'll share what I've learned along the way in order to help you develop your own deep sense of personal identity and connection with yourself so you can live an empowered life on your terms too. This is what I call aligned living and it begins with intentional joy. So if you're ready to claim this for yourself, let's go. Hello my friends. Welcome to the Intentional Joy Podcast. Today we're gonna be talking about spiritual curiosity and religion resistance, because those two things often go hand in hand. And as I jump into this topic, which can be a little bit tricky to navigate, I'm gonna be sharing some of my own story because I think that my story and my journey through all of the different aspects of spirituality to where I am today may really be helpful for some of you to hear. I wish I had somebody like me to share their story back when I was super confused about everything that was going on. So this story story really does begin way back in my childhood when I was very young and I remember back then that Sunday would roll around and I would be terrified that we would have to go to church. Now, I grew up in a household where my dad had been raised Catholic, my mother had been raised in a first Christian Church, and we just didn't go to church. It wasn't necessarily that anybody had stronger feelings, strong feelings about it one way or the other. It just didn't happen. Except for those rare occasions like a holiday, like Easter usually, or Palm Sunday, where we would go and when we would go, we would go to my mom's first Christian Church. Now, in that church, there were people I knew, there were people from my neighborhood, there were people from my school. I grew up in a pretty small town. So there were definitely people I knew there. However, the experience was always very uncomfortable. We didn't go often enough that I had any sense of understanding of what was going on. There were all kinds of rituals and traditions and all these things that were happening around me that I didn't get, I didn't understand. And we got all dressed up, which we never got dressed up ever in my house. So it was all just a very uncomfortable, awkward social experiment every time that we would go. And I really learned to dread that, that on top of it, sometimes we would go to Sunday school and once again, not often enough to ever have any idea what was going on. We would go, we would have no idea what they were talking about. We might be there with our friends and then maybe we would go a couple of weeks in a row, maybe three weeks in a row, and then we wouldn't go again maybe for a whole year. And so as this kind of progressed throughout my childhood, I really came to resist the awkwardness of all of it. I never understood it. I didn't know what it was all about. And it was just this unpredictable, scary thing that sometimes happened on Sundays. So now let's fast forward to the fifth grade where I had the brilliant idea that I didn't wanna go to, I guess it was a fourth grade. I didn't wanna go to our middle school. So we in, in my town, the way that it worked is that you were in one school from like kindergarten through third grade, and then in fourth grade you went to a different school and all the, the smaller primary schools came together in this elementary school for grades four, five, and six. And for some reason, the whole idea of that terrified me. You notice I have a lot of anxiety in my past and I carry that around still today. That's just part of who I am. And that's okay. I've learned how to work with that. But this is the way that I'd like to show up when I was younger. So having this anxiety of, I don't know what I thought was gonna happen in the fourth grade, but I didn't wanna go and I somehow managed to talk my family into sending me to Catholic school because I thought that that would be easier. How I got them to go along with this, I have no idea, but I wanna tell you what, if I thought I was a fish outta water at Sunday school, in a Christian Church, drop you into the fifth grade in a Catholic school and you have no idea what is going on. So I stayed in that Catholic school for a few months, you know, probably until Christmas break ish. And then I did transition and go to public school again after that. But I'm really thankful for that experience because it gave me an entire different perspective, entirely different perspective of what religion can look like and how people can practice spirituality. And so that has been a really interesting thing. And the thing I've been very grateful to have experience cuz it also helped me then to understand a lot of how my father was raised. Now let's just continue to fast forward here. After about the fifth grade, there really was no church. So there was the, the no no more like hiding in my bedroom until after 10 o'clock in the morning on a Sunday, because I knew by 10 o'clock on the morning on a Sunday, every Sunday school class had already started. There was no way we were gonna have to go. I really had this calculated out. So by about, I guess probably about the sixth grade, I guess I should say, this just was, was no longer even anything that happened. And so my parents had separated, we kinda went all, all of our different ways and that whole idea of Sunday school and all that stopped. And that's just how it remained for me, any, any sense of religion for many, many, many, many years. Now, along the way there was, there was a time when my sister had the opportunity to get involved in a church with her family, with her friends and some of their families. And she became really integrated into a church family and a church culture. And of course she tried to share that with me. And I was very resistant to the whole idea, very resistant. I was also a very logical child, very left brain logical. And as a child I could not understand how one book could have all the answers. It just didn't make sense to me as a sixth grader and then even as a, you know, high schooler, I just couldn't wrap my head around it. But mind you, I also didn't know enough about it to really be able to make that kind of evaluation. That was just my gut instinct that the one book couldn't have all of the answers, that there was more to it than that. And as I continued to go through my college years and then into my veterinary school years, it was during that time that there was really a pull from my own soul. I don't know that at that point that I knew that it wa that's what it was, but it was this pull to understand more than what I saw. And that really was amplified in veterinary school where I was studying, you know, all of the physiology, all of the nuts and bolts of how life stays alive and really looking at it at really deep levels because of what I was studying in my degree program. And that's where the curiosity really started to come up again. Like where does it all start? How does it all work? And looking, you know, having learned about things like biology and genetics and chemistry and physics, it was just such a bigger puzzle than I'd ever even considered before. I just hadn't been in any kind of area in my life that required me to ponder it. And so during that time, there really was this curiosity and this poll to understand. And so during that time in my life, I did spend some time going to a non-denominational church in the town where I went to vet school and I was a lurker. So I was one of those who would wait until the, the sermon or till the service, I should say the service had started. And then I would sneak in and the place that I found to go had coffee, and those of you who know me know how much I love coffee. So like you could sneak in and you could get your coffee and then you could just go stand in the back of the auditorium. And there was music and I loved music. Some of you may not know I was a music major my very first year at college. So anything with music I was always in for. And so I could stand back there and I could listen to the music and I could drink my coffee. And what they would talk about on those Sundays didn't sound anything at all. Like what I had experienced when I was in grade school at the first Christian Church on those rare, you know, Sundays. And in Sunday school, it wasn't anything like what I experienced in the Catholic church. When we went to mass on Wednesdays during school days, it was nothing like that at all. It was completely different. It was more along the lines of self-help. It was really practical stuff. And of course they made references to a bible and of course I, I didn't even own one at that point in time and I would listen to that part, but I remember I like literally had like a notebook that I would take with me and I would jot a few things down and there were just little things that was, that were just broadening my perspective overall. And I continued that kind of bouncing in and out of there being a lurker the whole time I was in veterinary school. And really didn't land back into any kind of regular church going kind of thing until many years later. So now we've fast forward again, I'm outta veterinary school, I've moved away from my hometown, moved out to the east coast. I've come back to, I've gotten married for the first time, I've come back to the Midwest, Illinois. And there was a church, a non-denominational church that was getting ready to open. Now this made me curious because see one of the things that caused me so much anxiety when it came to religion and traditional religion and organized religion was the, the community itself. There's just something about walking into a room of people who know each other already really well. That's really intimidating for me. And so even though I knew that I could make friends, the introvert in me just never, ever could get comfortable in those situations. But this was like new church opening up in our area. So I was curious, my husband was curious. So we checked it out. That ended up being a pretty fun kind of experience for a few years to be with people who were opening up basically the same kind of organization that I had experienced when I was in veterinary school. Non-trad, traditional non-denominational, lots of music, more very like self-help oriented discussions on Sundays, casual, easygoing. I met some people there that I'm still friends with today. And that was a great experience initially. And then without going into a story that could turn this podcast into several hours, the bottom line is the humans will be the humans. And this brings us to the point of what for me makes me resistant to a lot of traditional and organized religion. And what I suspect is doing the same thing for many of you, that when the humans get involved, the basis of all of it, what we're there to connect with really gets shadow shadowed by human experience, by human behavior. And it's not necessarily that we're bad people or that there are bad people in any of those places, and maybe there are, you know, whether or not we label somebody good or bad, that's just an option. We get to decide that for ourselves. So it's not that it was intentionally a nefarious kind of thing going on there, but what I became aware of was certainly something that didn't align with my own personal morals, ethics, and values. And those are three points that I come back to again and again and again throughout my whole, whole life. And I encourage you to do so. Also, when you are making decisions, when you're looking at your life path, what are you doing? Where are you spending your time? Who are you spending your time with? What are you putting your focus on? Do those things align with your own personal morals, ethics, and values? Because if they do not my friends, it's very difficult to sustain anything in that realm. So there came a point that that this organization no longer aligned like that for me. And so I did leave it and with that kind of ended my spiritual journey, my inner expansion, my inner development for again years, gosh, even over a decade, I would say even over a decade. But during that time, even though I wasn't involved in any kind of organization, I just couldn't get enough information about myself, learning about who I was, who we were as people, the whole idea of the universe of God, of how does it all fit together? Who's really telling us the truth? Is there a truth? And then all of that, along with my very left brain logical side, very scientific, show me the data, show me the proof, show me the facts and my understanding, then a physiology. But then you couple that with physics and then you add into that my experiences in veterinary medicine where I don't care what you say, come a full moon, things get a little crazy, then you know this, it's not just veterinary medicine, is it? It's pretty much everywhere if you keep your eyes open, human emergency room's the same kind of deal. And so as I just continue to try to figure out how all these things to fit, fit together, and I, I wouldn't I say I try to figure it out. I was just curious. I was curious about how all these things fit together. So I had this really insatiable desire just to know. And I'd say I carry that to this day, A lifelong learner, many of us just, we can't get enough information. And I continue to, to be on that path of always expanding what I understand, what I know, who my, my mentors are, who my teachers are, so that I can learn. And ultimately, why do we do that? Like what is that pull that we have from the innermost beings of ourselves? This is that spiritual seeker part that I talked about. There's just something that calls to us that is bigger than our experience here. And when we slow down in our lives and step out of the human fray, we start to really hear it. And the beautiful thing about that calling about that spark is that it's not only kind of leading us where we need to go, but it's guiding us as well in a really positive way. Y'all have heard of gut instinct, you've probably heard words like intuition. And as we start to develop these things, we really start to connect with who we are, start to connect with what's at the heart of our morals, ethics, and values. They're so much more available to us than we even realize. And for years and years and years, decades and decades and decades, I lived my life without any of this influencing it whatsoever. Even so much to the point that I was pretty resistant. And even, gosh, what's the word I wanna say? Dismissive of anything that had to do with spirituality resistant because of my days originally around organized religion, traditional religion, and the discomfort that I felt and the anxiety, and then the things that happened when the humans were the humans. Just no thank you, no time for that in my life. And then resistant to the other, simply because, or dismissive to the other, simply because it was a whole world that I didn't understand. You know, people were throwing around words like intuition, like vibration, emotional frequency, things like woo, like what the F was. Woo. Anyway, talking about things like law of attraction. And as I heard people using these phrases and I saw who those people were, I didn't know who those people were. And there was a little bit of fear that came up, you know, that they were just a little too out there for me. They weren't based in any kind of science or reality. And so it was very easy for me to dismiss that because the truth was I didn't have anybody in my life that was an example of believing in any of those things. So we have to consider that. It's so fascinating how the mind works, how we automatically dismiss and push away that which is unfamiliar. It's a very normal lower brain protective instinct kind of things to do. If we think about our lower brain, we think about how survival instinct works. You stay away from uncertainty because you don't know if there's a lion around the corner about to eat you. So uncertainty and our resistance to anything that's uncertain is a really normal reaction. But it's also one that we have to question because just because we've never experienced it or engaged with it before, doesn't actually make it dangerous, and it doesn't actually make it untrue. And so I started to really consider that as I was in this dissonance of this kind of conditioned resistance to, to the idea of anything spiritual, this conditioned response to dismiss everything that I didn't know. And that dissonance was against what I also felt, which was this pull, this curiosity, this inquisitive side, the scientist part of me that says, well, what if there is something to this? And as I started to pay attention, then I started to see people who believed, people who said those words that I didn't really understand, who were using words like emotional frequency and vibrations and law of attraction and intuition and downloads and woo. And as people that I respected in other realms started talking about these things, and maybe they'd always been talking about them, but I just hadn't been noticing where they were talking about them. But as I started to notice people who I knew, who had respected, who had professional degrees talking about these kinds of concepts, I became just that much more curious. And something in that clicked, it gave me, I would say, permission to explore it for myself. See, even though I didn't have anybody in my own circle, my own friends and family, that the people that I was most familiar with in my life, I didn't have anybody in those circles talking about any of these things. As I expanded my circle of acquaintances, as I intentionally sought mentors, as I intentionally read books and listened to podcasts and, and, you know, dug into all of these self-help kind of things, those words started coming up again and again and again. And even from people who would be quote unquote considered religious, talk about make your head spin around a little bit. And so let's fast forward to where I am today, or maybe we should start back a few years, because I remember when I very first started Joyful DVM before we made, you know, any kind of transition to where we are now. When I very first started that company, I remember talking about cognitive behavior theory and coaching in the physical mind. I didn't talk about it in the, in the context of the physical mind, but I remember talking about those concepts and you know, talking about the science of mindfulness, you know how it was, you know, you weren't gonna find any woo here. You weren't gonna find any, any, you know, meditation and zen or anything like that to try to decrease your stress. Like we were gonna use real science and the science of the physical mind to do that. And there's very, you know, very much of our about Life Academy for Life level one course, our reboot course. I mean, that is cognitive behavior theory. And so we definitely don't dive deep into any of those things. We barely touch on the idea of them way late in that course. But if we stayed really true to cognitive behavior theory, and, and I think it's very powerful, like the truth is, in my opinion, the truth is that in, in order for us to get into any kind of flow, there's another one of those buzzwords of who knew what the heck that meant to get into any kind of flow or connection with ourselves that we have to first understand what happens with the physical mind, because the story of the physical mind is what creates the experience that we have as a human. So if we don't understand what's happening with that, it doesn't matter how hard we try, it doesn't matter how much we achieve, we're not ever gonna feel better as so knowing that, and that's where we start. So kind of fast forward to where we are th now. And what I found for myself, and as I've spoken with others, they, they have also experienced the same thing, is that once you start to kind of shift and become in control of your own experience, that calling to understand more just gets louder. It just pulls at you a little bit. And even those friends of mine, those even family members now that I'm willing to bring these subjects up and talk about them, who are what I would say very religious people also hear that same calling. They feel that same pull. So it's quite fascinating because in traditional religious circles, you're not going to hear a lot of conversation around things like law of attraction and frequency and downloads and flow. But the more that you start to have the conversations, you'll find out how many people are actually buying into those things, living into those things even better. And even people in some of the highest levels of organized religion, it's quite fascinating. So why am I telling you all of this? I'm telling you all of this, because I remember what it was like for me when I started on this journey of mine to figure out how to be happy. I mean, let's cut to the chase. That's where my journey started. I was unhappy, I was burned out. I had done all the things I had, you know, graduated from veterinary school. I was a business owner, I was making money. You know, like all the things like from, from what the world teaches us should make us happy. I had all of those things and I was freaking miserable. So I was on a mission to figure out why I was broken. I was on a mission to figure out what, what had gone wrong, what did I still need to fix? And as I dove into all of that, what I came up, up against, what I learned, what I experienced was something completely different than what I anticipated. And as that curiosity was peaked as that calling, that spiritual calling, that calling of my soul is what I would call it. Now, this, you know, this desire to know and to understand more was was coming to be. I didn't know where to turn because here I am, I'm a very logical scientific, you know, doctor, very based in reality and very comfortable in what I can see and what I can prove. And yet I'm called to the unknown. I'm called to what I can't see, to what I can't prove. And there's a whole lot of crazy out there. I mean, I'm just gonna call, like I see there's a whole lot of crazy, there's a whole lot of people, there's a whole lot of organizations even that take that kind of, you know, prey on people who are spiritually curious. And so because of that, I was really hesitant to, to seek information in any kind of formal way. I don't wanna be an idiot, I don't wanna be fooled, I didn't wanna be misled. I didn't want, you know, to end up down a rabbit hole somewhere and then like have my friends and family find out what I was learning or studying or exploring and then reject me. I mean, I didn't want any of that to happen. And so I was really scared and I really didn't know. I didn't know anybody. Like I said, I I didn't know anybody who, who taught these concepts, who practiced these concepts, who explored these concepts, who then also simultaneously were quote unquote broad sweeping generalization coming your way. Like responsible professional people, you know, the, the, the type of people that I had been taught that I was supposed to be. I didn't see anybody doing the two things until I did. And I wanna tell you, when I did, when I found this person who was both a doctor and also very spiritually aware, it changed everything for me because I could no longer compartmentalize the two. It was no longer binary. It was no longer this or that. You were either a scientist or spiritual. They came together and it was this permission to explore that really was the greatest gift that I received from knowing this person, knowing this person on a personal level. And so that is the heart of why I am recording this for you today, because I know that some of you out there are feeling that exact same pull. And if your experience is anything like mind, it's happening now that you have finished whatever that first big initial goal was in your life, whatever it was, and you've gotten out into the real world, you've gotten out on your own, you've kind of dropped into now some kind of routine. And there's this voice that's saying, is this it? Is this all there is? There has to be more. There's a curiosity and there's this, this, oh, what's the word I wanna use? There's just this discontent that's coming up that you can't quite put your finger on. And if that goes on long enough and the unhappiness follows and begins to stack, it's very normal for us to then start to conclude that we've made bad choices in our past. That if we had chosen differently before then we would be happy today. And my friends, what I want you to know is that's not what's happening. You're simply being called to explore your life in a different kind of way at a different level. You're being called called by the core of who you are to become who you are at your core, not who the world taught you that you're supposed to be. And that journey is individual for each and every one of us. Having a guide to show you the way to help you navigate this whole other set of information and vocabulary and concepts is critically important, at least it was for me. And knowing that you can have somebody who's walked this journey, who you trust, I think is essential, having the right guide makes all the difference in the world. And so for that reason, what I have done is I have created a brand new course and it's called Spiritual Seeker 1 0 1 W t F is Woo. Anyway, it's a subtitle for it. And my intention with this new course, spiritual Seeker 1 0 1, is simply this. It is simply to give an overview, to try to take away some of the fear and some of the uncertainty, and to some of the lack of familiarity around spiritual concepts so that you don't have to spend time like I did, being afraid, being confused, not understanding what the heck people were talking about as you start your own journey. So in that mini course, and it's gonna be a short mini course, in that mini course, we're gonna talk about things like what Woo is and vibration and law of attraction and downloads and flow, you know, things like that. We're gonna be looking at all of these spiritual concepts that become so easy to talk about once you know the language, but can keep you as an outsider if you don't. That seems like it's a completely different world that you weren't meant to navigate. And what I want you to know is that you are absolutely meant to navigate it. It's an essential part of your human journey to become connected to your own soul, to your own calling, to the truth of who you are. You only have one purpose in this lifetime, and that is to be who you are. To be who you were always meant to be, to be who you were created to become. And we cannot do that to our fullest potential if we simply follow the rules of the humans. There is a greater calling to all of this. There is a greater influence to all of this. And it just for me, took something as simple as recognizing in my own life the influence of a full moon on what happened around me to really start that curiosity flowing because I, my logical left-sided scientific brain could not make sense of it outside of that there was an influence that was happening. So even though the people in my life had dismissed things like horoscopes had, you know, believed that things like terror readers and palm readers and psychics were just, you know, fair and carnival money makers that nobody could really connect and talk to people on the other side. That there really was no main purpose. Your life was what you made of it, even though that's the primary narrative of what I grew up with. And there's, and I get it, like it's totally fine. It's not a problem. The reason I share this with you is that's the narrative. That's where I started. That was, those were the rules that I lived my life by. That's what I was taught. But then when I had experiences for myself, and in particular when I was in full-time veterinary practice, and I saw firsthand what happened with people and animals, as that full moon came around every month, it just became a fact that I couldn't ignore anymore. And I had to understand how it all worked together. And so, because I know I'm not alone in that, and I know that some of you are also curious and you don't know where to start, that's why I'm creating the spiritual seeker one-on-one course. It's a starting point. You know, you're never gonna learn everything that you need to learn in that. I don't know that you'll ever learn everything that you can learn in your lifetime. It's an ongoing journey. But you have to have a starting point where you feel safe to explore where you feel safe to ask your questions. I'm not gonna promise you that I have all the answers because my journey is also ongoing. But what I can promise you is that I'm probably ahead of where you are. And I will always hon answer your questions honestly. I will always share my own personal experience from a very honest way, the good, the bad, the ugly, all of it. And what I will also promise you is that giving yourself permission to at least seek, to at least gather information that you don't have available to you at this point, that that will always be worth it. In my spiritual seeker one-on-one course, you may go through that and be like, Nope, this is not for me. And you know what? Great, that is totally fine. If the concepts and the things that I talk about, you know, they just don't align for you, that's not a problem. But at least you have that information so that you will know the direction that you go next. So many of us get lost in this place where the life that we have doesn't fit us anymore, but we don't know where we're going. And we spin and we spin and we spin. And inside there's a longing for something different. There's a longing for happiness, there's a longing for peace, there's a longing to get away from the stress and the anxiety. And when you just keep trying to figure it out with your physical mind and you keep trying to achieve it by external means, promotions, money, titles, and you keep failing, and I don't mean failing to get the promotions and titles and money, I mean failing to find the peace and the joy. There's just something missing that you can't ignore. And what many of us do tragically, is that instead of just recognizing and accepting that there just may be information we don't have, we end up turning it on ourselves. We end up doing what I was doing way back when I was trying to figure out how, how am I broken? What are all the ways that I am broken? How do I need to be different than I am? What am I doing wrong? What is wrong with me that I can't be happy like everybody else? I've done all the things, but I'm not happy. What is wrong with me? That's what we do. We turn it on ourselves. And I'm inviting you. Do not turn it on yourself, even if you already have, even if you're, you know, 17 layers down into self-judgment and self-loathing and believing that you are the most effed up person on the face of the earth. Give it to yourself. Give this gift to yourself to come to the spiritual Seeker 1 0 1 class. Because my friends, I promise you that the worst things that you believe about yourself are not true. I promise you that the dark story you might be telling about your future is also not true and not your only option. There is so much more available to us in this lifetime to experience than what we give ourselves permission to experience on the regular. And as we start to just open up the possibility to other things, it's amazing how the possibilities then show up for us to experience. But my friends, it's not gonna just show up without us going out and looking. It's like anything else we must pursue. You're being called listen to what your heart is telling you. Listen to what that pull is, that you know when it's quiet, that desire for something more, those dreams, those hopes, those goals, none of those are accidents. And if anything, I would say they are assignments. There are things in this world that you are meant to do. First and foremost, it is to be yourself. Because as yourself, there are things in ways you're meant to, things you're meant to do, in ways you're meant to contribute. And if you don't allow yourself to become who you are, then not only do you miss out on the experience that you were supposed to have, but the rest of us miss out on you too. And I don't want that for any of us. So my hope is that in the Spiritual Seeker 1 0 1 course that you can get your questions answered, that if you are spiritually curious, but that whole traditional religion thing just is not your thing. It's not your deal that you'll come and listen and learn. And if you're spiritually curious and organized, religion is your jam. I hope you'll still come. Because what I have found from my own friends and family who have kind of opened the door to learn beyond what they've been taught in their traditional religion, organized religious organizations, what I have found is that this enhances what they believe. It's not one or the other. It's not black and white. This world that we live in, our interpretation of it as humans is gray. And anytime we decide that one opinion is absolute, we shut out all other possibility. And the one thing about practicing medicine, if, if it has taught me nothing else, is that everything is still on the table. Medicine is always the practice of medicine, which means as much as we think we know, we also accept that there's more yet to learn. And I think this applies as well. So if you're curious about my Spiritual Seeker 1 0 1 course, just jump over to carry wise.com/ss 1 0 1. So SS 1 0 1 for Spiritual Seeker 1 0 1, Carrie wise.com, SS 1 0 1. And you can jump on the wait list to be the first to be notified as soon as it opens up for enrollment. All right, my friends, I hope you've enjoyed this episode. If so, please share it with a friend and leave us a review. I would really appreciate it. Bye for now.