Welcome back to Compass, finding spirituality in the everyday.
You've probably heard of emotional intelligence, but what
about spiritual intelligence? My name is Ryan
Dunn. And on this episode of Compass, we meet up
with doctor Paul Berns to dive into things like brain development,
emotional attachments, and spiritual journeys. Paul shares
his personal experiences with panic attacks, parenting, and
healing, revealing how these all impacted
his emotional intelligence and how that then spurred him to
address spiritual development in a similar manner.
Reverend doctor Paul Burns is the creator of the GPS
spiritual inventory. He's coached ministry leaders, pastored
churches, and written several books, including blessed encounters I'm
sorry, blessing encounters, and the book that we're talking
about mostly today, Becoming Spiritually
Intelligent. So join us as we explore this unique
perspective on prayer, anxiety, and the
complexities of human relationships and the human
mind. That's next on Compass.
My soul is joyful and excited. Wonderful.
Any particular impulse that has you feeling so joyful or
excited? It's just one of those days. 1, I get to talk with you
and talk to people about something I'm passionate about. But later
this day, later today, my church is gonna have a neighborhood
tailgate party I'm excited about. And, just, you know, when
you're kind of living your purpose as best you can, I think that's where my
joy and excitement comes from? Cool. Well, you're
excited to talk with us about spiritual intelligence. I
spend a good amount of my work moderating
comments on social media. There's definitely a
predominant line of thinking, out there in the
culture at large where people would put together the word
spiritual and, and intelligent and say, well, that
doesn't work. You can't do that. You're 1 or the other.
So tell us about spiritual intelligence. What are you
meaning through spiritual intelligence? Well,
it really begins not so much with IQ intelligence. In
fact, not at all IQ intelligence. It comes out of this thought
of emotional intelligence, which is kinda came
in the in the nineties and really has swept through the corporate world.
And Mhmm. Little by little little by little making its way into the church,
but emotional intelligence is about understanding and
managing your emotions so that, you
you relate to people in in good ways
rather than in bad ways. And so spiritual
intelligence is really a riff off of emotional intelligence
to where now God is part of the equations.
It's not just me and you. It's God and me and you, and
how how a relationship with God can inform the
way we relate to other people. It really another
way you could say it is, it is your ability to love, to
receive and give love. K. Part of our
emotional intelligence is in recognizing how
our attachments of the past, our early attachments
affect our relationships in the present. How do
our early attachments affect our spiritual
relationship, our relationship with God? Well, that was
really kind of my starting question. There's the question of
is why do some people believe, have faith, and other people
don't? And, you know, my own tradition in the Presbyterian Church,
our go to answer is God chose you to believe.
God gave you the gift of belief. And well then,
why would God not give that to everybody? And
so that I began looking at that question and found that how
do people develop to have the ability to have
trusting, loving relationships in general? And it goes back to
those early, early formational relationships as
babies and children with our parents and other caregivers.
And, and this thing that forms in us called attachment,
and, and our attachment can be secure,
which gives us a sense of well, a sense
of that we are worthy of being loved and we can trust other to
trust others to love us. And it gives us some foundation to have a
loving trusting relationship. But not every and
nobody has a totally secure attachment.
Some people have insecure attachment to where they
just want to push away when times get tough
and others want to really kind of codependently cling
on, you know, and unintentionally push people
away. And so I began exploring attachment. And so that
is, I think, if you do
not have some sense that you are worthy of love and
that you can trust others to love you, it would be very hard, I
think, to be able to believe that God,
an invisible being could love you and you could trust this
invisible being. Yeah. This is a
very different approach, from a pastoral
perspective that you're taking. Was there something going on in your
own life that was kind of pushing along this new
awakening or this new perspective that you were adopting?
Well, I mean, some of it is that theological question that I
brought up is why, you know. But but also in
my own, this really started in many ways with my own experience
with, with panic attacks,
which, you know, started happening to me about a dozen
about 10 years ago. I was really trying to understand
what was going on inside of me and, you know, where did this
come from? So I just began understanding, trying to understand
my brain and my emotional life
and, and how to get a handle on this thing and not
just to cope with panic and anxiety, but
to to find a sense of healing. And so that,
understanding how humans develop and and how
trauma and grief can impact the development. And
that's really kind of a starting place for me. And then raising
children, we adopted a child and then a second child and trying
to understand, how to best raise our children,
how to how to give them a sense of security.
So really and it is a very personal work. I don't wanna
mess my kids up. I want to give them I want them to
know that they're loved. I want to be a trusted leader. Yeah.
Has your work in spiritual intelligence
impacted than your ability to,
like the, I get your sense of not wanting to use the word cope with
the anxiety, but, to process the anxiety?
Yeah. It has a lot. And with other
things, I mean, therapy is a big part of of of,
I think, for me, developing spiritual intelligence. Being
heard compassionately by another person is
is a path of healing. And so that's part of the
healing part, but also, you know,
understanding how the brain works in in a relational way.
It's on the right side of the brain is the relational part of our brain.
And when we can when we're in a sent when when
we're in an anxious state or feeling panicky, it
feels very counterintuitive to wanna reach out and connect
with people. We wanna I just wanna turn off the lights and
close the door. Right? But it's actual relating to
another person that restores our brain's sense
of security and and trust. In your book,
you talk quite a bit about brain development
and, how it impacts our our interactions with the
world. I I didn't get any class like that in seminary.
So what what spurred this kind of,
learning that you had about how the brain development? It's
surprising that it actually was at a seminary. Okay. Tell
me more. I I I was doing a doctoral program, a
doctor of ministry program that was focused on
coaching. And I I I was doing faith coaching, life
coaching, spiritual coaching, whatever you wanna call it. And they
had both a coaching department and a psychology department.
And so part of our curriculum was,
some some different authors, psychiatrist who
wrote from a faith perspective and kind of connecting the dots of
spirituality and brain science. Like,
Kurt Thompson is a person. He wrote a book called the
anatomy of the soul, and it was a neuros
neuroscience informed neuroinformed explanation
of spirituality from a Christian perspective. Some other
people, many of you know, there are people out there now called neuro
theologians. There's a new word for you. I don't
know if I put myself in that category. But so
I was learning it at seminary. Okay. All right.
And what are some of the surprising moments you've
had in looking at that or some of the learnings that you've taken away and
how brain science has impacted spiritual
growth? Well, a couple of things I'll mention. 1 is, you
know, when it comes to the fear center of your
brain, which, you know, usually gets talked about as the amygdala, you
have 2 on either side. And that that
thing gets activated and it shuts down to some
degree, the the front part of your brain, the
prefrontal cortex, where things like discernment and
wisdom and empathy and, you know, emotional
regulation happen. And so and so
when you when something that is disturbing you, something
that your brain kind of signals that there's
something potentially dangerous, The fear center gets
activated before the thinking center. And so learning
how to be able to calm yourself enough
to have an exploratory, it's usually not a
bear running at us, it's usually a human being that have a
has a different viewpoint and we're not really being threatened life or
death and yet, but our brain tells us we are unless
we can overcome that. And another thing
that I think, is, is really
important that I learned and we just like was like a revelation when I
learned it was that the brain,
through either not having secure attachment,
you know, not having loving, trustworthy parents growing
up, or maybe even abusive or neglecting parents,
doesn't hook your brain upright. It basically there's a disintegration
and trauma can disintegrate your brain as well.
And so there's a dysfunction in your brain that happens that makes
it hard to relate with people or God.
And there is a path of healing that is very simple and
this blew my mind. So your brain can literally be
reintegrated and healed on a very on a physical
level can be healed by being listened to
compassionate. Okay. It hooks
things up. It's almost like you you get the parenting that you didn't
get through another person. Okay.
Alright. It what does that
look like in your practice? How do you how do
people who might say, well, I don't know who to speak to, or
where's the compassionate listener in my life? How do you enter into
that? Well, there's a number of ways. I went out and
hired a compassionate listener, you know. And I do I speak
to I have 2 people, you know, I speak to a
therapist every month. I speak to a life coach every month. And I
have pastor colleagues and friends.
So you may have to go find 1.
And it bothers me that that it's cost
prohibitive for many people. But a pastor is a
solution as well. But you might have a
friend that you trust for instance. And like I have a friend, I have
multiple friends that I do this with. I we talk every week
or often, and one of us begins by telling me
about how you're doing. And we don't swap stories.
We just, one listens while the other talks,
you know, reflectively. We don't, you know, we we ask questions and then we
the other one takes a turn. And so, you know, we don't interrupt
each other. You know, we don't again, we we don't
share the the story that we're burning to tell because you told me
that story. We're just listening to one another. So listening,
being a good listener, and finding a good listener is a way to
participate in growing each other's spiritual intelligence.
Are there other practical steps that people can take to
deepen their spiritual intelligence? Absolutely. So, you
know, the book outlines 9 different paths that you can
work on that, you know, building, you know, growing in
these different these 9 identified things that came out of my
research. And I'll just throw out a few. One, you
know, with God, we've got, learning to trust
God, which is easier said than done. Maybe the easier one to
focus on is communication with God. So learning,
not just praying, not just expressing yourself to God, but learning to
hear God in some way. I mean, that that's some
next level stuff to be able to experience God
communicating to you in some way. And I've got exercises in the
book for that. A big one is
forgiveness, learning to receive and give forgiveness.
I mean, without forgiveness, it's just like we're we're
plumbing that's stuck, you know, like that's claw.
And until we're able to forgive ourselves or receive forgiveness or
forgive another person, then God's love doesn't get in, God's
love doesn't get out. And so the that
one single practice though, is a daunting practice for
many people. That one practice can make the
biggest difference in your ability to receive and give love to
other people. I wanna backtrack,
for just a moment in talking about the the aspect of
prayer. I've talked with several people who feel like, well, I
talk to God. I don't know if God is listening
though, because I don't hear God talking back. How, when you're
talking about God listening for God, what does that
look like? How do we hear God? Yeah. Well, I think
it it takes we we won't hear or see what we
can't believe. So it's very hard, you know, so you you
have to, in some level, open yourself up to the possibility
of it. Like, I might be able to see God doing something today,
but it takes also imagination. And not
imagination is like you're making something up, but imagination
like, you know, you know, I'll give you an example.
So I I was having one of those days and I just threw it out
to God. I'm like, God, I didn't even know what to say. But
could you say something to me right now? And I,
that kind of inner voice said, keep your eyes open. And
so I was driving in my car and I saw a sign
and the sign, it was Campbell Road. And I'm
like, Campbell, okay. My my daughter's name is Campbell.
And then the very next thing I saw was Nelson's
steak house. And I'm like, that's my son. I've got
Campbell, I've got Nelson. And then lo and behold,
La Hacienda Ranch, ranch house restaurant.
It was the very place where my wife and I had our rehearsal dinner
for before the day before we got married. And then it
was all came together in this moment. I heard God saying to
me, what are you worried about? Do you remember do you
remember when you had blown your previous marriage and
you you you begged me for a a a
wife that would be a good match for you and I gave you
Jennifer and that there it is right there where it happened. And remember
when you prayed for children, you struggled for years to have children
and then finally the solution of adoption came up and boom,
there was Nelson and then boom, there was Campbell. What makes you
think that I'm gonna leave you stranded today?
So I would call that some combination of faith,
openness, and imagination. Yeah. Okay. I can see the
correlation there. Although, it does help to have some literal signs popping
into the story as well. Those who have eyes to
see, ears to hear, Jesus said. Some of the of
the work that you've been sharing through the
book deals a lot with empathy. You've mentioned how,
we can begin to to disarm our fear a bit by
talking and relating with people. And yet
that even in of itself can be fear inducing for many
people, especially in the kind of national season
that we're in right now. And we're recording this a couple
weeks before the election Tuesday.
So that idea of being able to relate with some
people is, is on the top of people's minds and it,
it feels somewhat fearful. Can spiritual
intelligence help us to open up some relationships
with other people or open ourselves up to empathy with others?
Absolutely. And that's one, that's part of
the big goal of what I'm doing is try to open people's up
empathy up for other people. And and, you
know, there's unhealthy empathy. I wanna say that first of all, there's
codependent empathy that is really about
really about transaction and getting what you need from others or controlling
them to get what you need, manipulation and empathy can be
used in unhealthy ways. But so that aside,
so, you know, we were evolutionarily raised
as a species, to
and to become in a tribe that we developed to
be in tribes for safety, for provision
and things like that. And so this is deep in our
brain and just in our DNA. And so
for survival sake, we learned empathy
with the people that are in our tribe. And
then for survival sake, we learned to feel
threatened with people that are not in our tribe. And
so that that goes that's very deep instinctual stuff
in human beings and and hard to overcome. So, you
know, the one of the solutions of that is
trying to expand the potential for
common identity. So yeah. Okay. One may
be a democrat, one may be a republican, but we're
both Americans or, you
know, if all else fails, we're both human beings, but maybe you both
like barbecue. Maybe you both like the same kind of music,
but anytime you can find some common ground,
to to be to to move them from the out group to the
in group of your life, you can find empathy.
That doesn't mean that you should then give up all that you believe,
to please another person. That's codependency again. But
you find a connecting point and then then you can have
a conversation, an exchange of ideas,
perspectives, being able to to see people's
perspectives rather than just your own perspective projected
on them is a big part of empathy. Well, we've seen how
spirituality relates to intelligence.
The other, the organization that you founded is called Soulmetrics.
You seem to be very talented in working with these kind of
paradoxical words because, soul and
measurement are things that don't naturally go together. Tell us
about soul metrics. Thank you. Yeah. My wife came
up with the phrase, by the way, so I give credit. But yeah, no,
I'm of course dealing with the soul. But yeah, when I, when I proposed
my, my, my thesis to
my advisor who is a clinical psychologist, by the way,
when I proposed it to him, I said, look, I've got this theory
of spiritual intelligence, a Christ centered spiritual intelligence.
And I'm trying to put together an experiment, you know, a
project here to to display how it works.
But I need an instrument of measurement
to so people could take it in the beginning and in the end. So some
way of measuring spiritual intelligence. And he said, that would
be great, Paul. Why don't you do that? I'm like, well,
I can think of a million reasons. One being I have no idea
how to create a psychometrically sound assessment.
And I'm sure I didn't say those words because I didn't know what those words
were. But he said that I know how to do it. And so he worked
with me. And what I did was, develop
an instrument of measurement for spiritual intelligence,
and validate it with over 700
participants who took the initial questionnaire, and then
we refined it, based on all the metrics and
data and things like that, statistical data. So
it, people are very hesitant to
put metrics on spirituality. And so let me just say we're
not measuring God. You cannot you cannot
measure God, right? But you can and people have
been measuring the human response to the
world for decades. There's a ton of
assessments that are out there that are valid. And so this
isn't so much measuring God, it is
measuring what impact your belief
or lack of belief in God and
your ability to love or not love self and love neighbor and not love
neighbor. How can that be detected? And
it can be, it can turns out you can do that,
in a psychological, way. Tell me a little bit more. What does
that look like? Like, if I take the test and I get a 9, does
that mean I'm pretty close to God? Not quite 10
close to God, but Well, we do. It's a a 100
a 100 scale. But and so it's
it's measuring, you know, these 9 areas that are
talked about in the book. And and
the score can be a little disturbing, because
we're, we're not usually as,
I would, I don't want to say spiritual. It's just that we've got these interferences
in us. If we have resentments, if we have,
hurts and if we have codependency, if
we, struggle to believe that God is a good God
and a loving God, a personal God,
then all those things impact. And it's really geared towards
measuring your,
your level of secure attachment with God. So it's an
attachment measurement and your level of self
differentiation, which is the opposite of codependency
and your level of empathy. So those three major,
areas of measurement together. And then so you get a score and
then you and I have a conversation. And, we
talk about how you answered the questions and why you answered
them, how you are. And we get to the deeper
ground. It's not really about the assessment at all. It's a way of
having a conversation to get to the deeper ground of the state
of our souls. And what kind of responses do you hear in people
who are taking the test and beginning the the process?
Yeah. Well, some people will say it's about what
I thought, you know, and then they'll tell you tell me why. And
some people will say it felt like a punch in the gut.
And and the reason, you know, is is
an unfortunate reason is because that things
spiritual have become shame inducing for many
people. And so, for instance, if you went to your medical
doctor, your primary physician, you wouldn't tell them how good you're
doing. You would tell them what's wrong with you. But if you
go to your pastor or your spouse
or your best friend and you're dealing with a deeply
spiritual emotional problem, you might be afraid to
talk about it. And if you're afraid to talk about it,
then there's no there's no real way to move forward with it.
And so, really, I I wanna very quickly try to
lower the shame or to deshamify
spirituality and get it into a level that's
a little more clinical, so that we can work with
it. How do you lower that
that barrier of shame? Say that again. How do you lower that
barrier of shame? Yeah. Well, I I I'll often
begin in this conversation, and I'll often begin by,
you know, saying this has nothing to do with the destination of
your soul. This is not heaven or hell conversation, you know, because that's
that's a big factor for a lot of people. And say this and this
is also not how you always are. This is a point
of time assessment. This is how you are on a Friday.
Right? You might be going through grief. You might be have
experienced a trauma that hasn't been fully dealt with.
You might have an unforgiveness that has been eating at
you. It could be something, you know, that happened yesterday, 10 years
ago or 30 years ago, but it's how you are today. And then I'll begin
to look at the strengths of their assessment to say, you know, but you've
got some strong areas here, to
lean into as you begin to deal with areas that need to be
addressed. Paul, thank you for the work that you're doing, for encouraging people in the
way that you are. For those who are interested in learning more about the
work that you're up to, where might they get ahold of you? Well, my
website is soulhyphenmetrics.com. You can
and you can fill out the contact form there. You can email
me at revpaulburnsrevpaulburns@gmail.com
as well. And I'd be glad to talk to you
with whatever you're you're working on. Because I do also pastoring 2
churches. So, just know that my my time
is a little limited in that sense, but I I do want to hear from
anybody that that has a question. I have a network
of 25 trained coaches that I
refer people out to that are trained in the GPS assessment.
And, and so we you're gonna get some help from somewhere.
Or you could just read the book, which has kind of all of
this outlined. Cool. Yep. The book is becoming
spiritually intelligent. Paul, thank you so much for joining us.
You're welcome. My pleasure. Good to meet you. Likewise.
Do you wanna hear more Compass? If this episode struck a chord with
you, then check out episode number 137 with Bruce Reyes
Chow about crafting a clarity of belief.
Episode 134 with Andrew Lang would also be a good one.
It's about creating spiritual practices that are gonna fit
into our busy everyday lives. And while you're listening,
please leave a rating and or review. It's a big help. It would be
so much appreciated. The compass podcast is brought to you by
United Methodist Communications, and you can check out
all of our episodes and get show notes and relevant links
at umc.org/compass.
That's all for this week. We're gonna be back in 2 weeks time with a
new episode. In the meantime, peace.