Episode 10 · 32 min · Mar 16, 2026
Therapist Voices @ ReachLink | Jacob L. Cooper, LCSW | Episode 10
with Jacob L. Cooper, LCSW
At three years old, Jacob Cooper stopped breathing on a playground, suffocated by whooping cough, and crossed over into what he describes as heaven before returning to his body. That early brush with death did not just shape his worldview, it became the entire architecture of a career spent helping people integrate psychological and spiritual understanding.
Now a Licensed Clinical Social Worker practicing in New York, Cooper is the bestselling author of Life After Breath and The Wisdom of Jacob's Ladder, and a sought-after speaker on the intersection of mental health and spirituality. He almost avoided the field entirely, worried in college that clinical training would be too rigid to hold space for what he had lived through. Instead he found the opposite: a profession slowly opening to practices like mindfulness-based stress reduction, now folded into mainstream CBT and DBT protocols, and to research that takes near-death experience seriously as a subject of study rather than a symptom to medicate away.
Much of the conversation traces how that openness got built, piece by piece, by researchers willing to take career risks Cooper says he never had to take himself. He credits Dr. Raymond Moody, who coined the term near-death experience in the 1970s after patients described strikingly similar phenomena, and Dr. Bruce Greyson, whose decades of NDE research have both validated the field and, by his own account, changed lives on both sides of the exam table. Cooper describes the University of Virginia's perceptual studies work and the University of Arizona's parapsychology research under Dr. Gary Schwartz, including experimental technology aimed at facilitating communication with the deceased, as evidence that science and spirituality are converging rather than staying in separate lanes.
The episode's most striking material covers Cooper's regression therapy work: Past Life Regression and Between Life Soul Regression Therapy, the latter developed by Dr. Michael Newton. Cooper frames regression not as escapism but as a way to reach the source of symptoms that resist conventional explanation, whether physical, emotional, or otherwise. As an illustration of that framing, he recounts a story he attributes to Brian Weiss about Weiss's daughter, herself an LCSW, who regressed before scheduled cataract surgery and described what she experienced as a memory of being burned in the eyes in a previous lifetime. By Cooper's account the surgery was later cancelled. He presents this as one client's reported experience rather than a clinical outcome anyone should expect, and returns to the point that he holds no attachment to what a session produces. His job, as he describes it, is to create the conditions for exploration and let clients arrive at their own understanding.
That same posture, curiosity over certainty, runs through his account of how therapists should meet clients who bring spiritual or mystical material into the room. Rather than defaulting to pathology, a spiritual download mistaken for psychosis, a knowing mistaken for delusion, Cooper argues for clinical humility: enter the client's frame first, and let diagnosis follow understanding rather than precede it. He now teaches continuing education for other clinicians on exactly this distinction, helping colleagues tell a psychotic break apart from a spiritual awakening without defaulting to the more familiar, more dismissive read.
The conversation closes on Cooper's own inner knowing about a past lifetime that ended in suicide, and on how his Jewish upbringing shaped, and occasionally complicated, his spiritual framework. He locates the Kabbalistic tradition's comfort with mysticism, nuance, and argument as compatible with, rather than opposed to, the regression and consciousness work he practices, and describes his own relationship to Judaism as something he has learned to hold on his own terms rather than inherit wholesale.
What lingers after the episode ends is not the specific mechanics of past life regression but Cooper's insistence that fear of the unknown, particularly fear of death, is itself a choice about which information gets to drive a life. He is not asking listeners to believe in reincarnation or an afterlife. He is asking whether a life governed by curiosity might simply be a better one to live than a life governed by fear, whether or not the metaphysics behind it can ever be proven.
In this episode, you will learn:
- How a near-death experience at age three shaped Jacob Cooper's path into clinical social work
- Why therapists should approach clients' spiritual experiences with curiosity instead of pathologizing them
- What research from the University of Virginia and University of Arizona reveals about near-death and consciousness studies
- How Past Life Regression and Between Life Soul Regression Therapy work in clinical practice
- Why meeting a client where they are matters more than a therapist's own beliefs
- How mindfulness-based practices moved from Eastern traditions into mainstream CBT and DBT
- What Jewish mysticism and Kabbalistic teachings share with regression and consciousness work
- Why letting go of attachment to outcomes changes how a therapist holds space for clients
Host
Welcome back to Therapist Voices at ReachLink. I have today Jacob Cooper, who I'm very excited about. He's an LCSW in the state of New York.
Guest
Yes, New York is where I practice.
Host
Good old cold New York. So thank you so much for being here. When I was, when I was looking at your website last night, there are, as you know, quite a lot of cool things that you do. I know you do a lot of speaking and that you're in private practice yourself. So I wondered if you would share with us a little bit about, about your background. And then there's something specific with one of your specialties that I wanted to dig into a little bit. So tell us a little bit about you and your practice and, and how you came to be Jacob Cooper, LCSW.
Guest
My professional journey, you know, was really shaped by a profound personal experience that I had as a young child. At just the young age of 3 years old, I had this profound near-death experience that was really influenced by having a condition called pertussis, otherwise known as whooping cough. You know, completely suffocated at a playground, and I had this incredible experience where I was just in heaven for a bit of time and you know, had this full-blown crossing over experience. And I think that experience really altered my worldview, but more importantly, it really shaped the work that I do as a therapist. You know, when I had this near-death experience, it really allowed me to understand the notion that we're here to really uplift, you know, each other and, uh, support each other on our journeys. And there's certainly, you know, a robust degrees of professional angles to do that. But I think, you know, for me, the most direct and expedited manner to support someone else's journey was, you know, really ingratiating myself in the mental health arena. So I work, like you said, as a therapist, not just of the mind, but of the body and of the spirit as well. I try to extend the bandwidth and the umbrella of services that I have that will be able to help people within their own unique particular needs to move the needle of their life. But I've written two published books that I've really been Inspired by my near-death experience that I had as a kid. These books really touch upon, you know, areas of mental health, grief, and some of the bigger existential questions that we have, such as who am I, why am I here, and where do I go after the body decomposes. And the genesis of all my work is really predicated on my NDE that I had as a young child, and everything else is a nice kind of segue or avenue that, that directly relates to that, if you will.
Host
So you are really— talk about being, I guess, where you're meant to be. From— it sounds like you had that already, that proclivity to toward being in the helping profession. And I'm just saying that based on our conversation so far today, that you are such, such a nice person. I can obviously immediately tell that you are a helper. When you had that experience and you later in your life, however you got into therapy, did you know right away that you were going to do something or, or specialize a little bit more based on what, what happened to you as a child?
Guest
You know, when I was in college, there was a part of me that really didn't want to go into mental health. For various different reasons, because I thought there would be too much rigidity, you know, going into it. I thought there would be a great degree of stigma of my own experiences, my own beliefs and desires, and I just thought that I would have my hands tied way too much to, to do that. And I've been pleasantly surprised at the degree of openness and receptivity, you know, to it. I think Mental Health Now especially as it's, it's, it's slowly evolving where now you're seeing infiltrated practices such as MBSR, mindfulness-based stress reduction, as a tool that's really rooted in CBT or dialectical behavioral therapeutic practices. So a lot of the Eastern-based practices are really making its way to a lot of the Westernized professions, whether that's medicine or mental health. Now when you go to a physical, the doctor will say, hey, I think you should meditate if you're stress levels. That would never happen years ago. And, you know, so, you know, there's, there's a change that's slowly happening to the point now where I'm an educator for fellow psychologists or therapists trying to get their own continuing education hours, where I'm educating and providing information as well as intervention to help other people within the therapeutic helping professions to understand spiritual experiences and dichotomizing what might be a psychotic break or psychotic episode with what may be a spiritual download, you know, spiritual awakening. And so it's really giving people more tools to help people to navigate what their clients are going through in a more accurate and helpful manner.
Host
Are you always met with that being embraced, or is it ever Like, wait a second, I'm not of that. I prefer things more rigid as a therapist. Do you, do you come into that a lot where people just do not align or is it more, oh yes, this really speaks to me?
Guest
I've been quite pleasantly surprised. I mean, normally, you know, in walks of life you'll get 100 emails and one email that some will come from that angle and that's usually what we focus on, but To this day, and I don't want— knock on wood— I've never had someone who's just totally tried to come at me. I mean, there was a part of me that just was very tiptoe-y or fearful of losing my license to practice, or, you know, someone just trying to railroad my whole livelihood and career and my passions. And, you know, thank God that that hasn't happened. I think one thing that, you know, it was really a big first step of any type of work that I was really educated on in college was meeting the client where they're at. Now, that doesn't mean where you're at in your personal beliefs, but where they're coming from and able to enter it through a place of understanding, compassion, empathy. And so I think all of life is really predicated on the lens that we're looking at it. And so when you're looking at people through maybe a pathologized lens, it's easy to find that exact experience through a pathologized lens. But when you're able to see it through a broader lens, you're able to then empower the clients to, in turn, expand their viewpoints and what they're going through and to empower them to see it as they see fit. So really, it really coincides with a lot of therapeutic one-on-one practices, which is really about developing understanding, empathy, and meeting the clients where they're at. So I think a big part of it is removing biases, whether that be religious or your own beliefs or lack thereof, that interfere with maybe what a client may be presenting to your office with, and entering their world through curiosity, because that allows them to do that with the same, uh, as well. I think the quality of our behaviors are largely predicated on the quality of our information. And for years, if you're, you know, you know, you're taught, hey, if someone's having intuitive abilities or they're talking to a grandmother, stuff like that, let's send them to 72 hours psychiatric hold. That's, you know, that's needed. And Nair Singh, no. Now they're having parapsychologists develop hard scientific studies to really debunk this as something that is wishful thinking or a psychotic episode or something that is more of an angle of evidential. I think right now we're getting to a point where science evidence is really catching up to where now people are saying that this— there's something going on that may be beyond just looking at this as a psychotic break or a manic episode or schizophrenic episodic behavior, that there's something else that may be happening when people are connecting to things that go beyond this, you know, third-dimensional reality.
Host
Do you mind talking about that a little, a little bit more? Because I didn't know that thing, that it was to the point of, of these things really being debunked. That sounds so hopeful, especially I'm sure to you for this being like your niche.
Guest
Mm-hmm.
Host
Um, what, where are we at with that kind of thing?
Guest
I, I think we're quite advanced. For instance, the University of Virginia has a whole parapsychology department of perceptual studies at the University of Virginia, where they have archives of evidential case studies of reincarnation or, you know, NDEs or psychic information. And they're including that in parapsychology departments. University of Arizona in Tucson, led by Dr. Gary Schwartz, he leads the perceptual studies department. And so there, there's a lot of stuff that they're, you know, doing right now, which is a little bit classified, if you will. But there's, you know, a lot of, you know, these people are working on, you know, for instance, I know at the University of Arizona, you know, Gary is working on what's called a soul phone, which is literally a direct phone where you can call your loved one in heaven, which I know, obviously, right now they're having these devices called spirit boxes, which allows you to communicate. You know, I would be a little bit kind of hesitant because that could function a little bit as a Ouija board where you could bring upon a lot of information or just energies that may not be your loved one, and it could be, you know, negative forces. But it's, it's pretty cool in terms of what they're able to develop in terms of technology working with spirituality. Um, and we'll have to see what comes out of that and where that goes, but there's a lot of S technology and spirituality and science are not in separate entities. There's emergence of them. That's what you're seeing in some of these laboratories, where hopefully that could help out someone to really navigate their own beliefs or grief journeys, and, you know, feeling a sense of evidential understanding of the nature of life and the continuity of the soul, if you will.
Host
It seems like that the timing is kind of perfect for you, almost. Because I mean, I am not just speculating that you have had this, the life that you have and the experiences you've had and, and been so specialized. And now things are at a place where I'm sure it's such a relief to you of, oh my gosh, we're getting somewhere.
Guest
Oh yeah. And I, to preface, I wouldn't be talking here today, Jessica, without so many people who have taken much bigger career risks than I have. And have really paved the way. I mean, one individual that I'm close with is Dr. Raymond Moody. He, in the '70s, had a dual doctorate degree in both philosophy and psychiatry, and he had students that were coming to him when he was a professor, and they were describing these types of phenomenons. And he developed research and case studies that led to his bestselling book called Life After Life, in which he was able to give a term for these phenomenon and what he, you know, terminologized as a near-death experience or NDE. That was him. Like, he named it to tame it, if you will, which didn't come with a lot more pushback that I will ever face and a lot more career risk. He had a very comfortable life working in academia, and he could have just kind of did what he needed to do. But people who change the world, they— it doesn't come without detractors or people who don't come at them, but the end result is years after they're gone, they're going to be remembered versus a lot of the other people who are just kind of living in their bubbles and silos, regurgitating what they've been provided, really didn't add to things or expand on their professions. And so I think it's daring trailblazers who are able to take the hits and take those risks. There's a lot of rewards that come through life, and lives have been changed and probably saved. I use that word saved because There's another researcher named Dr. Bruce Greyson, who is one of the biggest NDE researchers. He was just on the Oprah Winfrey podcast as well. But Bruce, you know, once had someone that came up to him and says, your work on near-death experience research changed and saved my life. And he just stopped the person and he said, mine too. So this is like a big medical doctor who's been researching this stuff. And I'm so thankful for these people because their academic and professional backgrounds gives, gives a lot more safety, um, and foundation for people to develop a sense of trust and comfort to explore these topics. And there's a lot more weight that comes with, with their backgrounds and licensures, you know, that maybe someone else doesn't possess, if you will.
Host
When I was a kid, my dad was really into this author and he wanted— he found out this guy was speaking someplace in Florida, made me go with him, and we got there and it was— remind me the person's name who did Many Lives.
Guest
So, so yes, uh, this is Dr. Brian Weiss, who's, I think, if I'm not mistaken, a Boca resident or lives in southern Florida. I know he, um, you know, is affiliated with Miami, but he might have went to University of Miami or worked there perhaps, but he was an Ivy League graduate from Yale. He was a Yale-trained psychiatrist.
Host
That makes sense. I think it was in Miami that we saw him actually. And I remember sitting and listening and thinking, wait, what? What did this guy just say? And by the end of it, I was— I don't remember if I was in tears or just such— not in a sad way, but in such awe and kind of disbelief and kind of and scared at the same time because I was a kid and mortality was already scary. And I remember going down such a rabbit hole after that, getting every book he had. I think I went to see him speak someplace else. And then when, you know, I know there's so much more to it with what, what you've done and since then, but when I saw on your website this, all this regression stuff, I thought, oh my gosh, this is gonna be someone so knowledgeable. And, and sure enough, it seems like there's a lot, a lot more to it. Do you do any of that, like regression? Is that something that's, that's practiced still, or does that look much different today than maybe it did when we were kids?
Guest
Yeah, I mean, you know, there's multiple forms of regression therapy that I do. One of the forms, modalities Past Life Regression or Past Life Soul Regression Therapy that helps clients not only regress to earlier memories of this lifetime, but they're able to go back to memories of bodies and lives before, you know, this lifetime, which is really fascinating. I think as a therapist, I like to get to the heart of matter and the source of things. And there are instances from physical conditions, mental health conditions, social dynamics, where people just don't have an explanation for why things are the way that they are. And I do believe we may have irrational behaviors, but our pathways or our logical roadmaps to those behaviors are based in rationality. There's a reason behind it. And you know, what past life regression does is it really allows people to go to the deeper source of, you know, what they're looking for, where they could evolve and grow from and understand. I know you're even mentioning Dr. Brian Weiss. He has a daughter that is an LCSW. And she, you know, when you have Brian Weiss as a dad, you probably just see him as dad. You don't see him as the great— and that's probably the way that he wants it to be. But there was a point in time, she's like, you know what, maybe I'll check out one of his regressions. And she was about to go through cataract surgery. Because she was having some issues seeing, and she regressed during, you know, Brian's group regression, and she found out, from my understanding, that she was burned in the eyes and she lost her vision. And so what she was able to do is understand, oh, I'm holding on to a lot of these cellular memories that are replaying itself in this lifetime that have actually nothing to do with this lifetime, that these cells are holding memories and continuing itself. And in reality, that's not happening. I'm safe in this lifetime. This is a different journey, different chapter. And after that regression, she did not need to go through surgery. Her vision was healed from her higher mind being able to dichotomize what happened in that lifetime versus the safety and, you know, just health of her own body that had nothing to do with that body. So that's just one example where people are able to have, you know, they see every doctor, every therapist, did nothing seems to work. And then eventually they try this proverbial last stop on this train, and they're able to find healing. So, but it's not always stigmatized or pathologized. You know, a lot of clients that I see are able to develop enhanced sense of understanding of their sole purpose, bringing in some of their gifts that they may not understand why they have what they have, and expanding on that, and many other things. So I do that, and I also do what's called Between Life Soul Regression Therapy. Which was really mainstreamed by an individual named Dr. Michael Newton. He is very similar to Brian Weiss in a sense that he did not, like, come to this— it wasn't, like, forceful, or he wasn't interested in this stuff beforehand. He was just simply doing a hypnotic regression to a client to go to the source of what they're going through, and the client went not only to the source, but the client went directly to the source of energy itself. And they just start— they, they started to describe a lifetime before this when they got into their body of their life, um, in heaven and their memories that they had before they came here. And they're able to describe beings of light that they were connected in heaven and all that stuff. Um, so essentially what between-life soul regression does is it really expands on some of those bigger existential questions that people have. Such as who am I before I got here, why am I here, what happens when my body goes, and what happens when my soul leaves its body. So I think it's all this stuff. I would really quantify this as soul therapy, which goes further than just the mental or the emotional, but goes directly to the soul. Because most of us are given this puzzle with a million different pieces and we're trying to make sense of it. And some of the bandwidth or angles that we're trying to solve this predicament are very, rather limited. And through regression therapy, people are able to just relax their brain and they're able to get themselves in a deep and hypnotic state, which is really getting yourself into those deeper, that's somewhere between that delta and alpha brainwave state where a lot more understanding and development of the higher mind is able to infiltrate itself to broaden your understanding, if you will. So, you know, that's what I'm doing a lot, you know, these days, which is really cool because a lot of people feel disenfranchised when they hear about, let's say, my NDE, and they're like, oh, you have it, but I don't have that. So it really does bode well with my social work background, which, you know, believes in inclusivity or DEI or having spirituality as a participation sport, not a bystander sport, or where people are in just the stands. So it does give a lot more opportunity for people, you know, to have direct experiences on their own. And that really dichotomizes a belief into an inner knowing, which could shape the trajectory of the lives that they pave and live.
Host
Are you ever scared when you do— when you're with a client doing this work? Are you— do you ever feel like, oh my God, what if it doesn't— what if this doesn't go well for them?
Guest
Not really. I, I don't hold attachments to results. I, I, I think I would stop my work a long time ago. I try to let go of control. You know, spirituality is all about, you know, the human— human tries to control. And how do I do that is I have a trust, I have a knowing, I You know, for me, I think what's important is to really lean into what you think is real. And for myself, what I've learned is real is, you know, pain doesn't last, you know, turbulence doesn't last, conflicts do not last, but love goes on. The beautiful experience that we have, those goes on. And that from a direct experience in NDE, I've had that. And so I think I govern my life by this quote that, that which is real cannot change, what changes was never real. And everything in this reality is constantly in flux, and so I don't attach myself to it. I, I connect to the things I know that last, which is the growth experiences and evolution that people have. So I don't attach myself to those things. I allow clients to be empowered to come up to those places when they're ready. But really, regression therapy is all a matter of the process of letting go of the small version that you've held yourself in to be curious, to explore a bigger part of you that's out there that maybe you're not, you know, connected to, or you don't remember in the moment, if you will. You know, I try to remember what this is all about. I think when you have an experience like I did, it allows you to understand a little bit more that we're not just born here just to take, or we're not here to just pay the bills, but there's a functionality behind our purpose, which is to really understand that the ultimate measurement of our existence is what do you do with your surroundings and how do people feel in your presence. How do you treat someone else? And that's really where I try to govern my life, but I don't attach myself to all this stuff. I just say I'm just a messenger, or rather a reflector, of the beauty that's possible within each person to see. And I try to make that a possibility. I mean, I know there were biblical characters who said, "The kingdom of heaven in me is in you too." I try to get them to reflect on the greatness that they have within, and that's the empowered approach that I have within all of my lines of work. But regarding the change, I don't necessarily think too much about it or attach myself to it. I just kind of put my head down and say, "What could I do more?" One of the most moving scenes that I've seen was Steve Jobs Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List where at the end, you know, Oskar Schindler was like, like deeply in emotional distress and crying. He said, I could have done more. I could have done this. I could have done that. And that's kind of the way I view my life. It's just never enough. How could I continue to push the envelope to make a difference in my limited time here? It's never enough. You know?
Host
What do you think you did in your life before this? Or do you know?
Guest
I have an inner knowing that certainly came, and I think that was very much tied into my NDE. You know, essentially, I, you know, had a lifetime in which I crossed over due to suicide, um, and that's been evidentially read by intuitives prior to me ever saying a word publicly. Um, so I knew in my last lifetime that was definitely strongly related to this lifetime. But I do think the concept of my NDE, in which, you know, I was purely suffocated, there was no human breath to hold on to as a result of whooping cough. I learned at that moment the power of surrender, in which my own human breath was taken. I surrendered to— in our language, the Hebrew language, the word for spirit is ruach, or the wind or the breath of God. And so I surrendered to that eternal creative life force. And, you know, that's the work that I try to do when clients are feeling very stuck. Instead of fighting, you know, it, or or suffering, you know, pain is inevitability. Learning how to surrender to the energy inside of you, not always having to do it on your own, relying on your support systems. And, you know, I think once people are able to surrender to forces around them in their immediate lives and the energy inside of them, they can understand that there's something impenetrable inside of you that can navigate, you know, anything. And that's really what near-death experiences point to. That not even death can stop you of the body. It, you know, it really, you know, helps people understand that you're virtually unlimited and invincible and unstoppable. You just have to, you know, really remember that piece. Remember who you are, that you're not what's happening outside of you, that you're this great force that is eternal and that has enough resources and bandwidth to handle whatever you're thrown to at your life.
Host
You do have so such a way of making things not seem scary. Really, the stuff you're— I mean, the stuff you're talking about, especially to someone that might not know anything about this, could be very, oh my gosh, that's terrifying. Wait, wait a second, I don't want to know. But the way that you're explaining it, um, in such a succinct way makes it so approachable.
Guest
We, we try to keep it that way. You try to keep it grounded. Um, that's exactly what's needed. The unknown could be very scary. I, I could fully understand that, um, particularly when it comes to death, when you think that you're just a body and once this body goes, you go too. Logically, that makes a great degree of sense to have immense amount of trepidation. Imagine losing something that you've known as you know it and not having that continue for that's, that's a tremendous fear. But I, but I do believe that you could look at things through so many different lens and trepidation, fear could be that lens where curiosity and openness could, could lead to that. And I think that allows, you know, you to be more safe. It could be that we're totally wrong about this and this is all fabrication of the mind and all that stuff, which really, there's hard research and evidence to point the other way. But let's say all this is a fabrication. Well, you know, people who believe in this stuff tend to have happier lives. They tend to have a lot more resolve and resilience. There's a perseverance. There's a degree of more purpose, you know, purposeful movement, intentional living. And so let's say we're all wrong. Well, you know, you had a heaven on earth while you were here in many ways. And, you know, governed your life by fear, that to me is the closest thing to hell on earth. So I think it's a matter of decision as to what information do you want your life to be driven by, and based on that information, where is that car going to go? You know, what are some of the destinations and roads that they're going to go at? And I think it all comes down to flexibility and being open to some— something else beyond maybe what we were taught or a lens that you're used to seeing the world as such with.
Host
Something that keeps going through my head that I, I'm just going to ask you and you don't have to answer. Has Judaism and our beliefs had any impact on your learnings of this? When we're talking about heaven and, and afterlife and before.
Guest
Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I was, you know, brought up in a home that really much valued, you know, traditional Jewish values. And I think that really supported my journey, if you will, because, you know, in a way we were focused on meaning, we were focused on a bigger purpose, and we were focused on light. And, you know, Judaism is one path up the mountain to find it. I don't think it's a one-size-fits-all, but I think the way it was presented was a little bit of a turnoff. There was a very much a little bit of a dogmatic element that I don't think was reflective of the beautiful, you know, beauty that's, you know, found within Judaism. For instance, all these things that I'm referencing are rooted deeply in Jewish mysticism. You know, if you look at, you know, Kabbalistic teachings, you know, the tarot, astrology, past lives, you know, all of these things, you know, chakras, you know, and certainly I'm not, um, I'm not a Kabbalistic expert at all. I'm actually learning a little bit about it now as we speak, but I find that, you know, that's deeply rooted within tradition. Elements of dogma, control, all those things are pieces that turn some people off. Some people, they love the structure, they love that piece. So I would say if it's helpful to you, why, why concretize that? Why judge that? You know, I put that away. I think it's all a matter of what's resourceful and helpful. But I, but I do think what's helpful with Judaism and what I've learned is relating it to a way that makes sense for you.
Host
Yeah.
Guest
And the beautiful element that I found with Judaism is you could be a Christian and an atheist and you're considered an atheist, where if you're born a Jew, no matter what you believe in, that is a part of you. But I think in this lifetime, it's really influenced my worldview, my connection to the culture, as well as, you know, understanding the resilience of all, you know, predecessors that had happened before me in this body. But I, I know sometimes I'm a little bit torn where religious beliefs and spiritual beliefs, you know, aren't always the same. And that's when I'm able to tune into things that make sense at an inner level. So I, you know, these days I've been able to find an engagement in Jewish practice that I choose, that makes sense, you know, for me, and finding all the good elements. And there's a lot of cognitive dissonance that people have when it comes to religion. And if there's one thing that doesn't make sense, we throw everything out. And I think to me, it's like, what makes sense for you? And, you know, distancing yourself from people who judge you, because whether you practice, you know, Judaism, you know, you daven 3 times a day, or you know, all this stuff or not, a Jew is a Jew. And that's the beautiful element, you know, of the faith. And I wish more faiths would align themselves with that to see that, you know, there's no hierarchy, there's no better or worse than, you know, it's just you're a beautiful being. But I don't believe in per se a Jewish soul. I believe all souls are divine, you know, but I do believe a soul is experiencing itself in a life as a Jew and understanding, you know, all that we've been through. And the sacrifice and the determination, resilience that our people have had has been a great lesson for my soul, to say the least.
Host
Well, I cannot wait for my mother to hear this. That was one of the most beautiful answers I've ever heard.
Guest
Yeah. The beautiful element about Judaism, if you look at it, is the degree of nuance, right? If you're studying Judaism, there's arguments. They're trying to figure things out. And so When someone asks me, how do you define mental health? I would say flexibility. So to me, Judaism is a very healthful, healthy belief system in a sense that at its core, there's a lot of nuance and argument and making sense of things. Other belief systems that say like, this is the way, there's no other way. And that influences behaviors. And that's, you're seeing that on a bigger global scale, but the degree of nuance and also the degree of love of life, you know, people practice Judaism are so some of the documented happiest people on the planet, you know, and, and for good reason. They, they have a resilience but also a tremendous joy for life. They love life. They love celebrating life. They love turning the sacred into the mundane. So these are all principles that are at my phyla beliefs, you know, spiritual belief systems. So sometimes there's daylight between the religious practice and my spiritual practice, and sometimes the deep-rooted mystical elements and spirituality are really universal principles held within deep Kabbalistic teachings.
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