We're working through our fear and fostering a bit of empathy in this conversation with Rev. Dr. Paul Burns on Compass: Finding spirituality in the everyday. Join us as Paul Burns dives deep into the core of human spirituality and relationships, addressing the instinctual divisions between people and how finding common ground can create bridges of empathy. Discover the intricacies of "soul metrics" and how spiritual intelligence can transform your life without compromising your beliefs.
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Paul Burns, founder of Soul Metrics, provides tools to measure spiritual intelligence through psychological assessments, focusing on secure attachment with God, self-differentiation, and empathy. The episode discusses the vital role of these assessments in discussions about spirituality, aiming to reduce shame and offer snapshots of one's spiritual state influenced by personal factors.
Paul explains the connection between the fear center of the brain, spiritual intelligence, and how insecure attachments or trauma impact our relationships and spirituality. He emphasizes compassionate listening as a healing tool and shares practices from his book, "Becoming Spiritually Intelligent," to develop trust and empathy in one's spiritual journey.
In this episode:
(00:00) Exploring spiritual intelligence with Reverend Dr. Burns.
(03:34) Faith linked to early attachment with caregivers.
(09:57) Fear can disrupt brain functions and relationships.
(13:54) Outlining 9 paths for spiritual growth.
(16:56) Realization of faith and divine guidance.
(18:42) Opening empathy for others, mindful of boundaries.
(23:51) Measures secure attachment, self-differentiation, empathy levels.
(25:26) Spiritual issues are often difficult to discuss.
Learn more about Paul Burns and Soul Metrics.
Get "Becoming Spiritually Intelligent" by Paul Burns.
Related episodes
- Crafting a clarity of belief with Bruce Reyes-Chow
- Spiritual practices for busy lives with Andrew Lang
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This episode posted on October 30, 2024
Episode Transcript:
Ryan Dunn [00:00:01]:
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 Burns 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.
Paul Burns [00:01:11]:
My soul is joyful and excited.
Ryan Dunn [00:01:14]:
Wonderful. Any particular impulse that has you feeling so joyful or excited?
Paul Burns [00:01:21]:
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?
Ryan Dunn [00:01:42]:
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?
Paul Burns [00:02:14]:
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.
Paul Burns [00:03:08]:
It really another way you could say it is, it is your ability to love, to receive and give love.
Ryan Dunn [00:03:13]:
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?
Paul Burns [00:03:34]:
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.
Paul Burns [00:04:59]:
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.
Ryan Dunn [00:05:22]:
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?
Paul Burns [00:05:40]:
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.
Paul Burns [00:06:56]:
I want to give them I want them to know that they're loved. I want to be a trusted
Ryan Dunn [00:07:00]:
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?
Paul Burns [00:07:21]:
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.
Paul Burns [00:08:08]:
Right? But it's actual relating to another person that restores our brain's sense of security and and trust.
Ryan Dunn [00:08:16]:
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?
Paul Burns [00:08:38]:
It's surprising that it actually was at a seminary. Okay.
Ryan Dunn [00:08:42]:
Tell me more.
Paul Burns [00:08:42]:
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.
Ryan Dunn [00:09:37]:
I don't know if I put myself in
Paul Burns [00:09:38]:
that category. But so I was learning it at seminary.
Ryan Dunn [00:09:43]:
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?
Paul Burns [00:09:57]:
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.
Paul Burns [00:11:48]:
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.
Ryan Dunn [00:12:13]:
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?
Paul Burns [00:12:29]:
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.
Paul Burns [00:13:00]:
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.
Paul Burns [00:13:36]:
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.
Ryan Dunn [00:13:48]:
Are there other practical steps that people can take to deepen their spiritual intelligence?
Paul Burns [00:13:54]:
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.
Paul Burns [00:14:38]:
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.
Ryan Dunn [00:15:16]:
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?
Paul Burns [00:15:39]:
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.
Paul Burns [00:16:22]:
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.
Paul Burns [00:16:56]:
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.
Ryan Dunn [00:17:40]:
Yeah. Okay. I can see the correlation there. Although, it does help to have some literal signs popping into the story as well.
Paul Burns [00:17:47]:
Those who have eyes to see, ears to hear, Jesus said.
Ryan Dunn [00:17:51]:
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?
Paul Burns [00:18:42]:
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.
Paul Burns [00:19:49]:
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.
Paul Burns [00:20:44]:
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.
Ryan Dunn [00:21:02]:
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.
Paul Burns [00:21:24]:
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.
Paul Burns [00:22:06]:
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.
Paul Burns [00:22:55]:
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.
Ryan Dunn [00:23:41]:
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
Paul Burns [00:23:51]:
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.
Paul Burns [00:24:54]:
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.
Ryan Dunn [00:25:20]:
And what kind of responses do you hear in people who are taking the test and beginning the the process?
Paul Burns [00:25:26]:
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.
Paul Burns [00:26:20]:
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.
Ryan Dunn [00:26:36]:
How do you lower that that barrier of shame?
Paul Burns [00:26:40]:
Say that again.
Ryan Dunn [00:26:41]:
How do you lower that barrier of shame?
Paul Burns [00:26:43]:
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.
Paul Burns [00:27:15]:
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.
Ryan Dunn [00:27:38]:
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?
Paul Burns [00:27:48]:
Well, my website is soulhyphenmetrics.com. You can and you can fill out the contact form there. You can email me at [email protected] 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.
Paul Burns [00:28:31]:
Or you could just read the book, which has kind of all of this outlined.
Ryan Dunn [00:28:36]:
Cool. Yep. The book is becoming spiritually intelligent. Paul, thank you so much for joining us.
Paul Burns [00:28:42]:
You're welcome. My pleasure. Good to meet you.
Ryan Dunn [00:28:44]:
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.
Ryan Dunn [00:29:27]:
That's all for this week. We're gonna be back in 2 weeks time with a new episode. In the meantime, peace.
