David is the author of two books, A Book About You and Pictures of Your Soul. He is also a composer, musician, inventor, teacher, and speaker.

In this episode, David shared how we can remove distractions in our life and develop soul awareness.

David talks about the principles in the bible that we can learn and apply to remove distraction. This means we must practice removing ourselves from daily routines, friends, environment, and social pressure.

David also talks about the five levels of the soul and how each level makes up our body. And understanding the anatomy of the soul will help us develop soul awareness.

David advises writing the five most important points of awareness and meditating and feeling them. Once done enough, it becomes a part of you. And you will live with that awareness.

David Green’s story is an inspirational story of one who walks on the path with a childish dream but ultimately pursues life towards happiness with God.

This episode of The Beyond Adversity Podcast is a must-listen for anyone who wants to find happiness—those who want to live and enjoy the life God has given us.

“The Beyond Adversity Podcast with Dr. Brad Miller is published weekly with the mission of helping people “Grow Through What They Go Through” as they navigate adversity and discover their promised life of peace, prosperity and purpose.

https://www.realyouproject.com/

Dr. Brad Miller 0:00

Yeah, let's talk for a second about what you mean, specifically

Dr. Brad Miller 0:04

in terms of apical to other people, excluding the

Dr. Brad Miller 0:07

distraction, and digging for the gold, as you say here,

Dr. Brad Miller 0:11

it seems to me we're talking about clarity and focus,

Dr. Brad Miller 0:15

and disciplines of in helping these things to help get a

Dr. Brad Miller 0:21

separation between the distraction and to our inner life.

Dr. Brad Miller 0:24

So what are some of the, you know, practices and principles?

Dr. Brad Miller 0:28

So what are some of the habits that people can apply

Dr. Brad Miller 0:32

from your teaching that can help us to exclude the distraction

Dr. Brad Miller 0:36

and go for the gold as you say.

David Green 0:39

it's interesting, the first two words that were said to

David Green 0:43

the very first Jew is to Abraham, Lekh lekha, which means

David Green 0:49

go to yourself. Now, when the first time you hear a word

David Green 0:55

said to somebody in the Bible, it has tremendous significance.

David Green 0:59

It's, every word has significance. But the fact that those

David Green 1:02

were the first two words said to Abraham, he's telling us

David Green 1:06

a very important principle of life. And one is go, which

David Green 1:10

means remove yourself from the distraction of the home

David Green 1:16

he grew up with, which, which was a home of idol worship,

David Green 1:19

and he had to leave that environment. And then he had

David Green 1:22

to go to yourself, which is an inner process of discovering

David Green 1:27

who he was. So there's removal of distraction is something

David Green 1:31

that we need to practice, we need to move ourselves

David Green 1:36

away from where our friends, our environment, or social pressure,

David Green 1:41

if you have the opportunity to go to a different location

David Green 1:44

that's even greater, like when I went to Israel, I moved to a

David Green 1:48

different environment where the value system is different.

David Green 1:51

So removing yourself from their daily routine, and if it

David Green 1:55

means just having to go into your own room, and

David Green 1:58

close your eyes, and try to meditate on removing all the noise.

David Green 2:04

That ation is that is a process of the left, the Go removing

David Green 2:09

way that distraction. And, and people do that on a surface

David Green 2:13

level with mindfulness meditation, they become aware

David Green 2:17

of their breathing, they become more aware of their body.

David Green 2:20

That's the first level, but the soul has five levels to it. And

David Green 2:28

when when God created man, He breathed five levels

David Green 2:33

of the soul into man. And the first level, which which starts

David Green 2:38

with the word, "he", the letter "he" which is the fifth letter

David Green 2:38

of the Jewish alphabet, the Hebrew alphabet, and it

David Green 2:45

makes the sound like the breathing sound, okay,

David Green 2:49

so when God, God breathed the five levels of the soul into

David Green 2:53

man, he made the sound, which is the five levels going into

David Green 3:00

man, he, is the fifth letter of the of the Hebrew alphabet

David Green 3:04

which represents those five levels, the lowest level is

David Green 3:08

called the nephesh. And that's the first thing to tune into it,

David Green 3:12

which is removing the distraction and tuning into the

David Green 3:16

nephesh level of the Soul. And the nephesh, that level of the

David Green 3:19

soul resides within the blood. And that means that's why

David Green 3:23

you feel your soul all around your body. Even though the soul

David Green 3:26

wants to rise up like a like a wick and a flame. It stays

David Green 3:31

connected to the wick, as it says in Proverbs, that the soul

David Green 3:35

of man is like the candle of God, the the soul is in you,

David Green 3:40

it's within your body. But at the same time, it's always trying

David Green 3:43

to rise and reconnect to its source to our Father in heaven.

David Green 3:47

So person tunes in to the soul, especially starting with the

David Green 3:52

nephesh level, which is connected to the body, we can start

David Green 3:55

to remove the distractions and tune in to the basic

David Green 4:01

functionality of or awareness of the soul, then what

David Green 4:06

we do is move to the next level, which is called the roof,

David Green 4:09

the roof is the spirits level of the Soul, which is somewhat

David Green 4:14

of a scary place to go because it's connected to infinity.

David Green 4:19

So when I move into there, it's called, I call that the empty

David Green 4:22

spaces, which is the title of my second album. And if you

David Green 4:25

listen to empty spaces, you'll see it's a meditation that takes

David Green 4:29

you into a place, which is empty, which is infinite. And you

David Green 4:34

have to surrender and go into a place of what

David Green 4:37

seems like total darkness.

Dr. Brad Miller 4:40

For me, the cat could keep up with you here. Now the first

Dr. Brad Miller 4:43

level is to kind of connect with the body, the blood and the

Dr. Brad Miller 4:45

breath and so on. And the second level is basically to empty self

Dr. Brad Miller 4:50

in order to be at I'm assuming maybe we're going to move

Dr. Brad Miller 4:52

towards reception here. But am I tracking

Dr. Brad Miller 4:54

with you here David?

David Green 4:57

The first first level is that you It's not, it's the part of the

David Green 5:01

soul that connects to the body, and still as a spiritual thing.

David Green 5:06

But in the Bible in a number of places, it says that damn,

David Green 5:10

who had nephesh, that blood is the nephesh, it doesn't mean

David Green 5:13

that it is the soul, it means that's the first level of the Soul.

David Green 5:17

So that's why as your blood moves all around the body, right,

David Green 5:21

that's also the nephesh, moving all around the body,

David Green 5:24

in my book, pictures of your soul, I actually have illustrations

David Green 5:27

of what happens from the right ventricle of the heart to the

David Green 5:30

left ventricle of heart, how that goes to the brain. It's a complex

David Green 5:33

process, but people by learning that it actually heightens your

David Green 5:37

awareness of the soul. But the soul is connected to the blood,

David Green 5:43

but it's a separate entity, but that's how it moves through the

David Green 5:47

body through the blood. And that's it feel this, that how could

David Green 5:51

this spiritual thing this soul be held in a body? Which is a

David Green 5:56

physical thing? That's a contradiction, a spiritual thing within

David Green 6:00

a physical space? And yes, yes, the answer is yes, it is within

David Green 6:04

the physical space, because it's connected to the blood, then

David Green 6:09

when you move to the next level to the roof, now you're

David Green 6:12

above the blood blood, you're above the body, it's still connected

David Green 6:16

to the nephesh. And that's why it's still within us. But it's

David Green 6:21

connected to the next level, which is the the nephesh is connected,

David Green 6:25

almost like, like a chain like a link to the next level. And each

David Green 6:30

level of the soul is connected like a chain up to the highest levels.

David Green 6:34

The the there's the next level is called the neshamah, which is,

David Green 6:40

resides within the brain, which is why the brain has so

David Green 6:43

much of the central part of the navigation of a human being.

David Green 6:47

And then there's levels above that called Hyah, and Yoshida

David Green 6:51

which are well beyond our comprehension but sometimes

Dr. Brad Miller 6:54

So we've gotten body to the emptiness, the and the soul,

Dr. Brad Miller 6:58

and then the brain into these higher levels of consciousness.

Dr. Brad Miller 7:02

And can you talk a little bit in your in your work about

Dr. Brad Miller 7:05

achieving our unique personalities and become a, how this

Dr. Brad Miller 7:09

helps us find our mission and our place in the world?

Dr. Brad Miller 7:11

Is that part about actually that?

David Green 7:16

The what I've been describing is more the anatomy of the soul.

David Green 7:20

And if that's very important for a person to develop soul awareness,

David Green 7:27

and my book picture, your soul, that's the whole idea of it is

David Green 7:30

that it's just a number of questions where people would think

David Green 7:34

you can't answer them because there's sounds like, like a

David Green 7:38

ontradiction. But in fact, we we learn about what the soul is

David Green 7:43

from the ideas that this book is written based on what's

David Green 7:46

called the Tanya, which is a Hasidic masterpiece. So

David Green 7:51

the book is more of a meditative process of becoming aware

David Green 7:55

of the different levels of your soul, and how to deal with

David Green 7:58

various struggles and things like that. My other book

David Green 8:01

is called a book about you, which is about individuality

David Green 8:04

and knowing your purpose in life. Different focus.

Dr. Brad Miller 8:09

So what you're teaching her hair is teaching us here is to

Dr. Brad Miller 8:13

understand our soul, understand the physiological, spiritual,

Dr. Brad Miller 8:20

almost metaphysical, if you will, aspects of everything here

Dr. Brad Miller 8:24

that we're talking about here. And how that then helps form

Dr. Brad Miller 8:27

us, our personalities, and us as people as beings that are

Dr. Brad Miller 8:34

spiritual and physical at the same time, then helps lead us to

Dr. Brad Miller 8:37

some direction of meaningfulness in life. And so what I'm getting

Dr. Brad Miller 8:40

at here, David is so many people have a sense of meaning

Dr. Brad Miller 8:43

less Thus, in life. You've mentioned some of the people we

Dr. Brad Miller 8:47

work with students, you had your own moments of depression,

Dr. Brad Miller 8:49

and so on and searching for meaningfulness. I certainly

Dr. Brad Miller 8:52

have had that many of our listeners have had that situation.

Dr. Brad Miller 8:55

You're I call it the malaise of mediocrity, you kind of feel like

Dr. Brad Miller 8:57

you're just stuck. So how can we use what you're teaching

Dr. Brad Miller 9:01

here to help people get unstuck, to get onto something that is

Dr. Brad Miller 9:05

meaningful and purposeful in their life? I'm talking about some

Dr. Brad Miller 9:08

practical applications here of what you're teaching it.

Dr. Brad Miller 9:11

Don't get me wrong, what you're teaching is wonderful and

Dr. Brad Miller 9:14

practical. But I'm talking about some some day to day

Dr. Brad Miller 9:17

disciplines, some people might be able to fly.

David Green 9:20

Well, I think that one of the things that we have to deal

David Green 9:26

with is the fact that our emotional and spiritual memory is

David Green 9:32

very short. Which means that inspiration is not meant to be

David Green 9:38

something that that you get and you walk away with

David Green 9:43

and it's you can hold on to it. Even the Jews on Mount

David Green 9:46

Sinai experienced the giving of the Bible of the 10 commandments

David Green 9:51

and then committed the goal of the golden calf soon after.

David Green 9:56

So spiritual spiritual inspiration is something that But you

can't just expect to stay with you. And therefore, it should

function more as, as a glimpse of where you want to go.

We need to be inspired. But we can't walk away from inspiration

expecting that to be what's going to hold us up, it's only

there as a preview of where you're supposed to climb to.

So what to do is, every day, a person should go through the

process of reminding themselves of what was inspirational,

or find the inspiration to then use as a vision to strive towards.

And so the way we do that, in Jewish practice, is prayer.

Because prayer is divided up into the appreciation of different

categories of things in life that are very important to remember.

So if if a person were to sit down and write down, what are the

five most important principles that if they could walk around

with every day, that would transform their life, because they

would be able to live with that awareness. Write them down

and put them in your pocket, and take them out and read them

at least three times a day. Because although it may sound

simple, like, the fact is that if there truly are deep values that

they really believe in, if it's a type of awareness, they really

want to try to achieve, then you have to be honest with yourself,

that there's temptations around us that pull us away from those

things. There's depression that pulls us away from those things.

There's various challenges in life that are going to make it hard for

you to focus on those things. So treat yourself the way you would

teach somebody else. Give yourself an assignment of writing

down, what are the things that I think are the five most

important points of awareness, and then take it out and

meditate on it? Look at the think about them, try to feel them.

And if you do that enough, it then becomes a part of you.

And you live with that awareness.

Yeah, I think what you're sharing here is really, a so good.

This one's good to revisit this on a regular basis

several times a day, you mentioned, praying several times

a day, you mentioned writing some things down or

rereading them. Like, it's important because you know,

we have to have not only the inspiration and the motivation,

but we have to have the discipline to keep doing that and keep

going. I'm, I'm always inspired by the biblical story of Moses

and the promised land, and the journey out of slavery

through the wilderness, over 40 years to get to the promised

land. Of course, Moses ever really gets to the promised land, it

gets to see it. But the point is, is that, you know, they had all

kinds of issues and troubles along the way, when they forgot

their mission and their purpose and their vision. Along the

way, because it's a hard road life is a hard road. And many

difficult things come into mind as a distraction. But you have

to have that vision of the promised land out there. And that's

part of what you do. You're given us your.

Another another important point that's related to this is that

God really gave us two souls. He gave us what's called the

divine soul, which is pure, and is the Tanya, which I quoted

before, says that the divine soul is like a piece of God is we

have this piece of godliness with us. That's the thing that

I was saying, you have to dig for gold, that divine soul. And

it wants to do everything that God says is we should do in this

world. But then the animal soul is there, which is its basic

nature is like that of an animal. It it wants to breathe, eat,

it wants to satisfy its reproductive desires. It's, it's, it's looking

for, you know, for for animalistic pleasures, and we have

that within us. And, but it's a gift that we have that in us

but we have to know that when the animal's soul is speaking,

and when the divine soul is speaking, and that tiny describes

that really, they are both like battling over a city and the

city is your body. They both want a body. But even though

there seems to be at war with each other, the idea is to make

peace with them. And what happens is that the, the, it's like

a horse and a rider if the rider is using the horse properly. It

can take the person the rider to be able to achieve all kinds

of wonderful God The things, I can deliver food to the poor

using my horse, I can get there much faster if I use the physical

horse that's there. So the horse is the horse that the the animal

side of us is there to use to do good things with if we harness it

properly. But if the horse gets away on us, then we're going to

fall off that horse get dragged by the horse. And we'll be pulled

into all kinds of places we don't want to go. So it'sconsidered a gift.

And what happens is, people tend to identify with their animal soul.

And that can be a terrible mistake, one because it'll make

them do all kinds of things that are below their dignity.

But the other is begins to cause you to label yourself as bad.

And if you label yourself as bad, then you will disconnect from

God because your depression is based on believing that

you're an animal. And believe you're an animal, then there's

very little spirit of spirituality for you available, because you're

only chasing after your loss. And you're, you're looking at yourself

as a failure all the time. And that depression is something

that makes people say I give up, right. But if they know

that it's theirs, there is an animal soul that's making that

speaking through their heart at that time, then they should

recognize that they do have the ability

to overcome it, that the divine says

That maybe we make to go to these deeper places.

right, you can go from the lowest place, but know

that the reason why you fell there is because the

animal soul took over. And what you have to do is you

have to work your way back up to be the one in

control of the animal. So rather than let it control you,

it's sort of like a There's a story in the Talmud of a king

who wants to test the sun in order to give them strength

to withstand various desires. So he hires a prostitute to

try to seduce the son. It doesn't sound like a very nice

thing to do. But the prostitute is working for the king.

So the prostitute doesn't want the the son. But the Son,

enabling enabling him have the choice to get makes him

a dignified being. So too, we're given an animal Soul

we're being tested. In this case, it was a test here and

how we try and make comes into play.

Now. That's, that's an easier test to identify. Right?

Joseph, you know, was tested by the wife of both the fire.

And he's considered very righteous, because she was so

beautiful, and he was able to withstand the temptation.

Drugs and other abusive behavior are easy to identify as

being something that we don't want. But most theme and

depression are things that the animal soul can impose upon

a person, that you don't recognize that that's a negative

thing that you have to fight against. You identify too much

with it as being this as me. And as soon as you identify it as

being me, then that's it's one, the animal soul has one because

it densify yourself with the animal. So as if that. But in fact, if

you recognize that the essence of who you are, is the divine

soul, then you can reattach yourself to the beauty of that

jewel that's within you.

Sometimes we tend to add something to the effect of,

you know, some people think, you know, we are physical

beings having a divine experience or a spiritual experience.

But what you're here helping us understand is the phrase I

heard and teach you, we're really we're spiritual beings

having a human experience. And we need to understand that

transition there. And so, David, I'd like you to speak for just

a second about anybody who you've been able to be helpful

to through your teaching your writing your music, you've

seen some transitions in them, you know, really interested

in how our teaching here today that you're given us some

great things here giving you practical tips and people tell

us a story about someone that's been touched by your work.

There's a number of people who I found going on a path

that wasn't theirs. And what I was able to do was give them

the courage to assess who they really are. And they use my

teachings to do with different personality types that are based

on what's called crested GLORIA And Tiferet which are

kindness, restraint and harmony which is personified in

the Bible by Abraham. I Isaac and Jacob, each one of them,

repaired the world through the attribute, which was a godly

attribute that they personified. And each one of our souls is

rooted in one of those. Right? I may be a crescent personality

in that what my soul thrives on his love and kindness, and

you may be a guru or a personality, whose soul thrives on

achievement, and discipline and responsibility, right? By helping

a person discover what the root is of their soul, then they

can evaluate, Hey, am I living the life of me? Or am I living the

life of what my parents want me to be? Or that

society wants me to be. And by using this technique,

and tacked on my website, there's a personality test

that shows you the balance of each of these three things.

And by my book, a book about you, each chapter is about

one of these personalities with positive and the negative

traits that come with them. So people become accepting of

themselves. Like a facet personality is one who loves other

people, and is a people person, they're extroverted. But they

also tend to be very late for things because they get distracted

by people. So by accepting that negative that comes with the

positive, then the people come to love themselves much more.

And I feel that's the biggest problem I think

people face today is a lack of self.

Yeah. lack self esteem and what your work here is going

to help them to do that. And I love to hear all you shared

about how people have been influenced by that. So

David, how can people learn more about you, you've got a

couple of books, you've got music, you've got a website.

I know that some of our listeners are going to want to learn

more about what you're about how can

people learn more about about you?

Well, if you go to realyouproject.com That's real, you all,

spelled out realyouproject.com you will have links to

where you can buy my books, like on Amazon, or directly

from me. My music can be heard at David H. Green,

on Spotify, on Apple Music, you Amazon and all the other

streaming services. Or to get a taste of that you can hear

this into my songs on my website, there's links to them as well.

I have videos there. And previews of my books. On Instagram,

it's real dot u dot project. And all the links to everything is on

the website itself. So I highly encourage people to go to

real you project.com My book, a book about you is just

released by Morgan, James and publishers. So that's an

all the major retail outlets, bookstores and online.

Everything's on Amazon as well. And my new book pictures

of your soul is, is a, what I did was I besides the illustration

showing how the how the soul works in relationship to the body.

I found there's a photographer I've known for over 40 years,

who has been taking beautiful pictures of people praying at the

Western Wall, and fire prayer so that the whole book is interwoven

with those photographs to just to be as an inspiration to see

the soul. And that's why it's called pictures of your soul.

You can actually be the soul which people think is too

abstract. But yet it's very concrete. If you learn more

about it, be in touch with it. So I highly.

that's awesome. And you know, I have a picture of myself

at the wheeling Western Wall, as well. It reminded me

of that PowerBooks transplant that I had, we're gonna put

connections to all of this David and are the realyouproject.com

At our website, Dr. Brad miller.com. And it's been a

fascinating conversation heavier David, I'm sure we'll have

more conversations as we go along. But his book, he's got a

couple of books but pictures of your soul is his latest book.

He also has a book about you. All this is about helping

to discover your own personality and your mission in the

world and your place in the world. By going into a soulful

place and is really helpful to our audience here today.

I'm gonna be on the adversity podcast, David Green,

thank you for being our guest today on beyond diversity.