What if true spirituality isn’t about perfection—but about being “mistake-making humans” growing through love? In today’s episode, I sit down with Rainn Wilson (yes, Dwight from The Office) to talk about prayer, purpose, and the sacred revolution happening in our hearts. We explore his new Soul Boom Workbook, the balance between prayer and meditation, how to build spiritual community, and why surrender might be the highest form of prayer. Together, we dive into the question: how do we create heaven on earth, right where we are?

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Episode Highlights:

• Rainn shares why he believes we’re “mistake-making humans” growing through love
• The balance between prayer and meditation in a modern world
• Julie’s story of divine intuition and connection in Ireland
• How the Soul Boom Workbook helps families grow spiritually togetherConnect with

Julie:
https://theangelmedium.com/ | https://www.instagram.com/angelpodcast/

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Transcript:

[Julie Jancius]

Hello friends, welcome to the Angels and Awakening podcast. I’m your host, Julie Jancis. If you love this podcast, please be our angel.

Ask a friend to listen, subscribe, rate us 5 stars, leave a positive review, and share a screenshot of this podcast on your Facebook or Instagram stories. So my dad passed away in 2015. We weren’t talking and it took a month for his family to track me down.

Before I ever knew he was gone, I started hearing from him in heaven. It consumed me. How is communication with the other side even possible?

I left my corporate gig, studied with spiritual teachers on every coast and worked with my angels to figure out the answers. Today, my mission is teaching you how to raise your vibration, shift your thoughts, trust your intuition, develop your unique spiritual gifts, and connect with your loved ones and angels on the other side. Friends, when you have these tools, life really does become heaven on earth.

Hello, beautiful souls. Welcome back to the Angels and Awakening podcast. I’m your host and author, Julie Jancis.

And friends, you’re in for a treat today. We have Rainn Wilson on the show. Rainn, welcome back.

[Rainn Wilson]

Julie, thanks for having me back. I’m so happy to be here.

[Julie Jancius]

I am too. I was just telling your friend, Laura, who’s on just kind of listening in the background, that I read through Soul Boom a couple of times because I just felt like there’s so much information in there and I wanted to go slow and marinate in on everything. You now have Soul Boom, the workbook coming out, Spiritual Tools for Modern Living.

This is so needed right here, right now, because I feel like the state of humanity that we’re in, we just need to be in spiritual practice. And that looks different to every person. Kind of looks different from day to day, year to year.

What kind of led you to create the workbook?

[Rainn Wilson]

Well, Julie, it was a big roll of the dice to write Soul Boom, Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution. And I wrote it during the pandemic. And here I am, like an actor, mostly known for being Dwight on The Office and a sitcom actor.

And, you know, why the hell am I writing a book about spirituality? People didn’t quite understand that. So I wasn’t sure what the response was going to be.

But it was like you had a response to the book, and a lot of people did as well into the ideas in the book. And there was immediately a clamor of, OK, now what? Like, these are all great in theory and in practice about, you know, digging deeper into spirituality to help make our lives richer, to transform our lives personally, to build community.

But how do we do that? What do we do next? And that’s when we started working on the Soul Boom workbook, which is kind of like the artist’s way, if you’re familiar with that book.

Are you familiar with the artist’s way, Julia Cameron?

[Julie Jancius]

Yeah, we’ve had her on the podcast a couple of times.

[Rainn Wilson]

Oh, she’s the best. And she’s such a huge inspiration to me. But I kind of thought, well, there’s plenty of spirituality in that book, but why not a book that’s an interactive workbook that kind of starts at the very beginning and takes you on a transformative spiritual journey?

[Julie Jancius]

Yes, that’s incredible. In the book, you dive into some things that I think are so needed. We’ve lost kind of the art of prayer.

I think we talk a lot about meditation today, but we don’t talk about prayer as much. I see it similar, kind of congruent. I think that’s the right word.

But maybe parallel is the right word. But prayer, talk about what prayer means to you.

[Rainn Wilson]

Yeah, so one of the points I make in Soul Boom is that there seems to be kind of a disconnect between prayer and meditation. That some people in some parts of the United States maybe pray but don’t meditate very much. They’re not in contemplation or deep contemplation very much.

And other places are in a lot of deep contemplation, but not connecting with something higher, with something greater, with the source, with the essence of all good and beauty. You know, God, if you want to call it that. And how can we bring both of those into an interplay?

So one of my favorite things about prayer is Anne Lamott has a wonderful book called Help, Thanks, Wow. Has she been on the show?

[Julie Jancius]

She has. Love her. Yes.

[Rainn Wilson]

Yeah, she is so delightful. And that’s another book that really impacted my life, that there are three types of prayer, help, thanks, and wow. And when I can remember that, that prayer doesn’t have to be such a formal activity, but that it can just be an expression of the heart.

And it can be daily. Prayer can be in the actions that you take. And you can be asking for help as you’re deeply contemplative and giving gratitude for what we have and expressing wonder and curiosity for the miracle of just the universe and of consciousness.

That this is all prayer. And if we got into even deeper prayer, this might be a really healing balm for our country right now.

[Julie Jancius]

So last night, you know, I just got back from Ireland, which I’ll talk about in a second, which is super fun trip. Slower pace, which I loved over there in the countryside. And getting to reconnect with your own intuition, but got home and my sleeping was just off a little bit.

So I kept waking up dreaming about this interview and like what questions to ask. And I love that you were able in your life to just step into who you are, because every time I connect with you, I just see your dad and my dad on the other side. I think your dad was a philosopher at heart.

My dad was too. And I love that we got those qualities from them to continue on. But you were able to step into that role yourself.

And I know that you don’t see yourself as a spiritual teacher, but I wish you would. Because on your podcast, you’re always talking and asking these questions, but I’m like, I want to hear Rain’s perspective, right? And you ask these big questions.

Where do you see us going as a humanity? What is your dream for us as we’re kind of dreaming a new future coming forward?

[Rainn Wilson]

Wow, that’s the best question anyone’s ever asked me. That’s fantastic. I need to be careful because I think that there’s a lot of spiritual gurus and some of them are indeed incredibly wise and there’s a great deal to learn, but it’s a tricky space to navigate.

And I feel much more comfortable being the asker of questions than the pontificator. I’m such a deeply flawed human being, like, I don’t know that anyone wants my perspective.

[Julie Jancius]

Aren’t we all?

[Rainn Wilson]

Well, yes. Yes, if we can embrace it, you know. I had a, my therapist told me, we’re mistake-making humans.

He goes, Rain, we’re all mistake-making humans. And I love that idea, that we’re mistake-making humans. That’s part of what makes us human.

What would I be dreaming of? You know, Julie, I remember a distant land called the 70s and people in the 70s actually spoke about world peace. And it wasn’t, it didn’t elicit an eye roll to talk about world peace.

It was, we believed that it was possible. And now if you bring it up, you’re considered hopelessly naive. Do I dream of world peace?

Yes. How do I think that we can get there? Well, I think there’s a lot of forces of dissolution and chaos and struggle.

But at heart, humans are loving souls that long to connect with one another and long to have bonds of community. And it’s in building community. You know, we build a community in our family and we build a community sometimes at work, like we did at Dunder Mifflin on the office.

And can we expand our idea of a loving community to our church, certainly, to our cul-de-sac, to our schools, to our yoga classes or whatever. But to include people that are maybe quite different than us in community, just like Jesus did. And I think at the grassroots is where change is going to happen.

And in the Soul Boom workbook, we do get there at the end of the book. We have a whole section on building community and taking what we’ve learned about sacredness and the soul and the profound and prayer and service to building communities of like-minded, spiritually charged people.

[Julie Jancius]

Yeah, section 13, creating community.

[Rainn Wilson]

Yeah.

[Julie Jancius]

Yeah.

[Rainn Wilson]

And section 15, how to change the world. There’s a big assignment.

[Julie Jancius]

Yeah. You know how you were talking, I think it was with Mark Ruffalo recently, about how it’s so much easier to give your son a compliment than it is to compliment yourself or do affirmations in the mirror. I just see you doing this work for the rest of your life of bringing more love into the world and more peace into the world.

And the angels always say in readings and in sessions, the only one that can truly embrace that and say yes to that is us. And I get it from multiple different perspectives. I am a peon on the totem pole, but we have been working on this angel TV show for a number of years now, trying to kind of get it up and off the ground.

And it’s been a humbling experience because there’s so much work behind the scenes involved in this and just so much prayer. And I’ve noticed myself and my own energy of where I just know the world needs this TV show now more than ever, just hope and faith and belief. But that I, in my own mind, have a hard time fighting that negative voice within myself saying it’s never going to happen or other people could do it better.

And I see what you’re saying about your son because I look at you and I just want to be like, but Rain, you’re this amazing person. You have this great voice. And when I see you now, I don’t see the actor anymore.

I see the philosopher. I’m so grateful to those who keep this show going through your support. Get three certifications in one and start your own business when you take the Angel Reiki School online or in-person.

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Sign up for the annual option today and receive a free one hour reading with me to feel closer than ever to your angels. I’m doing readings again out of my house and on Zoom. It’s $144 for a half an hour reading or $288 for an hour or book me to do your readings at your next party worldwide.

The Angel Reiki School membership, readings and parties are all booked online at theangelmedium.com. That’s the T-H-E angelmedium.com. Thank you again for supporting my work and the work of the angels.

Now let’s get back to the show.

[Rainn Wilson]

You’re very kind. You’re very kind. Yes, it’s amazing how hard we can be on ourselves.

And it’s really, it’s pretty sad actually, how loving we can be to others and sometimes our most critical voice is reserved for ourselves. And this has been a lot of therapy for me, a lot of work and a lot of work in my spiritual program too. I think ultimately I believe in a God that is all good and all love and all encompassing and is not judgmental and punishing.

And the highest form of prayer, Julie, I think is thy will not mine be done. And in the surrender to the divine, to the all loving source, to the essence, that source wants us to just exude love, not just to others, but to ourselves as well. And it’s got to start there.

You know, if we can just implicitly and wholeheartedly love ourselves, that gives us the fuel to move things forward. And so I see the negativity. I understand that.

I’ve certainly been a part of that. I struggle with that every single day. But, you know, God’s will is for this TV show to reach the air and for people to see it and to have their hearts enlightened.

So I just wish you the very best moving it forward.

[Julie Jancius]

Ah, thank you. The other question that was coming to mind last night was, you have this cool perspective of just being around so many neat movers and shakers in the world who are doing these amazing things. And I know that you see the good and the bad that can come with AI and where we can go in the future.

What is your hope for where we go spiritually? And I mean that regarding the algorithms as well. I think you were saying on the podcast, you know, a lot of us are subject as content creators to these algorithms of people are making spirituality out and these reels and just titles of different things to be salacious, to draw more eyes in.

But there’s this timeless wisdom that when you really get deep into it and just sit in it, it’s the same thing that’s been written for thousands of years. Is it transforming? Is it going in a new direction?

Or is the root of what’s been for thousands of years, what’s going to continue to be? Because that is the truth.

[Rainn Wilson]

Wow, that’s a heavy philosophical question. Wow, that is the spirit of your father acting through you. God bless him.

It’s all about the source wisdom. You know, it’s the wisdom of our forefathers. It’s the wisdom of the Bible, the New Testament, the Hebrew Bible, of the Bhagavad Gita, of the shamans and spiritual teachers from the dawn of time.

You can break down what they’re saying to 10 or 20 essential elements that are super simple, but that doesn’t mean that they’re easy. They’re simple teachings, but they’re not easy to put into practice. And the one that’s at the core of all of it is one that I share quite a lot.

You’ve probably heard on the show many times. And that’s from Father Teilhard de Chardin that we are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

And to me, that frames everything. If I can wake up every day and remember that I’m a spiritual being having a human experience, that puts everything in perspective. And those are the algorithms we have to turn to, right?

The algorithms of eternal wisdom. Sometimes we have to absolutely have to put our phones down and our laptops away and our emails and our texts and our news alerts and get in an entirely different algorithm. There’s a different AI.

It’s not an artificial intelligence. It’s an all-encompassing, all-loving intelligence. And that’s the AI we have to plug into.

And I think as these systems fall apart more and more, Julie, people are gonna be turning to spirituality and spiritual truths because they’re not gonna be found on Instagram. They’re not gonna be found in politics. And they’re not gonna be found anywhere other than bringing hearts together.

[Julie Jancius]

Yeah, I think you’re right. You know, I woke up, was meditating two weeks ago, and I heard Spirit Go go to Lorna Byrne’s website. Do you know who Lorna Byrne is?

She is an Irish woman. I think she’s in her 70s, but she has seen angels since she was a little girl. We had her on, I think it was an angel thing.

She was scheduled to come on the podcast in March of 2020 when all of us were freaking out and she’s put everybody at ease, right? So I woke up and I heard audibly, go to Lorna Byrne’s website. So I went over there and I saw that she created this sanctuary for people to come to this land, this piece of land that she has.

She took this house that looks like a Bridgerton house and completely restored it. It was falling apart. It’s like a little hotel now.

And the land just feels so sacred. And we went in and kind of like Eckhart Tolle does at his retreats, there was no kind of plan or agenda. We just all sat together as a group and shared.

And it was just so deep and so touching. And the land was just such a high vibrational frequency that you’re right. Experiences like that, you can’t get on social media.

You can’t get, sometimes even through a podcast like this, you need to experience it. You need to be in it, which is why I love the book so much, the workbook. I mean, it really brings you into the work, which we’re not doing enough of.

I don’t think listening to a podcast is a spiritual practice, agree or disagree.

[Rainn Wilson]

I disagree.

[Julie Jancius]

Really?

[Rainn Wilson]

Yeah. I think it can be because at its heart, a podcast is just a really interesting conversation, hopefully between two people that spark your heart and spark your curiosity. And there’s something primal.

That’s what humans have been doing since the dawn of time, sitting around a fire and listening to conversations of the hunt, of the myths, of the ancestors, of family, of nature, of the mystery of creation. And I think it can be, but you’re right in the sense that I think these retreats are wonderful and really important because they give you a taste, right? But the important thing is like, how do you take that taste and bring it home and apply it in your life?

Because it’s easy to be spiritual when you’re at a beautiful Bridgerton house in Ireland and there’s an amazing moderator and you’re channeling angels and sharing your heart and crying and getting to know people in a deep way. That’s wonderful. But then you’re living at home and you’re a cul-de-sac in Omaha and your kids are sick and your partner gets fired from their job and things are falling apart and you’ve got to get hip replacement surgery or something.

How do you bring that same awe, why a silence, wonder, sacredness, and community to that cul-de-sac in Omaha? And this is part of the practice of the Soul Boom Workbook is like, how do we, let’s dive into these spiritual practices, but then put them into place, put them into action in our daily lives, which is again, easier said than done.

[Julie Jancius]

Yeah, you know, I’ve been a person that since I was a little girl, I’ve always been looking for the answers, just trying to figure out life. I think I thought that if I found the answers, that I’d have some edge in life where I didn’t have to go through as much pain or challenge. And over the last year, there’s two things I’d like to fit in here.

If you have a couple more minutes.

[Rainn Wilson]

Please, I’ve got time, sure.

[Julie Jancius]

Yay. I’ve been hearing from the angels part of life is just to exist and just to be here. And I saw this thing, it was a clip from the Avengers where Scarlett Johansson is showing this one clip of, she’s talking to a group, I’m not gonna explain this completely right, but it was really, really cool to see a reel on social media where there’s a car that is moving.

And she’s saying that if you have one scene out of life and you play it over and over and over again, so this car is driving down a road, you see the car come in, you see the car go out. And if you fast forward this enough, it moves so fast that the eye can’t see the car anymore. The eye can’t see the scenery in the background or the road.

And I was hearing that there is something too, we’re just here to exist, to be. But life is going so fast for so many of us. Felt different here in America versus Ireland.

It’s just so crazy fast. And maybe it’s because my life is full right now with a kiddo and career and all of the good things. But how are we here to just exist and how do you enjoy that existence?

[Rainn Wilson]

Man, so many great questions. You should have a podcast.

[Julie Jancius]

Oh yay, maybe I’ll start one.

[Rainn Wilson]

Yeah, you should start one. You’re such a natural. Well, I think that we’re here to grow our souls.

Again, if we’re spiritual beings having a human experience, the reason that we’re here is to grow our souls, to have experiences. Many of them are difficult. Many of them involve struggles, suffering, tests and difficulties.

To grow our spiritual qualities and virtues, our kindness and humility and compassion. And this is the purpose of being on this plane for such a short, precious time. So I think just being here can be struggle enough.

It can be, there can be anxiety and discontent in simply being alive. And we can also transform that anxiety and discontent into peace at being alive. Because at the end of the day, then it goes into, if you want to get really philosophical, it gets into consciousness.

What is consciousness? Science can’t figure it out. It doesn’t make any sense that we would have the kind of rich, beautiful experience of being alive that we have, filled with memories and emotions and loves and art and music and movement.

And, you know, nuance. This experience of having consciousness is what it’s all about. And sometimes when I get really lost and overwhelmed, I just go back to, again, help, thanks, wow.

The wow is I’m alive. Wow. And just try and really dig into that.

I’m having feelings. I am breathing. My eyes are taking in color.

My skin has sensations. My heart is filled with life. That that can just be an experience by itself of just being here.

[Julie Jancius]

Yeah. Oh, I love that. Elle, you want to come on over?

My daughter’s keeping our dog quiet. This is my daughter, Elle. We’ve watched The Office at least three times all the way through.

[Rainn Wilson]

Hi, how are you?

[Julie Jancius]

Good.

[Rainn Wilson]

Nice to see you. Thanks for watching The Office.

[Julie Jancius]

Of course.

[Rainn Wilson]

Will you read the Soul Boom workbook? You can do it with your mom.

[Julie Jancius]

Oh, yeah. We’ve got some time. We got a surgery coming up in NYC that we’re going out for.

[Rainn Wilson]

Oh, goodness.

[Julie Jancius]

Yes. But Elle loves theater, loves acting. How do you think the landscape of acting is changing?

And what kind of advice do you have for this new generation?

[Rainn Wilson]

Well, it’s always been tough to make it as an actor and performer, whether it’s in the theater, Broadway, or Hollywood. But I do think that while there may be less jobs there, and content is being produced more internationally, right, than just traditionally in Hollywood, there’s a lot less shooting in Los Angeles, let’s say, TV shows, there are more opportunities with pop culture. With podcasts, with YouTube, with social media, with different ways of telling stories.

So there are, I think, in terms of people who are storytellers making a living at it, they’re probably way more now than there were 15 or 20 years ago, even though the industry might have shrunk. So it’s viewing yourself, Elle, as a storyteller and getting that training, whether you do it in theater, on Broadway, whether you do it in TV or film, or whether you do it on your own YouTube channel, or TikTok channel, or whatever. Stories are what people respond to.

We talked about people sitting around the fires, listening to conversations, which are what podcasts are. Well, we love a good story.

[Julie Jancius]

Yes. Rain, I tell the audience all the time when they have to have a book in their library, Soul Boom is a book that you have to have in your library. And the workbook is too.

You’ve got everything in here about sacred spaces, meditation, prayer, values, nature, art, anxiety, really how to change the world. So much good stuff in here. Tell everybody where they can find Soul Boom, the workbook, and where they can find the podcast and you.

[Rainn Wilson]

You can find the workbook if you go outside and you find the third tree to your left and start digging. No, I’m entirely kidding. The workbook is wherever fine books are sold.

And there’s also the Soul Boom podcast, where I speak about mental health and spirituality and making the world a better place, and with a little comedy thrown in along the way. So check that out. Julie, you’ve been such a supporter from the get-go of this crazy endeavor of a spiritual revolution.

Let me ask you, how do you think that we can achieve a spiritual revolution?

[Julie Jancius]

Really, I think it’s your intuition, right? Like everybody has that voice of God within them. Our angels are supporting us.

I think that we’ve got guides and loved ones on the other side that are speaking, helping us, directing us, protecting us. And I really feel like if each of us was just following our own evolutionary growth by following that intuitive voice within, we’d all be on God’s path, to your point, following God’s will.

[Rainn Wilson]

I love that. Getting in touch with your spiritual intuition, with your soul’s voice is a great place to start.

[Julie Jancius]

Yeah. Amazing.

[Rainn Wilson]

That’s beautiful. One last thing I want to say is the Soul Boom workbook we always picture, too, as something that could help bring families together. Maybe there’s some disconnection in the family or with your kids, or you feel like your kids are not on a spiritual path.

But this is a workbook to do with your daughter at 9 at night, or on the kitchen table, or on a Saturday morning with coffee. And just go through some of the exercises and share, and it can bring families together.

[Julie Jancius]

I love that. It’s so beautiful. Thank you so much for being here, being you.

Just one last thing. I’ve been praying all year, God, who do you need to be in this life right now, in this challenging time? And I hear, just bring in more love.

Just keep bringing in a gentle waterfall of love. And I just see you doing that so much in your life. And thank you for being you and having the courage to follow your intuition and your soul’s path.

[Rainn Wilson]

Julie, I can’t thank you enough. Just sending so much love your way. Thank you so much.

[Julie Jancius]

You too. Have a beautiful, blessed day. And congratulations.

The workbook is amazing.

[Rainn Wilson]

Thank you. Much love.

[Julie Jancius]

You too. Bye. Friends, I need your help reaching as many people as possible.

If you’d like to support this podcast and help us spread more hope to the world, please book a session with me, join my angel membership, or take my Angel Reiki School. What’s the difference? If you’d like to know what messages your angels and loved ones have for you, you’ll want to book a session with me.

The angel membership is all about your own personal spiritual healing. The membership takes you on a spiritual journey that teaches you how to create your own heaven on earth. And the Angel Reiki School is for those who want to get certified in mediumship, angel messages, and energy healing all at once.

These are three ways you can help us share a message of hope and love with more people than ever before. Register for one or all three at theangelmedium.com. That’s theangelmedium.com.

Now let’s pray together. As we do, I want you to pray in a way where you feel as though everything you want for yourself and the world has already come true. And you’re giving thanks.

Why? Because this is the best way to manifest. So let’s begin.

God, universe, source, thank you. We’re so grateful that you’ve blessed this world with calm and peace for all. This calm and peace has spread like ripples, soothing the hearts of every soul.

Thank you for opening our hearts to abundance, allowing each of us to live our most authentic life, and helping us to create our own heaven on earth. We thank you for the love and deep heart to heart connection that surrounds us every day in our relationships. We thank you for the abundance of health and aliveness we feel radiating from every cell in our and our family’s bodies.

Thank you for the gift of walking this life with us and guiding us every step of the way through your messages. We hear you through our own intuition and we feel you walking right by our sides and we overflow with gratitude. Thank you for financial abundance and abundance of opportunities and miracles and blessings and prosperity in every way.

We know that you want us to succeed so that we can show others how you want them to succeed too. Thank you for the boundless love, kindness, empathy, and compassion that binds us all together. Thank you for the laughter, fun moments of pure delight that fill us every day, especially today.

God, universe, source, thank you for blessing us beyond measure and allowing us to use our souls, gifts, talents, skills, and abilities to serve the world. We love you. I love you.

And in this, we pray. Amen. Friends, we’re working on some pretty major things over here.

And if you wouldn’t mind saying a little prayer that these things come to fruition, if they’re God’s will, we’d so appreciate it. And please add a little prayer in for any specific thing you need right now to have a beautiful blessed day.