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Good morning, my friend. I hope you're doing well. I am excited to be with you today.

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Dr. Lee Warren here with another episode of Self-Brain Surgery,

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the Dr. Lee Warren podcast. We're going to help you change your mind so you can change your life today through

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the harnessing the power of neuroscience and faith smashed together to find

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some real traction and how we can move forward when life gets hard, because it will.

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And today what we're going to talk about is something super important when you

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hit that massive thing, when you find yourself in the emotional emergency.

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When I'm in the hospital and there's an emergency, somebody calls out overhead,

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there's a code red, somebody's having a heart attack, a cardiac arrest,

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a stroke, and the whole team goes running to take action to try to save that person's life.

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And somebody is responsible for grabbing the crash cart. We have a cart that's

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got everything we might need to handle an emergency.

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All the drugs, the supplies to intubate someone, all the stuff we might need

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to stop bleeding, to restore circulation.

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We have a crash cart that's full of everything we might need in the case of

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that code red emergency. And today, I want to give you a sort of crash cart for an emotional emergency.

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This is going to be a short episode. So we're going to get right into it in

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just a second, because we're going to help you understand what to do when that massive thing happens.

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There's going to be some significant early problems that you're going to have to face.

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I'm going to give you some of my insight after losing a son.

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And when you face them, you need a set of tools that you've rehearsed and practiced

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just like we do when we do drills for codes, when we take training for trauma,

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when we have advanced cardiac life support training.

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We're ready. We drill it. We prep it. We rep it. And we make sure we're ready.

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And I want you to be ready, too, because you're going to have some trouble in

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your life. Jesus promised us that. It's not to be morbid or negative. It's just to say, what are you going to do

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when something happens so that you won't be wiped out by it,

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so that you won't be a casualty of the massive thing,

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but rather you'll be ready for it and able to proceed forward in your life to find hope,

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find faith, find your footing and continue to move forward and make progress.

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That's what we're after today, because you can't change your life until you

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change your mind. I have one question for you, my friend.

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Hey, are you ready to change your life? If the answer is yes, there's only one rule.

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You have to change your mind first. And my friend, there's a place where the

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neuroscience of how your mind works smashes together with faith and everything starts to make sense.

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Are you ready to change your life? Well, this is the place. Self-Brain Surgery School.

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I'm Dr. Lee Warren and this is where we go deep into how we're wired.

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Take control of our thinking and find real hope. This is where we learn to become

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healthier, feel better and be happier. You this is where we leave the past behind and transform our minds this is where

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we start today are you ready this is your podcast this is your place this is

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your time my friend let's get after.

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Music.

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We're hanging out in the hospital. We're doing our thing. I'm in the office.

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We're seeing an elective patient. We're on a normal day.

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Maybe you're in the cafeteria. Maybe you're on a break. You're just hanging

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out. You're doing your thing. You're doing your job.

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And all of a sudden, overhead, the operator says, code red, emergency room.

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Code red, room 509. Code red, fourth floor.

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And if you're on the code team, you drop what you're doing immediately,

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and you run to the place where somebody else is in desperate need.

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Somebody's in dire straits. An artery's been blocked. A stroke is occurring.

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Something's been cut open. There's bleeding. There's bowel obstruction.

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There's cardiac arrest. There's trauma. There's something. And you've got to go.

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It's your job to know what to do when the emergency happens.

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And if you're on the code team, you might be responsible for grabbing the crash

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cart. The crash cart has all the gear on it.

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Everything we might need. The medicine. The intubation supplies.

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The bandages. the stuff that we might need in an absolute emergency,

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the epinephrine, right?

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If you're on that code team, you are going to drop what you're doing,

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and you're going to run to this point of the problem, and you're going to try

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to save that person because that's your job, right?

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Now, friend, I got to tell you, I'm shocked at how much in life we spend time preparing for.

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If you think about 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic, and all of a sudden you couldn't

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get toilet paper and all that stuff, So that created a huge resurgence in what we often call prepping.

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We used to hear about preppers and we thought they were nuts, right?

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They're nutters. Like in the United States, are we really ever going to have

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some kind of emergency where we need a warehouse full of toilet paper?

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Really? We never thought that would happen, but it did happen.

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When you found yourself unprepared, it was sort of terrifying, wasn't it?

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I remember waiting in line at Target to get the one package of toilet paper we were allowed to buy.

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It was kind of uncomfortable because in the United States, we're used to having

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access to everything we need all the time. We're not used to dealing with shortages and resource problems.

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Now, I saw this in Iraq where there really were people who live every day of

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their lives in a resource problem where they don't have everything they need.

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And in the medical system in Iraq, we had shortages of blood and supplies and

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instruments sometimes because we had more casualties than we could take care of.

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And so it taught me the lesson that I've had to learn a few different times

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in different contexts in my life, that it is incredibly wise to have a plan

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and to be prepared for when something happens.

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And so we prepare for having flat tires. We have a spare.

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We have a jack. We train ourselves. We know where the points are on the car,

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where we can safely jack the car up, right? Hopefully your dad or somebody taught you that and you know how to change a tire.

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You at least know the number to call for roadside assistance or you carry fix a flat in your car.

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You have some sort of plan for what you're going to do if you're stranded on

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the side of the road. That's why you carry jumper cables in case you or somebody

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else needs a jump, right? In Wyoming, we always carried space blankets and water bottles because there

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was a real chance that you might get stranded in a snow drift. It happened.

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Snow blew over the highway sometimes And you'd be just on your way home and

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all of a sudden you're going to be stuck on the road for a little while until

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somebody clears it. And it's 30 below outside.

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That really happens in some places. And so we had to be prepared.

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So you're prepared for these kinds of vehicular emergencies. You're prepared.

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You learn CPR oftentimes so that if somebody has a heart attack,

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you're ready to help resuscitate them. Right.

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So, you know, some basic life support. If you have children,

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you know how to hopefully perform the Heimlich maneuver, clear an airway,

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or do something to save your child if they're choking, right?

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We have all these things that we prepare for. We prepare for financial emergencies by having some savings,

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hopefully, so that if there's some problem, we won't be in dire straits, right?

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We keep extra batteries for the flashlight in case of a power outage. You see where I'm going.

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But what do we do to prepare for emotional emergencies?

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We don't. We often just don't. We go through our lives.

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With this sense that everything's going to be okay and everything's going to work out.

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And when it's not, sometimes it wrecks us. The subtitle of my second book I've

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seen in the interview was Faith, Doubt, and the Things We Think We Know.

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And what I figured out is sometimes the things that hurt us the most are when

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something happens that challenges the things we thought we knew.

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I thought my children would bury me someday.

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When I got that call that my son Mitch had been stabbed to death, I was wrecked.

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And in retrospect, it's kind of crazy that I was so naive to think that all

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my children would be alive after I was dead because my own brother lost a child,

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a young son, when he had a car wreck when he was about eight years old.

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And in my career, I'm the guy that has to tell the parents that their son or

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daughter didn't make it after they fell off their skateboard because they weren't wearing a helmet.

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And by the way, please make your kids wear helmets when they ride bikes or skateboards, and you do too.

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Two, there was a chairman of a department of neurosurgery when I was training

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that fell off his bicycle on his driveway teaching his grandchildren how to ride a bike.

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And he wasn't wearing a helmet and he got tangled up in the pedals and fell

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over and hit his head and had a subdural hematoma and died.

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Friend, you need a helmet. That's an aside. But we wear helmets in case we hit our heads, right?

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I'm the guy that has to be in the ER to tell the grandparents.

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Parents, yeah, I know you say your child always wears a helmet,

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or I know you say your kid always wears a seatbelt, but they weren't this time and they died.

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Like I have to be the one. So the point is, I should not have ever had this

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naive idea that my kids were somehow all going to be okay.

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And the fact is, you just don't know. And so having a plan in place for what

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you're going to do when you have these

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emergencies occur, these emotional emergencies would be a wise thing.

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And I talk in my new book, Hope is the First Dose. And if you haven't read it,

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please get Hope is the First Dose. Please read it.

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If you can't afford it, go to your library. Ask them to order it.

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Public libraries around the country should have it or they certainly have access to it.

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There's an interlibrary loan system. If your small town library doesn't have

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a book, they can borrow it from another library. I'm telling you, the book has a treatment plan that you need to help you get

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through these massive things when they happen. And they will happen.

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So please check it out. Hope is the First Dose.

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Shameless plug for my book. It will help you.

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Okay? Now, that being said, I want you to have a plan. Why?

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Because having a plan helps you to prepare so that you don't fall into oblivion,

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into the pit of despair when the pressure's on. Remember Chris Voss, the FBI hostage negotiator that wrote the incredible book,

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Never Split the Difference, says when the pressure's on, you don't rise to the occasion.

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You fall to your highest level of preparation.

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And that, my friend, is why we have fire drills. It's why we have tornado drills.

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It's why we do mock codes and mock traumas in the hospital.

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It's why we do practice for things.

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Because when they happen, we want to fall. We're going to think differently.

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We're going to be under stress. We're not going to make the best decisions.

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And we're likely to fall back to where we prepared. So I want you to have a floor.

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For how far you fall. Yes, you're going to suffer. Yes, you're going to freak

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out. Yes, you're going to be for a while unanchored and unsure.

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But if you have repped and prepped and put that prehab time in,

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then you're going to have a place to turn when things get hard.

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And one thing I would suggest for you to put on your crash card,

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and we're here every day on this podcast talking about the self brain surgery

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and the ways to get your mind under control and what to do and how to find hope

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again and all that stuff. So today I'm specifically going to give you a little packet of scripture.

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I want you to think of it like a first aid kit. And it's some reasons to say,

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I'm going to open this up. And I know if I'm really under pressure, I know if I'm really hurting,

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that having this word in my heart is going to help me in some specific ways.

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I woke up at one o'clock this morning and I couldn't sleep.

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And God put this on my heart. And I'm just telling you, there's somebody out

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there that's going to hear my words today or sometime soon. Maybe you know somebody

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in the middle of it. Please share this. Find two friends.

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Text the link to this podcast and say, you need this one. Put it in your pocket

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for future reference. Or I know you're going through this thing.

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This will help you. Share it with your friends. Subscribe to the podcast.

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This will help you, okay? We're going to go to Psalm 19. And in Psalm 19, strangely enough,

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God put this on my heart in the middle of the night last night.

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And he said, this is something for somebody that's going to be a crash cart

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for emotional trauma that they need. It's part of the treatment plan that they're

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going to be able to use to help them when they're really suffering. Go to Psalm 19.

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And I did. And it starts with this famous verse, the heavens declare the glory

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of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

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It starts off with nature, right? When you see stars and sunrise and sunsets

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and rainbows and animals and beautiful things like that, then you're going to

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recall that the heavens declare God's glory.

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That you can look up even when you're hurting and you can see something that

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reminds you that you're not alone in this universe.

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It's not a cold, heartless place, but God's out there.

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Day to day pours out speech and night to night reveals knowledge.

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There is no speech, nor are there words whose voice is not heard.

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Their voice goes out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world, okay?

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That's not the point of today. That's not the trauma kit, but it starts there

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because it's God is saying, I am always showing myself to you. I am always here.

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But even more than just my revealed word through nature and creation,

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let me give you some more. Let me tell you what my actual words will do for you. And here it is.

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When you open this crash cart, when you're in the middle of emotional trauma

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or somebody else is, there is a good reason I'm always telling you to have scripture tucked in your heart.

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There's a good reason I'm always telling you to have some worship music or some

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good, solid words to fall back on to start remembering that it's not the end.

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It's not the end. You've got some things to hold on to. Lisa and I used to do a little rock climbing.

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In rock climbing, if you're not a master climber or a moron,

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depending on how you look at it, you're going to have a rope attached to a fixed

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point and hopefully somebody below you doing something called belaying,

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which basically that means you can climb and you're not using the rope to pull.

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Yourself up, but if you fall,

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you are attached to something that will save you.

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The belay is another person down below,

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or you can actually self-belay too, but another person, like Lisa,

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would hold the rope down below, and she's got some leverage and some pulleys,

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so that if I fall, she can tighten that rope up, and I'm not going to fall to my death.

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It turns out that the Hebrew word that shows up throughout the Old Testament,

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kavah and yakal, kavah is this word that really relates to cord or rope or tension,

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and every time it shows up, it's translated as hope.

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OK, so biblical hope is an optimism that the situation is going to work out

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in a healthy way or situation is going to work out in the way you want it to.

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It's the it's the hope. It's the knowledge. It's the truth. It's the it's the

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idea that God is going to come alongside you in this.

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He's going to tighten that rope up and belay you so that you don't fall.

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And he's going to help you in this situation. And he is eventually going to

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solve the issues of the pain and the problems of life.

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And it may not look like you thought it was going to, it may not be the thing

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that you thought you knew, but the belay is on.

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When we climb somebody down below, when you start to move, they say on belay,

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like I'm here, I've got you.

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You can climb without fear because I'm going to take care of you if you fall.

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And that's what this kavah, this word in the old Testament that's translated as hope really means.

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So here, let me give you some hope. Let me give you some kavah right here.

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You put this in your emotional crash card, my friend, and it's going to be okay.

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It's going to help you get through this trauma. It's going to help you run the

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code red when you're really hurting. The law of the Lord, this is Psalm 19, 7. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.

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When you're suffering, when you're hurting, when the emotional trauma is on,

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What do you need? You need your soul revived.

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You need your soul revived. You need the CPR of somebody to pump some circulation

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and some life back into you. And the word says the law of the Lord is perfect and it will revive your soul.

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You know what happened after we lost Mitch? In the first few hours, people started showing up and I started feeling this presence of.

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And I remember this little verse, Psalm 34, 18, the Lord is close to the brokenhearted.

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So the law of the Lord is perfect. It will revive your soul.

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It's the thing that will give you restoration of circulation.

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Okay. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

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Let me tell you something that's going to happen to you in the acute phase of

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your trauma. You're not going to make very good decisions.

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For a little bit, your brain isn't going to work right. And if you can fall

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back on some truth to help you make better decisions, making wise the simple,

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that's a time when you're going to be less agile mentally than you normally are.

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So have some word in you to help you calm down and recall some things that are

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true. Find your feet. Remember who you are.

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That'll help you start moving through. Now, again, every time I tell you these

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things, remember, there's some acute phase after emotional trauma where you're

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not going to be able to do all these things. And it's not even appropriate. Sometimes you just need to sit and rest and let

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other people minister to you. But when it's time to start thinking and making decisions, make wise the simple.

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The testimony of the Lord is sure. The precepts of the Lord are right,

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rejoicing the heart. Let me tell you something strange that happened.

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All these people start showing up after Mitch dies and they're gathering around us.

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And there were weird little moments when somebody would say something or just

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the enormity of the outpouring of compassion and love would actually feel a

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little bit joyful in our heart for just a minute, just a little spark here and there.

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In the midst of the grief and the pain, the kindness and compassion of other

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people felt good and you could feel it.

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And it made you rejoice a little bit that, hey, I'm in the middle of the worst

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suffering in my life, but I'm not alone. And even if you are alone, even if nobody else comes alongside you, God will.

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He will show up. He will rise to show you compassion.

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So the precepts of the Lord are right. They make you rejoice even in the middle of the hard thing.

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The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. Your eyes get really dim.

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World feels really dark. And he says, hey, there's some things in my word that

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will help you start to see again. You'll start to remember that your joy and your hope are not dependent on the

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circumstances of your life. You'll start to remember that John 16, 33 is coming true in your house right

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now. The world is hard, but John 10, 10 is always true too.

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I've come to give you abundance and there will be abundance again in your life.

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The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever.

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This holy fear, this idea that I may not know what I think about God right now,

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But I know if I don't have him, everything else is so terrifying that I wouldn't know what to do.

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Oswald Chambers said that the man who fears the Lord feels nothing else.

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But he who does not fear the Lord fears everything else.

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And that's why the fear of the Lord is clean. It is sterile. It's perfect.

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It's not ever going to hurt you and it will endure forever.

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And you start to think in those moments after your acute trauma,

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this will be the end of me. And he says, no, it won't because I'm at your side.

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I am with you. This is a trauma kit, friend. This is a package of scripture

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that will help you survive the massive thing and help you belay and not fall

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to your doom emotionally when you're in the midst of this stressful time.

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The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. You're going to wonder what's true.

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You're going to think everything you thought you knew has been called into question.

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And you need some things that are actually true.

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And when you start recalling the promises of God, recalling the history,

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remember I told you, hope is a verb.

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It's memory and movement. You start looking back like the Israelites always did.

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Hey, we put this monument up because when we put those rocks together,

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it was right after God did this thing and saved us from the Egyptians.

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This is where we crossed the Jordan. This is where he parted the sea.

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If the Lord hadn't been on our side, then we really would have been hosed.

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That's the kind of memory that helps produce hope. And then you say movement.

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Okay, God says that he will rise to show me compassions. All I have to do is

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hold my arms out and he's gonna come and embrace me and help me through this.

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He's gonna send some people. He says in the Old Testament, I can whistle and make bees come.

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I can call a bird of prey from the East or a man of wisdom from the West.

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I can solve your problem in ways you can't. even imagine.

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The New Testament says the Lord can do exceedingly abundantly more than you can ask or even imagine.

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So imagine, my friend, that the Lord says, my rules are true.

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They're righteous altogether. My fear of me is clean. It will endure forever.

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The commandments I give you are pure. They will open your eyes again when things

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are dark. My precepts are right. They will help you rejoice again, even in the midst of your pain.

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My testimonies are sure. They will help you be wise, even when your brain feels

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simple because of the profundity of the thing you're going through.

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And my laws are perfect and they will do emotional CPR and help you revive your

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soul in the midst of this thing. And down in verse 10, Psalm 19, 10, more to be desired are my words than gold,

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even more than fine gold, sweeter than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.

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By them is your servant warned and in keeping them, there is great reward.

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My friend, this will help you in the midst of your great emotional stress.

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This little packet of resuscitation gear that's on the emotional crash cart.

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We'll put more stuff on it as weeks go by.

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We'll do more of these episodes and I'll give you some brain science.

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I'll give you some practical things. I'll give you some things that helped us.

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But this is a packet of spiritual epinephrine that will help revive your soul. Psalm 19.

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And it ends with this. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

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be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

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It's not just what you say. He wants your brain. He wants your mind. He wants you to take captive every thought.

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And especially when the pressure's on, you need to discern carefully the things that you think about.

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Because you are going to be challenged by your enemy.

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Or if you're not a believer, you're going to be challenged by negative thinking.

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It's going to make you think that all is lost, that you can't possibly survive this.

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Your wife is going to leave you. Your husband's never going to love you again.

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Your kids are going to abandon you. You'll never make it. The money's not going to come.

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It's going to wipe you out. Those are the kinds of thoughts you will think.

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And the meditation of your heart, if you go down those paths,

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you're going to change the way your brain works negatively. Because remember, one of the precepts that we follow with self-brain surgery

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is that what you're actively doing, you're getting better at.

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On the brain science side, if you don't take captive those thoughts in the acute

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phase of your trauma, they are going to create synapses that will make it easier

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and easier and easier for you to despair.

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Okay? And we don't want despair. We want hope.

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And I'm giving you a power packed packet of medicine for the acute phase of your trauma.

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When you're facing an emotional crisis, my friend, and you will,

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when you have a code red for your emotional emergency, I want you to have some power in there.

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And Psalm 19 is the one, the fear of the Lord is clean. It will revive your soul.

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It will help you. Okay. It will endure do it forever.

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Even when you feel like you're not going to make it, you can remember that God

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has promised you that he will never abandon you or forsake you.

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I'm going to give you Tommy Walker, my good friend's song.

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The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I just want you to have some

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music and some words to go along with this little code red for emotional emergencies

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that I've given you today. Don't forget, my friend, you can't change your life until you change your mind.

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Even in the midst of a code red, even in the midst of an emergency,

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you need to have some good things to help belay you so you don't fall.

23:51

You need to have some medicine to help restart your heart again.

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And this is it. Psalm 19 is a good little packet of it. I'll give you more of

23:58

it later. But for today, I just want you to remember you are never alone.

24:02

You always have a team of people and your father will come running to you when

24:08

you have a code red. You are not alone. And the good news is.

24:11

Music.

29:44

Hey, thanks for listening. The Dr. Lee Warren Podcast is brought to you by my

29:49

brand new book, Hope is the First Dose. It's a treatment plan for recovering

29:53

from trauma, tragedy, and other massive things. It's available everywhere books are sold.

29:58

And I narrated the audio book, if you're not already tired of hearing my voice.

30:03

Hey, the theme music for the show is Get Up by my friend Tommy Walker,

30:07

available for free at TommyWalkerMinistries.org.

30:10

They are supplying worship resources for worshipers all over the world.

30:14

To worship the Most High God. And if you're interested in learning more,

30:18

check out TommyWalkerMinistries.org.

30:21

If you need prayer, go to the prayer wall at WLeeWarrenMD.com slash prayer,

30:26

WLeeWarrenMD.com slash prayer, and go to my website and sign up for the newsletter,

30:31

Self-Brain Surgery, every Sunday since 2014, helping people in all 50 states

30:36

and 60-plus countries around the world.

30:39

I'm Dr. Lee Warren, and I'll talk to you soon. Remember, friend,

30:41

you can't change your life until you change your mind. And the good news is you can start today.